‘O-lib! Che-ster! Bli-imp! Words-worf!’ Num-Num gurgled and growled as she climbed the giant oak tree outside the turret. It was almost bedtime and she was lonely.
‘O-lib!’ Her scaly green face pressed against the window. ‘Num-Num home!’
Olive ran across the bedroom, opened the window and laid her hand softly on the dinosaur’s nose. ‘We’ve talked about this before, Num-Num. You have grown so large that you simply cannot fit – not up the spiral staircase, nor through the little green door. And definitely not through this window.’
‘But Num-Num cold.’
‘You know you can sleep in any of the rooms below,’ reasoned Olive. ‘The dining room, the library, with Eduardo and Alfonzo . . .’
Num-Num’s bottom lip wobbled. ‘But Num-Num lub Olib.’
‘I know.’ Olive smiled and planted a kiss on the dinosaur’s cheek.
Accepting this as an invitation, Num-Num poked her head further through the opening. She pushed and pressed, squeezed and shoved, until the window frame gave way. Glass shattered, timber splintered. Crawling inside, she sat on the rug by the fire, the window frame dangling from her neck.
She grinned stupidly. ‘Num-Num home and Num-Num warm and Num-Num lub and hug Olib.’
And she did, taking Olive’s breath away.
And what could our heroine do but return the hug?
‘Olive loves Num-Num too,’ she declared and counted her blessings that she had come to this marvellous school, where she had made the best friends one could ever wish for.
Suddenly, a little cloud of gloom drifted into the room.
Olive slipped free of the scaly embrace. ‘Imagine,’ she sighed, ‘if the Inspector of Schools really did close Groves!’
The cloud of gloom hovered, looking for a place to settle.
‘We would all have to leave . . . to go our separate ways . . . friendships torn asunder.’
‘Not torn asunder!’ gasped Blimp. He clutched his front paws to his cheeks, then asked, ‘What’s asunder?’
‘Asunder,’ explained Chester, ‘means that there is no-one from whom you can steal buttons.’ He nodded at Blimp from the armchair, where he was sorting his button collection.
‘Or,’ suggested Wordsworth, ‘it means pulled apart. If friends are torn asunder, they are separated from each other . . . perhaps forever.’
The little cloud of gloom found a place to settle.
Poomph!
Right on top of Olive’s head.
‘Forever!’ she whispered. ‘How simply dreadful! I could not bear it.’ And once again, she found herself pondering the way her life had changed over the past two months. The lessons she had learned about life and love and betrayal. The bravery and strength she had suddenly found inside herself. The way her heart had stretched and grown to accommodate so many wonderful new friends. No, not friends. Family.
She could not survive without her family.
A little sob escaped Olive’s lips.
Num-Num stared. She wiped a tear from Olive’s cheek, tasted it and frowned. ‘Inspector are a big fat slob,’ she growled.
Blimp giggled.
‘That’s not nice, Num-Num,’ Olive reprimanded gently. ‘Try using some other words to express your disappointment.’
‘Hmmm.’ Num-Num stuck her claw in her mouth, looked upwards and thought deeply. ‘Thistlebloom look like poo.’
Blimp collapsed in a screaming heap. He rolled around and around, clutching his fat white belly, laughing until the tears ran down his face. Num-Num slapped her leg and roared with delight.
Olive tried to mould her face into an expression of disapproval, but could not. She giggled.
POOF! The little cloud of gloom blew out the window and the sudden return of happiness made her think of cake. Quite understandable, really. I like to think of nougat when I am glad . . . and caramel tarts . . . and double-choc gelato served in a waffle cone, topped with whipped cream and a fetching little shard of toffee brittle.
However, I digress.
Taking a large rectangular tin from her chest of drawers, Olive placed it on the bed and removed the lid.
‘Lamingtons!’ shouted Blimp, scuttling up onto the bed. ‘Yummo! I love lamingtons!’
‘Me too!’ cheered Chester.
Wordsworth squeaked over the top of his Little Blue Book of Wise and Witty Sayings. ‘Lamingtons are the bee’s knees, the duck’s guts, the pussycat’s pyjamas!’
‘Duck’s guts!’ growled Num-Num. ‘Num-num-numnum-num-num-num!’
Olive handed the tin around, then sang, ‘Two, four, six, eight! Dig in. Don’t –’
‘Wait!’ A shrill voice cut through the air.
‘Thistlebloom!’ Olive shuddered at the sight of the bony woman standing in the doorway. Then, remembering her manners, she held the tin forward. ‘Welcome, Thistlebloom. Do take a lamington. They arrived in the mail just this morning. My granny baked them.’
Thistlebloom looked down her nose. ‘Is this a midnight snack?’
Olive glanced at the alarm clock on her bedside table. ‘Well, technically it’s a half-past-cheese snack, but I suppose you could call it a midnight snack. We just love snacks, any time, day or night!’ Olive giggled. ‘Do have one. They are sure to be delicious. Granny is the best baker in Burradoon.’
‘That might be so,’ snapped Thistlebloom, ‘but I do not approve of snacking.’ She seized the tin.
‘Oh, but this isn’t snacking,’ explained Wordsworth. ‘This is luxuriating in sugar . . . basking in the glories of chocolate and coconut . . . communing with cake!’
‘I don’t approve of luxuriating, basking or communing either!’ Thistlebloom stepped forward, tin in hand, scowl on brow. It was quite clear that she expected each of the lamingtons to be returned . . . uneaten!
Olive went first, then Chester and Wordsworth.
Blimp, hysterical at the thought of returning a cake or a biscuit to its tin for the first time in his life, began to quiver. The fur stood up on the back of his neck and his teeth protruded from his mouth in an uncharacteristically aggressive manner.
Olive put her hand gently on his back. ‘It’s okay, Blimp. We’ll eat the lamingtons later.’
‘I don’t think so!’ retorted Thistlebloom. She snatched the lamington from Blimp’s paws and tossed it in with the others.
Olive gasped. Never had Granny’s baking been treated with such disdain!
Blimp threw himself face-down on the bed and sobbed. He thumped his paws up and down, wailing about the rise of tyranny, the death of civilisation and the horrors of a rumbling tummy.
Num-Num glared, growled and shoved her lamington into her mouth. ‘Num-num-num-num-num-num-num!’ She also shoved twelve jumbo crayons, two notepads and Olive’s favourite red cardigan into her mouth. Then, throwing herself face-down on the floor, she sobbed and thumped her claws, just as she had seen Blimp do. After a minute, she paused, straightened the window frame that still hung around her neck, smiled at Olive and continued with the tantrum.
Wordsworth rolled his eyes.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Olive. ‘Num-Num is just a baby. She doesn’t know any better.’
‘Hmph!’ snorted Thistlebloom, snapping the lid on the lamington tin. ‘She might not know any better, but she soon will!’
Pulling the monocle from her breast pocket, she wedged it against her right eye and peered around the room. Olive tried, discreetly, to scrape some of the shattered glass into the corner with her foot, but it was pointless. The turret was a mess and Thistlebloom’s piercing gaze missed nothing. Not even the tiny red and white toadstools growing beneath the bed at the edge of the rats’ nest.
‘My preliminary rounds of the school tell me that we have a great deal of work to do,’ Thistlebloom announced. ‘I will need your full cooperation, starting first thing tomorrow, School Captain Olive.’
‘You can call me just Olive.’
‘Very well. Good evening, Olive.’
Thistlebloom turned on her heels, cake tin in hand, and marched out of the turret.
Olive ran to the door and watched longingly as the lamingtons moved further and further away, down the spiral staircase and along the corridor.
‘Good grief,’ she sighed. ‘Confiscated lamingtons. Could anything be worse?’
Blimp scampered onto her shoulder. ‘I’m afraid so,’ he squeaked, for at that moment, Pig McKenzie glided from the shadows.
‘Francine,’ sang the pig, smiling, fawning. He brushed an imaginary speck of dust from his pristine white vest, pirouetted, then bowed.
‘Francine!’ The pig verily purred this time. ‘May I call you Francine?’
Thistlebloom, caught unawares, nodded.
‘Francine, allow me to introduce myself. I am Pig McKenzie.’
He looked at the tin in her hands. It was large and rectangular, decorated with a picture of a windmill in a field of tulips. It was obviously a cake tin.
The pig narrowed his eyes. ‘Cake,’ he said.
‘Lamingtons.’ Thistlebloom sighed as though the weight of the world was on her shoulders. ‘I have confiscated them.’
‘Of course,’ grunted the pig. He wiped a trotter across his mouth, trying to contain the drool. ‘Would you like me to dispose of them?’
‘Why yes! That would be a great help.’ The tin passed from Thistlebloom’s hands to Pig McKenzie’s eager trotters. ‘What a considerate pig.’
‘And humble,’ oinked Pig McKenzie. ‘I am incredibly humble. I am so humble that I live in a cupboard beneath the stairs.’
‘Oh! That sounds dusty and dirty.’
Pig McKenzie pressed a trotter to his chest. ‘Francine,’ he cooed. ‘Do I look like the kind of pig who would suffer dust and dirt?’
Thistlebloom peered long and hard through her monocle. She took in the polished snout, the waxless earholes, the mud-free trotters, the snowy white vest. She sniffed and gave a single nod of approval.
Pig McKenzie bowed, stepped aside and allowed her to continue along the corridor and down the stairs. He lifted the lid of the tin, pressed his snout in amongst the lamingtons and inhaled. Deeply.
He raised his snout, now smeared with chocolate and speckled with coconut. ‘Lamingtons!’ he grunted. ‘My favourite.’ Then, snapping the lid fast, he trotted down the staircase, out of sight.
Olive dragged her weary feet back across the turret, flopped down onto the bed and sighed. ‘Good grief.’
And Blimp, harassed and cake-deprived, flopped on top of her and wailed.