The day of the Queen’s visit had arrived!
At 9 am, the students gathered in the entrance hall. A heady mix of excitement, joy and nerves filled the air.
A rather bad smell filled the air too. But that is to be expected when a number of children and animals gather in a confined space. Especially if one of them is a lad who refuses to change his socks.
Thistlebloom donned a pair of rubber gloves. She marched back and forth amongst the students, spraying disinfectant, plucking burrs from hair, gouging chewing gum and garden snails from behind ears. She prodded and bossed, making students shift from place to place, arranging them with the same precision that she used with the pens on her desk. Then, glaring down her nose, she took a final count of Mrs Groves’ naughty boys, talking animals and circus performers. ‘Twenty,’ she declared. ‘A manageable number.’
‘Twenty-one!’ cried Mrs Groves, bumbling from the office, nodding and smiling. She had quite abandoned her fear of Thistlebloom, having fallen hopelessly in love with Mr Pennyfetherill in the last twelve hours. True love leaves little room for other feelings in one’s mind . . . and Mrs Groves’ mind had so little room to begin with, her being such a silly woman.
‘Twenty-one students!’ Mrs Groves waved a scrap of paper in Thistlebloom’s face. ‘I have here the enrolment form for Shaggy Go-On-Get-Away-With-You.’
Shaggy gambolled around Mrs Groves’ skirt, his tongue lolling out the side of his mouth. The thrill of belonging for the first time in his life was more than he could contain. He leapt, snapped and ripped one of the pockets off Mrs Groves’ apron. A ball of string, a lace handkerchief, a tube of Clements’ Fungal Cream and a box of haberdashery fell to the floor.
Scruffy was thrilled that another dog would be attending Groves. He yipped and yapped and completed three splendid backwards flips.
Thistlebloom pushed Scruffy back into line with a metre ruler. She snatched the enrolment form from Mrs Groves’ hand. A red blotch broke out on her left cheek . . . just below the eye that had started to twitch. ‘Twenty-one students,’ she snarled.
‘Twenty-two!’ shouted Reginald, pointing towards the kitchen. ‘Lucky the kitten is here too. He’s just caught up at the moment.’
Olive craned her neck so that she could see through the kitchen doorway. Indeed, Lucky was caught up. His tail was tangled in the beaters of the electric mixer and simply would not come free . . . no matter how hard he tugged and hissed . . . no matter how many times the cook hit him over the head with a stick of rhubarb.
Thistlebloom gritted her teeth. ‘Twenty-two students!’
‘Twenty-three!’ corrected Fumble. ‘There is a very pretty moose who has just arrived!’ He smiled coyly at his own reflection in the mirror by the front door.
‘Twenty-two!’ shrieked Thistlebloom with a stamp of her foot.
Fumble burst into tears. How dreadfully unfair! The new dog was allowed to enrol. Why not the pretty moose?
‘There, there,’ soothed Olive. She patted his back and held out her handkerchief.
‘Thank you,’ Fumble sobbed and blew his nose on the edge of her cardigan.
Thistlebloom rolled her eyes. She handed the paper bag full of burrs, snails and gum to Num-Num, wedged her monocle into her eye socket and peered at her wristwatch. ‘In precisely four hours, forty-three minutes and thirty-six seconds, at 2 pm, Her Majesty the Queen shall be arriving. There is much to be done.’
Unravelling a metre-long list, she began to assign tasks. ‘Fumble, Glenda and Reginald shall arrange the flowers. Bozo and Boffo shall comb the grass. School Captain Olive shall prepare a welcome speech. Carlos and Num-Num are to locate and evict the ghost of Groves –’
‘Huh?’ Num-Num looked up from the paper bag from which she was snacking.
‘Ghost?’ gasped Mrs Groves. ‘Oh, how wonderful! We have never had a ghost at my esteemed boarding school before. We could not possibly evict him! A ghost is terribly exciting and would add real drama to our games of After-Dark Hide-and-Seek! Now, if only we could find a werewolf, my joy would be complete!’
‘And a zombie!’ shouted Frank.
‘And a vampire!’ cried Carlos.
Thistlebloom’s monocle fell from her eye. Nervous twitches broke out in all sorts of fascinating locations across her face and upper body. She stared down at the fingers on her left hand as though she might be about to arrange them in a more pleasing manner. Imposing order was, of course, her way of coping with stress. You, dear reader, will have worked this out long ago . . . unless you are as silly as a sea cucumber . . . or have slept through the past twenty-five chapters.
‘Good morning! Good morning!’ sang Mr Pennyfetherill from the first-floor landing. ‘Here, concealed beneath this sheath of black silk, I have a mannequin dressed in the new uniform of Mrs Groves’ Boarding School for Naughty Boys, Talking Animals and Circus Performers!’
He threw his arms wide, toppling the mannequin so that it plonkety-bonked all the way down the stairs. Bozo dashed forward, set the mannequin back on its feet, then kicked a broken bit under the sofa.
‘No harm done! No harm done!’ cried Mr Pennyfetherill. ‘A snapped-off hand never hurt anyone!’ He pranced down the grand staircase, a hatbox swinging from his arm. Three tape measures and a pink feather boa flapped around his neck, a smudge of blue tailor’s chalk adorned the tip of his nose and a twinkle danced in his eye. He verily leapt off the last step, his smile so wide that his false teeth threatened to slip from his mouth. He felt young and full of energy, just like the good old days when Pennyfetherill’s Emporium of Fabulously Flamboyant Furnishings was in its prime!
Sucking in his teeth, he whipped the black sheath from the mannequin to reveal the new uniform.
‘Well, roll me on the beach and call me sandy!’ exclaimed Wordsworth.
‘Simply splendid!’ cooed Mrs Groves.
‘A red silk vest!’ honked Glenda the goose. ‘Superb!’
‘I designed that!’ squeaked Chester. ‘It’s double breasted, with six brass buttons down each side. That’s twelve buttons!’
‘Look at the puffy white coat with giant red polka dots!’ shouted Boffo.
‘I designed that!’ Bozo laughed. ‘Bright, bold and almost as big as a circus tent!’
‘Dazzling pants!’ barked Scruffy. ‘I’ve always wanted to wear tight white leggings with silver-sequined love hearts up the sides.’
‘That’s Anastasia’s design,’ said Eduardo.
Mr Pennyfetherill pulled the lid off the hatbox and tossed it aside. He drew out a red fringed lampshade and placed it on the mannequin’s head. Pointing to a little white cord dangling from its brim, he raised his eyebrows, then gave it a tug.
BOING!
Somewhere inside, a light bulb lit up and the lampshade, already beautiful, became incandescent.
‘The shape of your hats will vary a little,’ Mr Pennyfetherill explained. ‘I had quite a range of lampshade frames to choose from – tall and slender, delicate and small, large and wide. But rest assured, they are all bold and befringed and will look marvellous teamed with the rest of your furnishings . . . er . . . ah . . . uniform.’
The hall erupted into whoops of delight.
Olive giggled, clapped her hands and bunny-hopped for joy. ‘Why, Mr Pennyfetherill!’ she cheered. ‘It is the most stunning uniform I have ever seen.’
Thistlebloom was certainly stunned. Her mouth, normally a thin, straight line, formed a surprised little O.
‘Thistlebloom is impressed!’ cried Carlos, pointing a stick of dynamite towards her. ‘I think she is smiling.’
‘No, that’s not a smile,’ said Frank. ‘That’s pain. She’s obviously been eating those bran muffins again!’
Thistlebloom pointed a bony finger towards the lampshade, but spoke not a word.
Suddenly, her mouth closed and her hand dropped to her side. Turning on her heels, she marched into the office and slammed the door. There, she spent the next two hours trying to soothe her troubled mind by organising all of her pens and paperclips in alphabetical order. When that failed, she ducked behind the velvet curtains and sucked on peppermints. She might also have indulged in a little knitting.
Mrs Groves smiled at her students, blinked several times and patted her mobcap. ‘There you have it!’ she cried. ‘Wise words from Thistlebloom. Now run along and collect your uniforms, check the light bulbs in your hats and . . . and . . . and do whatever else it is one does before the Queen comes for tea.’
She patted Shaggy on the head, fluttered her eyelashes at Mr Pennyfetherill, then trotted upstairs to her parlour for a fortifying snack of crumpets and honey.
‘Well, well, well!’ drawled Pig McKenzie. He stretched his front trotters above his head and yawned. ‘I cannot stand around here all day, picking my snout and scratching my belly. There is a royal award to be won and I must prepare my humble but gracious acceptance speech.’ He smirked sideways at Olive, shoved Fumble out of his way and sauntered to the cupboard beneath the stairs.
The students dispersed until Olive and Wordsworth were left alone, standing in the middle of the entrance hall.
‘I suppose,’ said Wordsworth, ‘that someone ought to liberate Lucky. A friend in need is a friend indeed. No time like the present. Seize the day. Take the bull by the horns. Strike while the iron’s hot.’ He scuttled away, his Little Blue Book of Wise and Witty Sayings balanced upon his head.
‘I suppose that someone will have to be me,’ murmured Olive. She skipped across the entrance hall, popped her head around the kitchen door and froze.
The cook, large and round, was tottering on a ladder, beside a magnificent seven-tiered wedding cake. She gave a final swipe across the fluffy white icing, tucked the spatula into the waistband of her apron and carefully, lovingly, placed a marzipan bride and groom on top of the cake.
‘A wedding cake!’ gasped Olive. ‘For a school visit . . . from the Queen?’
‘So what?!’ snapped the cook. ‘Thistlebloom has forced me to make all sorts of disgusting and fibrous health foods over the last four days. I needed to let my creative genius run free.’
‘It’s lovely!’ cried Olive. ‘Truly. And I cannot wait to taste it. But . . . do you think the bride and groom might be a little too much?’
The cook frowned.
She flared her nostrils.
She opened and closed her large fists.
She ripped off the bride’s head and threw it, hitting Olive right between the eyes.
Stunned, our heroine staggered backwards, tripped over the edge of the Persian rug and crashed into Pig McKenzie’s cupboard door. The lock gave way and she tumbled inside with a most inelegant ‘Oomph!’