by Valija Zinck
‘I can’t blame her.’ Gina shrugged. ‘I think it’s really exciting that we’ve found you, too.’
Penelope smiled, feeling a little embarrassed. She had so many questions, but somehow she felt too overwhelmed to ask anything at all!
Gina’s room was incredible. Not that Penelope found it strange that someone should have a silver-painted bed and a black bedspread, a large dark-blue rug with a silver spiral pattern, a black wooden writing desk, a dainty shelf painted with cobwebs and a cupboard with a mirror on it. What really struck her about the room was that it was as clean and tidy as a set-piece in a furniture store. There was nothing lying around, not a speck of dust to be seen, the bed was neatly made up without a single wrinkle. The books were arranged on the shelf by colour, the pens and pencils were all neatly stored in a pot on the desk, and the windows were so clean it was impossible to tell if there was actually glass in the frames.
‘This is your room?’ Penelope was amazed. Even though she hadn’t known her long, Gina didn’t seem like the kind of person to keep her room so neat and clean.
‘Yes. You can come in, you know – it’s quite safe,’ answered Gina, sitting down cross-legged on the shaggy rug.
Penelope came into the room and stood around, feeling a little awkward. ‘It’s pretty tidy in here. My room never looks this tidy,’ she said in amazement.
‘Mine never used to, either,’ Gina giggled. ‘That’s why Gian gave me automatic room-cleaning for my last birthday. He’d just learnt it on his latest course and he was able to use it straight away, thanks to me being so messy.’
‘What, your room tidies itself, you mean? That’s handy.’ Penelope’s eyes shone at the thought.
‘It’s more than handy. But I’m actually really glad the self-cleaning doesn’t last for ever. It wears off after five months – at least I’ll be able to get some sleep then.’ Gina sank down on the rug with a sigh, curled herself up in a ball and closed her eyes with dramatic slowness.
‘What has sleep got to do with tidying up?’ asked Penelope, puzzled.
‘Oh, nothing really. It’s just that Gian’s creation isn’t exactly what you’d call flexible. Every weekend, my duvet throws me out of bed at six thirty in the morning, so it can shake itself out and then air itself by the open window for an hour.’
‘What?’ Penelope giggled.
‘It does it no matter what the weather’s like. I’ve often ended up with a soaking wet pillow that Mum’s had to dry off for me.’
‘But apart from that, it must be amazing to have that sort of room service, surely?’
‘Pretty much. Want to see how it works?’ Without waiting for a reply, Gina jumped up, slipped out of the room and came back with a full vacuum cleaner bag. She held it over the dark-blue rug and began to shake the contents out vigorously. Dirt, dust, sand and hair spilled out, covering the rug with a thick, disgusting layer of filth.
‘Now we’ve got to wait for a bit,’ she informed Penelope, pulling her on to the bed. ‘You can tell me a bit about yourself in the meantime. Like, what have you taught yourself so far? What can you do?’
Penelope stared at the filthy rug. Was the dirt simply going to disappear?
‘Hey, forget about the rug and tell me what you can do.’ Gina tugged at Penelope’s sleeve insistently.
Penelope hesitated. She didn’t really know what to say – what was normal? Should she really be talking about this with other people? ‘Can’t you do anything yet?’ Gina asked, with a mixture of disappointment and sympathy in her voice. ‘Oh well, never mind. Anyway—’
‘I can hear the road,’ Penelope mumbled finally.
‘Yes, there’s always a lot of traffic at this time of day. It’s not as bad in the evenings, though.’
‘No, no, I don’t mean the cars,’ said Penelope. ‘I mean the actual road. I can hear it talking to me.’
Gina’s mouth twisted into a puzzled smile. ‘The road talks? Seriously?’
‘Yes. It saved me from an out-of-control tractor once, and it helped me learn to fly.’
Gina hesitated for a second and then burst out laughing. ‘You crack me up, Penelope. How cool would that be? If only we really could. But Mum once met someone at a seminar who really did manage to get into the air. He got about half a metre up, or maybe even a bit higher than that. Just imagine! Of course, he was some kind of super-expert with super-dark red hair and, oh, I don’t know, about a million years’ training. Perhaps with Alpha Regius personally. No idea. We’d never be able to manage it, of course. But seriously, that thing with the road is quite interesting. How do you do that, then? And if you—?’
Sensing that what she’d suggested wasn’t quite normal, Penelope was rather relieved when the rug began to vibrate crazily and Gina stopped talking to watch. The rug folded itself up, again and again, until it was just a tiny square. A moment later, the window opened by itself, and the rug jumped on to the windowsill. It unfolded itself and started to shake like mad. Dirt flew out in dense greyish-brown clouds and floated down to the street below. Then the rug laid itself back in place on the floor. Little foam bubbles formed on its surface and rubbed themselves into the fibres in circular movements. Then a few tiny fountains spurted on, and finally Penelope could hear a noise that sounded like a hairdryer.
‘What do you think of that, then? Cool or what?’
Gina slid off the bed and sat back down on the rug, which was now immaculately clean. Penelope was about to do the same when her eye fell on Gina’s wastepaper basket. It was empty apart from a small round silver object.
‘What’s that in the bin?’
‘Oh, that’s just rubbish – that’s why I threw it away. But my room doesn’t recognize it as rubbish, so the thing stays in the bin when it empties itself. It’s as if it was a magnet and the bin was made of metal.’
‘O . . . K . . . But what is it?’
‘It’s an Anti-Eye.’
‘What’s it for?’
‘That’s just it – it’s not working any more. Gian brought it back from a seminar for me.’ She took the little tin box out of the wastepaper basket and put it in Penelope’s hand. ‘See that rusty button there? If you press it, you disappear. Well, you really just become invisible, obviously. The effect is meant to last for half an hour. Trouble is, it’s broken, so you only stay invisible for ten seconds. What use is that? It’s not even long enough to nick any sweets from Mum’s stash.’
Penelope wasn’t really listening to her any more. She couldn’t help it – immediately she found her thumb drawn towards the button. Just as Gina was saying, ‘But don’t press it,’ Penelope vanished.
Penelope stared at the place where her hand had just been holding the little box. There was simply nothing there. No hand, no box – nothing but thin air. Her thighs were invisible too; there was nothing but a flattened semi-circle on the bedcover where they had been. Wow! No sooner had Penelope grasped what had happened to her, than the ten seconds were over, and her body was back, sitting on the bed as if nothing had happened at all.
‘That’s amazing,’ she whispered. She cleared her throat and tried again. ‘That’s amazing!’ she said, but her voice was so quiet that even she could barely hear it.
Gina grinned. ‘Yes. But I told you not to press it!’
‘Sorry,’ whispered Penelope.
‘You’ve really done it now! You won’t be able to talk any louder than a whisper for – I think it might be ten minutes. I did tell you it was broken.’
‘Oh,’ whispered Penelope. ‘That doesn’t matter – the invisibility thing is really exciting.’
‘Would you like it? Take it, I really don’t need it any more. Gian can bring me a new one sometime.’
‘I can keep it? Really? I mean – thanks!’
‘What did you say?’ Gina had to come a little closer, as Penelope’s whisper was getting quieter by the second.
‘Thanks,’ Penelope breathed.
‘I can’t hear you. And it’s five past five – you
’re going to have to shake a leg if you don’t want to keep your mates hanging around for ever.’
Penelope leapt up. She couldn’t believe how fast time had passed!
‘You can come over again next time you’re in town,’ Gina said. ‘I’ll show you all the stuff Gian’s put on my phone, stuff he’s learnt at seminars.’
Penelope smiled and nodded, and they exchanged numbers. Gina walked her back to the lift, and then Penelope was alone again, descending to the ground floor.
22
Bad Fortune
As Penelope stepped outside, a lady in an elegant white dress, with a pug in her arms, was standing in front of a metallic gold convertible in front of Gina’s house – the whole car was covered in dust. ‘I’m telling you, this town is the pits!’ she was screeching into a mobile phone. ‘The dirt in this place . . . what’s just happened to me would never happen in our neighbourhood. You wouldn’t believe what the car looks like now – the windscreen, the white upholstery, all of it is completely filthy! Oh, no, there’s no way we’re buying anything round here, it’d be the world’s worst investment . . . OK . . . good, see you at the hotel. Horst and I desperately need to take a bath and wash our hair and . . .’
Penelope grinned to herself: Gina’s rug had really made a mess of the lady’s car.
She ran quickly past the woman, who was still ranting into her phone, and crossed the road to the Ring Centre. It took her a while to find the escalators when she got there; she looked up and saw Tom and Pete a long way above, obviously searching for her.
Hey, you two, I’m on my way! she tried to shout. But all that came out of her mouth was a soft hissing noise.
She ran up one escalator after another, shouting ‘Anti-Eye!’ each time she got on to a different one, to test whether her voice had come back yet. She managed a loud whisper after the third, and on the fifth she finally managed to make a sound.
‘Pete, Pete, here she comes! I can see her. Our wise Penelope is walking this way!’ Tom leant over the glass railing and waved to her, laughing.
Penelope stepped from the last escalator into the cinema foyer. Pete danced around her. ‘Penny, you had the right idea, giving that pile of rubbish a swerve. Hello?! Not a single drop of blood, just some stupid baby whales that had some kind of chickenpox. One of them got bitten, and that drew a load of slimy snorkel fish to them, that all looked like Mr Potts, and—’
‘Dude, you look like Mr Potts. Hey Penny, how was it? How was . . . ? Well, what did you get up to?’ Tom held his popcorn out to her.
Penelope reached into the bag, looking from one of them to the other. She cleared her throat, her voice finally returned. ‘I bought a pair of blue shoelaces and some hair dye, and I met a girl who’s the same as me.’
‘No way!’ exclaimed Pete.
‘She can’t be the same as you, or we’d already be friends with her,’ Tom shouted.
‘Exactly. Anyway, there could never be two Penelopes.’ That was Pete again. Penelope smiled.
‘But, look, we need to shake a leg now,’ Tom shouted, jumping on to the downwards escalator. Pete and Penelope followed him down to the lifts. Pete’s father would already be waiting on parking deck three, as arranged, so Tom was right: they’d have to hurry!
‘Here comes the film club,’ Pete’s dad greeted them, smiling, as they got out of the lift in the car park. He looked different from the last time Penelope had seen him – less jolly. In fact, he seemed quite stressed.
‘All aboard, everyone,’ he said. ‘Enjoy your last ride in the Bentley – it’s being sold tomorrow.’
‘But Dad! You said you wouldn’t sell the car!’ cried Pete in dismay.
‘I know, my dear son, but that’s all changed, sadly. The business is really going downhill now, you know that. Things were going so well at the start of this year, but now . . .’ He shook his head as he ushered the children into the back seats. ‘I just can’t understand what’s going on – it’s as if there’s a jinx on the place.’ He slid into the driver’s seat, buckled up and started the engine. ‘On Monday I’m going to have to start letting people go, and if things don’t pick up soon I’ll have to close down by the end of the year.’
‘But what will you do then? How are we going to manage?’ Pete was clearly upset.
‘Oh, I can always get a job. And Mum can go back to work too. Don’t worry, we’d manage – we’d just have to cut back on the luxuries, that’s all. Honestly, nothing to worry about!’ He smiled at his son in the rear-view mirror – but it was obvious to Penelope that the smile was forced.
23
Battling with Vegetables
Over the next few weeks Penelope tried again and again to read some more of the Alpha Regius book, but it wasn’t easy. Sometimes it seemed that the harder she tried, and the more frustrated she grew, the less she could see. When she was calm, she could still make out the pictures with the wheels, and the chapters on flying and seeing with the eyes of another, but on most of the other pages all she could see were the dainty pale-blue vines with silvery veins, peculiar-looking animal heads, or ugly laughing faces scrambled between the green-gold letters that danced across the page, as if taunting her. The words didn’t seem to want to show themselves, apart from a lonely golden letter standing still here and there – and those weren’t of much use to Penelope on their own. But she didn’t give up – she kept leafing through the precious book every day, hoping that soon it would decide to reveal more.
When she wasn’t occupied with her Alpha Regius book, she practised flying, and when she wasn’t practising flying, she experimented with Gina’s Anti-Eye. She wondered if it was possible somehow to fix the device and stay invisible for longer, and perhaps she could find a remedy for the hoarseness that occurred every time she pressed the rusty button on the little magic box.
Penelope was also preparing to confront her father, face to face. After all, since her conversation with Gina, she knew he was very powerful, and she definitely didn’t want to seem like some silly girl who’d only just figured out some of the basics. She ran through the journey to Black-slough again and again in her head. It was too far away, she thought, to risk trying to fly – and the village was small and not very well connected. She already knew that she had to take the bus to the train station in Senborough, where she had been with her mum several times. She’d wait a while at the station, and catch the train to a place called Little Pilling. She’d have to walk across the countryside for a mile or two, and then she’d be in Blackslough. The journey would take about three and a half hours, so she was going to have to set off extremely early if she wanted to arrive in time to glue up the flaps on all the postboxes.
Now, Penelope was sitting cross-legged on her bed. Whenever she wasn’t thinking about her father during this time, she was thinking about Pete’s father instead. Pete had been really upset – and his dad had been too, even though he’d been putting on a brave face. She wished she could find out why his company was losing so much money all of a sudden.
‘Penelopeeeee!’ Granny Elizabeth’s voice wrenched her from her thoughts. ‘Get down here, we need your help with the creeper corms!’
As if she had nothing better to do! Oh well, never mind – it might do her good to take a break from all this incessant thinking. Besides, she could pack a couple of the ugliest specimens as a gift for her father.
She clattered down the wooden staircase. The front door was open. Granny Elizabeth and her mother were crouching behind the wild rose bush, both of them pulling at a particularly stubborn creeper corm root. Mrs Gardener chuckled.
‘You know, you’re really getting a bit obsessed with these things, Mother.’
‘Make fun of me all you like, Lucia, but once we’ve got rid of the things you’ll see how much of a favour I’ve done us all.’ Granny Elizabeth was rather red in the face, but she seemed to be in a wonderful mood. ‘Ah, Penelope, there you are! Could you start digging just here, please? I think there’s a massive one down there. We’re going
to finish these creeper corms off today, you just see if we don’t.’
The problem with the creeper corms was their tangled, long roots: due to the bristly tubers that formed at regular intervals along their lengths, it was very difficult to pull the plants out of the ground entirely. But it might be a bit easier now, Penelope realized as she picked up a spade, since the heat and the lack of rain had stopped the creeper corms from growing as enthusiastically this year. What’s more, Granny Elizabeth seemed to have found the creeper’s main root.
Penelope helped her mum and granny dig a deep hollow around the corm, and then all three of them pulled together, each gripping on to a different section of the sprawling root. They tugged and plucked and tore. At first, there wasn’t much movement, but then there was a sudden jolt, and all three of them lost their grip and landed on the ground. Granny Elizabeth was the first to stand up. Immediately she started pulling at the loose earth. The roots were coming away quite easily now, and more and more of the creeper corms were emerging from the ground. Granny threw each tuber over her shoulder and they landed on the lawn, each connected to the next, forming a long lasso shape. Penelope and her mother started to help – and after a while, G. E. was actually holding the last traces of the stubborn weed in her hands! They measured the total length later on: nineteen metres of connected tubers, with eight single and thirty-one twin corms.
‘Hahaaa!’ Granny Elizabeth raised her arms in triumph. For a moment she looked like a young girl again. ‘We’ve finally done it! We’ve wiped out that awful weed at last! It’s been sucking the life out of our plants for years on end, but it’s finally had its comeuppance! Um, no pun intended.’ She bent down and began to spool up the roots as if they were a ball of wool. ‘Oh, but let’s not throw the thing away. We’ll dry it out and keep it in a box as a souvenir.’ She marched into the house, her chest inflated with pride.
No, we can’t throw them away, thought Penelope, but I can think of a much better use for them than keeping them in a box. As it’s all come up in one piece, I’ll take the whole thing with me when I pay my visit to Mr Grey-Letter-Sender.