The opera house stood on the top of a hill, on the outskirts of town. It was a beautiful building, as an opera house should be, with a sweep of stone steps leading up to the doors and a high roof of shining copper. We parked the trailer at the back and made our way to the stage door.
“Now, ladies,” said an attendant in a blue and gold uniform, barring our way. “This door is only for the singers and musicians.”
Aunt Veronica explained to him that we wished to see one of the singers.
“She’s my sister,” she went on. “And this is her niece.”
At the mention of Aunt Harmonica’s name, the attendant smiled.
“Well, well!” he said. “Now that you mention it, I can see the resemblance, although I must say you seem a bit … a bit more …”
“Muscular?” interrupted Aunt Veronica.
The attendant blushed. “Yes,” he said. “You see, she’s so much more … so much more …”
“Large?” suggested Aunt Veronica.
The attendant blushed even further.
“Er, yes,” he said feebly. “I suppose that’s true.”
He motioned us to follow him and we began down a dark corridor that seemed to bore into the very heart of the opera house. It was a lovely corridor, with doors opening off into brightly lit dressing rooms and dark, cluttered storerooms. At last the attendant pointed to a half-open door and nodded his head.
“That’s where she’ll be,” he said. “But make sure you don’t distract her too much. The performance starts in less than fifteen minutes.”
• • •
“You go in first,” whispered Aunt Veronica. “Let’s give her a surprise.”
I was reluctant to do this, but I was given a good shove by Aunt Veronica and soon found myself standing in a dressing room. There were several glittery dresses hanging on a wardrobe door and a bright mirror surrounded by bulbs. On a stool before the mirror, a comfortable-looking woman was applying lipstick to her fleshy red lips. I cleared my throat to attract her attention.
I think I must have given her a bit of a fright, as she spun around sharply and looked at me with complete surprise.
“What do you want?” she asked. Then, tossing the lipstick onto the dressing table, she asked me who I was.
I drew in my breath to give my answer, but suddenly she stopped.
“Don’t tell me,” she said, rising to her feet to peer more closely at me. “There’s something very familiar about your face.”
She bent down and stared into my face from a distance of no more than a few inches. Then she drew back and narrowed her eyes. “You don’t have a father called Harold, do you?” she asked.
It was at this point that Aunt Veronica popped her head round the door.
“Yes, she does,” she said.
When she saw Aunt Veronica, Aunt Harmonica burst out with a peal of triumphant laughter.
“I knew it!” she crowed. “I could tell that she was my niece.”
Then she hugged me, pressing me against her vast shape, making me feel as if I had been swallowed by a giant pudding. I struggled for breath and eventually broke away from her embrace. Aunt Harmonica was crying with emotion.
“Oh, what a marvelous day this is turning out to be!” she crooned. “First, the chance to sing a lovely part tonight, and then the visit from you!”
She sat down, weeping with excitement and emotion. Aunt Veronica helped her dry her eyes and then assisted her to squeeze into her dress. As Aunt Harmonica dressed, she told us about her job.
“I would have liked to be the leading lady in operas,” she said wistfully. “And I could sing well enough for that, couldn’t I, Veronica?”
Aunt Veronica nodded her agreement and Aunt Harmonica went on.
“But when they discovered I could throw my voice, they wanted me to do something else. They gave me a job as an understudy.”
She paused, looking at me. “You may not know what an understudy is, Harriet. An understudy is the person who’s ready to take over if a singer gets a sore throat and can’t sing. The show has to go on, as you know, and it’s the understudy who steps in and sings. Anyway, they realized that an understudy who could throw her voice was one in a million. This meant that the first singer could go on the stage as usual and just pretend to sing. She’d just open her mouth, though, and I would throw my voice from the wings. The singers loved this. They got all the cheers and flowers at the end, while I did all the work!”
I felt sorry for Aunt Harmonica as she told me her story. It must have been terrible to have to watch others getting all the praise for her singing.
She dabbed a handkerchief at the corner of her eyes.
“Still,” she went on, “there’s no point in complaining about our lot in life. It’s my job and … good heavens! Look at the time! I’m going to have to sing in five minutes. The leading lady has quite lost her voice and I’m to do her singing. So, come along, you can stand beside me and see how it’s done.”
I was thrilled to be able to stand beside Aunt Harmonica and watch the preparation on the stage. Everybody was in position now, including the opera star who had lost her voice. Down in the orchestra pit, the orchestra was playing the overture, and on the other side of the stage they were preparing to raise the curtain. Aunt Harmonica looked at me, smiled, and reached into her bag for a throat lozenge.
“I always suck one of these quickly before I sing,” she whispered. “It lubricates my vocal cords.”
The curtain began to rise and the chorus of opera singers standing at the back of the stage burst into song. Aunt Harmonica was following what was going on very carefully, ready to begin her part when her cue came.
Suddenly I noticed that there was something wrong with Aunt Harmonica. She had raised her hands to her throat and was clutching at it frantically. Her face was beginning to turn purple—more or less the color my father had turned when the elephant had coiled its trunk around him.
I realized almost immediately what had happened. The throat lozenge which Aunt Harmonica had been sucking must have stuck in her throat and now she was not only breathless but voiceless. I turned to Aunt Veronica and tugged at her arm.
“Oh my goodness!” muttered Aunt Veronica, slapping her sister on the back. “There’s something stuck in her throat.”
She gave her a few more slaps on the back, but it did not seem to do any good. Aunt Veronica then did something which seemed very strange at the time but which was obviously the right thing to do. Reaching down, she picked Aunt Harmonica up by her legs and held her upside down. There was a strange wheezing sound and then a gasp. The lozenge had moved.
Aunt Veronica placed Aunt Harmonica back on her feet, but unfortunately, this made the lozenge lodge again. Quickly she turned her upside down again, and the lozenge moved again.
“Keep me like this,” Aunt Harmonica said. “It’s the only way I’m going to be able to sing.”
And sing she did, all the time being held upside down by Aunt Veronica. It was a very strange thing to see—an aunt being held in such an unusual position, all the while throwing her voice over the stage to where the leading lady was merely opening her mouth and pretending to sing. I am sure it was the very strangest incident in the whole history of opera.
But there was something even stranger. If you have ever heard anybody sing upside down (and you probably haven’t), then you might realize that the words come out … upside down! Yes! And this is exactly what happened. Although Aunt Harmonica’s voice sounded very tuneful, the song she was singing was definitely upside down.
By craning my neck a little, I could just see the audience past the edge of the curtain. At first they appeared not to notice anything, but after a few moments I saw that some of them were looking a little bit puzzled. Then one or two of them began to twist their heads around, and soon most people were doing this. By getting their heads just about as close as they could to being upside down, they heard the words perfectly. It was all very strange indeed.
At the end of the act, the curtain came down and Aunt Veronica was able to carry the upside down Aunt Harmonica back to her dressing room. There, with the aid of a glass of water, which Aunt Harmonica managed to drink, the lozenge was dislodged from its place and Aunt Harmonica was able to stand on her feet again, the right way up.
“What a terrible thing to happen,” she gasped. “But what a stroke of luck that you were there to deal with it, Veronica.”
After the opera was finished, and the singer who hadn’t sung had gone out to receive her flowers from an admiring audience, Aunt Harmonica came with us to the trailer. Aunt Veronica put on the teakettle and brewed a pot of tea while I told my newfound aunt all about my life.
“I’m so glad you came to see me,” Aunt Harmonica said. “I know that you have no shortage of aunts, but you’re the only niece I have.”
I told her that so far I had only found two aunts out of the five and asked her whether she could help to discover the rest.
“I wish I could,” she said. “But I haven’t seen any of them for years and years. Veronica’s the only one I’ve come across.”
I felt a wave of disappointment overcome me. I had very much hoped that Aunt Harmonica would have some information about the others, but it looked as if she knew as little as my father did.
She scratched her head.
“Now wait,” she said. “Something’s coming back to me at last. Yes, I think I may be able to help.”
She turned to Aunt Veronica.
“Is there room for me in this trailer?” she asked, looking about her as she spoke.
Aunt Veronica glanced at the well-padded form of her sister and gulped.
“I’m sure there is,” she said.
“In that case,” said Aunt Harmonica, “I think I might be able to track down the others. Why don’t I stay here tonight, and we will all leave together first thing in the morning.”
Aunt Veronica prepared a bunk for Aunt Harmonica, and although it was a very tight squeeze, eventually Aunt Harmonica managed to settle under her blankets and the light was put out.
I closed my eyes and waited for sleep to overcome me. Suddenly, from under my bunk, I heard a small voice cry out, “Help! I’m trapped!”
I jumped out, switched on a light, and looked under the bunk. There was nothing there.
“What on earth are you doing?” asked Aunt Harmonica.
“There was somebody under my bunk,” I said. “I heard a voice.”
“I’m sure it was just your imagination,” said Aunt Veronica sleepily.
“But I heard it!” I protested. “I wasn’t dreaming.”
Then I looked at Aunt Harmonica and noticed that she was smiling. At once I realized what had happened. That’s exactly the sort of thing one must expect from a ventriloquist aunt.
I laughed, switched off the light, and got back into my bunk.
“Good night!” said a small voice in the darkness. It came from under my pillow, but I ignored it and soon there was silence.