Esmerelda Smudge and the Magic Pepper Pot

by Mandy Martin

here?”

  “He is,” Maud nodded, her face carefully blank.

  “What? Why do you say it in that tone of voice? Is he horrible? Oh don’t say he’s horrible.” Mum looked devastated.

  “He is perfectly charming,” Aunt Maud said. She was about to say something else when a man strode towards them.

  Mum went pale. The man came up to her and she held out her hand. He bowed over it and kissed it noisily. Esme snorted, turning it into a cough as Aunt Maud gave her a warning glance. When Brad James straightened up, his head barely reached Mum’s shoulders. With her heels on Esme was almost as tall as he was.

  “Ladies, ladies, how charming to meet you,” he said effusively. “And what a charming house your Aunt has.” He released Mum’s hand and turned to Esme. “And this must be your sister, yes?”

  Mum blushed and giggled. “My daughter, Esmerelda.”

  “Daughter? Surely not?” Brad shook his head. Esme thought she saw his hair flap slightly at the back. Was he wearing a wig?

  Maud led them all into the kitchen and offered tea. The film crew were there. A bored looking boy in jeans held a long pole over the table with what looked like a dead rat on the end of it. Esme stared at it suspiciously.

  “That’s the sound boom,” Brad explained, waving his hands. “I’m sure this is all very strange to a little girl like you. Do not be nervous, I will be here to guide you.”

  Esme gritted her teeth. She was liking Brad less and less by the minute. Maybe it was a mistake to meet your TV idols. She hoped Maud wasn’t suffering the same disillusion.

  With a quick check to make sure Mum and Aunt Maud were busy slicing Victoria Sponge for the film crew, Esme pulled the pepper pot out of her bag. “Before we start rummaging in the loft, I wonder if you could look at this.” The pot was wrapped in three layers of bubble wrap and another layer of tin foil.

  “Ah, my dear, have you brought a wee treasure of your own? A money box perhaps or some little trinket?”

  Esme’s eyes narrowed and she decided it was safer not to answer. Instead she finished unwrapping the pot and handed it to the antiques expert. He accepted it with the air of a man taking a playdough creation from a toddler.

  Leaning forward, Brad examined the pepper pot. Then he reached in his pocket for an eyeglass. Turning the pot over, he examined the tiny writing, which had reappeared on the bottom. Esme looked at the little face on the pot. It leered malevolently and the room filled with incense.

  Brad James exhaled, his breath frosting the surface of the pot. “An antique Persian silver pepper pot in the style of a djinni,” he murmured lovingly. The producer hurried forward and signalled for Brad to say it again for the camera. He repeated it, but this time he sounded like an expert rather than an eager collector.

  “Where did you find this, little lady?” he said. He looked slightly mad with his eyeglass still scrunched in place.

  “In Great Aunt Maud’s attic,” Esme explained. “A few weeks ago. Is it valuable?”

  Brad James took a gulp of air and Esme held her breath. “It is indeed. I would estimate its value to be somewhere between four hundred and six hundred pounds.”

  “Woah! That’s brilliant,” Esme said. She held her hand out for the pepper pot. Brad gave her a patronising smile. “This is rather valuable for you to be carrying round, little lady, I’ll hang on to it, shall I? Until the auction,” he added quickly, with a glance over his shoulder.

  That didn’t suit Esme at all, but she couldn’t think of a polite way to ask for the pot back. Besides, selling it at auction was the plan, wasn’t it?

  “Is there more of this, in the loft?” Brad asked then. His eyes glittered.

  “I don’t know,” Esme admitted. “There are some huge old chests up there, but no one has been able to open them.”

  Brad James’ eyes turned into marbles at the words huge old chests. He spun round and flapped his hands at the film crew. “No time for stuffing your faces, lads and lasses, we have rummaging to do. Lead on, young lady,” he said to Maud.

  Great Aunt Maud gave him a soppy look. Obviously that wasn’t an irritating phrase when you were old. Maud hooked her arm through Brad’s and paraded out of the kitchen.

  It took a lot of shuffling and muttering to get everyone into the loft. Brad wanted the film crew to witness the opening of the chests. “We don’t normally go in the loft, guv,” one of the braver lads said. “Youse bring the junk down and we film it in the prettiest room in the house. Once you’ve done your research like, and know what it all is.”

  Brad rolled his eyes. “You have no sense of the dramatic, Eddie. No one has opened these chests for –” he turned a questioning look towards Maud.

  “We’ve lived here nigh on forty years and they were there when we moved in,” she said, unconsciously mimicking Brad’s blend of posh and northern brogue.

  “There you go!” Brad declared. “Undiscovered treasure.” He turned away from the camera and muttered under his breath, “And how often does that happen on this awful program?” Only Esme heard him. Yes, she definitely didn’t like him as much as she once did.

  The crew took ages setting up lights around the chests, moving boxes and crates and balancing the sound boom precariously overhead. Brad stage-managed Maud, Mum, and Esme, arranging them artfully around the chests, with himself in the centre to do the grand reveal.

  “Camera’s rolling?” Brad checked. Eddie held up his thumb in agreement. Esme heard Brad inhale a gulp of air, before reaching forward to open the chests.

  Persian Prize

  The clasps on the great leather chests wouldn’t budge. “They’re stuck,” Brad said irritably.

  Well I could have told him that, Esme thought, stifling a giggle.

  Brad tugged and pulled and swore, until he remembered the camera. “Turn that camera off, now!” As soon as the camera stopped filming, Brad stood up and kicked the bottom chest in frustration. Esme saw Maud frown. “Someone fetch a crowbar,” Brad snapped.

  “You will not!” Maud folded her arms. “This is my house and these chests belong to my family. A crowbar indeed? Is that what they taught you in antiques school?”

  Brad James blustered and tried to soothe Great Aunt Maud, but she was on a roll. Esme stood back, grinning, as she told the man from the TV exactly what she thought of him.

  “Those chests have remained untouched for forty years,” she concluded. “If they’d wanted to be opened, then opened they would be.”

  “Superstitious nonsense,” Brad said, but quietly and not in Maud’s direction.

  Aunt Maud’s words gave Esme an idea, though. The pepper pot had wanted to be found; she was sure of that. Perhaps there were other things in the chests that wanted to be free in the world. It seemed crazy, but after everything she’d seen, Esme was prepared to be open-minded.

  “It would be a shame, Great Aunt Maud, if nothing made it to auction,” she said loudly, in the direction of the chests. She half expected someone to ask her what she was up to, but Brad obviously thought she was playing to the camera. He flapped at the camera man to begin filming, and reached up to smooth his hair.

  “These treasures have been locked up too long,” Esme continued, brushing her hand over the topmost chest. “They need to be released. Collected. Held and handled. Admired.” Her face flushed. She sounded like she was in an unrehearsed school assembly. But Brad James lapped it up.

  “Indeed, little lady,” he nodded like a toy dog. “Antiques are not meant for hoarding.”

  Was it Esme’s imagination, or did one of the chests move slightly? Perhaps she heard a chink of metal. Her hands shook as she reached for the clasps that had so stubbornly resisted being opened. With half a wish and no desire to sneeze, Esme pulled the metal buttons down with her thumbs. Everyone – even the film crew – gasped as the locks sprang free.

  Before she could open the chest, Esme found herself elbowed aside by the eager expert. With his shiniest smile for the camera, Brad lifted the heavy lid and gazed i
nside. The bright studio lights sparkled on the contents, casting glittering patterns across Brad’s skin.

  “Oh. My. Goodness.” He breathed.

  “What is it?” Aunt Maud asked, shoving him aside in turn. “Well bless my socks, I’ve never seen so much silver. If only Harold had known.” Her voice wobbled and Mum led her away with a comforting arm around her shoulder.

  At last Esme could see inside the chest. It was crammed full of silver objects – teapots and plates, bowls and goblets – all with intricately engraved patterns of flowers and leaves and animals. One teapot looked like the genie’s lamp from Aladdin, with a coiled snake for a handle, and strange images of lions and rabbits and trees all over the surface.

  Genie. Djinni. Suddenly the pieces fell together. Brad James had said the pepper pot was a representation of a djinni. Another word for genie. A being that granted wishes. For the last month Esme had been carrying a genie in a bottle around in her pocket.

  “This is worth thousands,” Brad was explaining to the camera in his most dramatic voice. “Whatever the good lady Maud wishes to do with her Dosh in the Loft, it is certain there will be plenty of it.”

  As she admired the delicate objects, Esme felt sad that it had to be sold. It was all so pretty. The air smelled of exotic spices and she could almost hear discordant music and see women twisting their hands and swirling rhythmically in brightly coloured skirts.

  Esme reached forwards to caress a teapot with an