The Harriet Bean 3-Book Omnibus (5 page)

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.

I was fairly pleased with myself for having found two aunts so far, but I was certainly not prepared to leave it at that. The next morning, as the three of us sat in a small café and ate delicious apricot rolls for our breakfast, we discussed how we would find the others.

“I have no idea what happened to Thessalonika and Japonica,” said Aunt Harmonica.

“Nor do I,” said Aunt Veronica rather sadly.

“But I think I might know what Majolica did,” went on Aunt Harmonica. “Once, many
years ago, I received a birthday card from her. I’m not sure how she found my address, but it was definitely from her. And on this card she told me that she had become a teacher. That’s all she said. And she forgot to put her address on it.”

“That’s not much of a clue,” reflected Aunt Veronica. “There are teachers all over the place. Every town has its teachers.”

“I know that,” said Aunt Harmonica, sounding rather irritated, but cheering up as she helped herself to another apricot roll. “But remember that there was something rather special about Majolica.”

“Her bossiness?” I asked, remembering what my father had told me.

My two aunts laughed.

“Exactly,” said Aunt Harmonica. “And I think that we might just be able to use that to lead us to her!”

I was puzzled by this, but as Aunt Harmonica explained her scheme, I began to understand how it might work. It was an ingenious
plan, and it might be a complete failure, but it was better than nothing.

We needed a good place for the trailer, as Aunt Harmonica’s plan would take at least a week to put into effect. So we found a farmer who was happy to let us camp on his land, and we parked in a field by the side of a river.

It was a beautiful spot. In the evenings, as we waited for our dinner to be ready, we would sit and watch the cows amble back from their pasture. Then, as the shadows grew longer, Aunt Veronica would make a fire in a small ring of stones, and we would barbecue the juicy trout that we had caught in the river that afternoon.

In the mornings, while the two aunts talked, I would wander the fields and watch the rabbits darting in and out of their burrows. I would also pick wildflowers, which I brought back and arranged in vases in the trailer, or, sometimes, if I was feeling energetic, I would help the farmer’s wife weed her vegetable patch and feed her ducks.

But while all this was going on, our plan to find Aunt Majolica was in full swing, and it’s time for you to hear about it.

That first morning when Aunt Harmonica had explained her idea, we went to the office of the local newspaper and put in an advertisement. At the same time, Aunt Veronica paid for advertisements to be placed in ten other newspapers in nearby towns. Each of them said the same thing:

Now, five days later, we were beginning to wonder when we would hear. Aunt
Harmonica had told the post office where we were staying, and at last, at the end of the fifth day, a small van drew up at the edge of the field and a man called us over.

“I’ve got ten sacks of letters for you,” he said, looking quite hot and bothered about it. “It’s going to take me ages to carry them across to your trailer.”

Aunt Veronica shook her head.

“Give them to me,” she said firmly. “I’ll do it.”

The mailman laughed.

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said. “They’re very heavy. I’ll have to carry them.”

Aunt Veronica was used to this sort of thing, and so she wasted no time arguing. Going to the back of the van, she reached in for the sacks and was soon carrying them all under one arm. The man stood in amazement, his mouth wide open.

“That’s amazing,” he said. “Those sacks weigh a ton. You should be in a circus if you can do things like that.”

“She is,” I said.

Then, thanking him for delivering the letters, we went back to the trailer and began the immense task of sorting them out.

The letters came from all over the place. There was no alternative but to open each one and read what it had to say. Then we could put them into one of three piles. One pile was called “Definitely not Majolica.” Another pile was called “Might just be Majolica.” And the third pile, the important pile, we called “Sounds just like Majolica!”

My task was to open the letters. Then I handed them on to Aunt Veronica or Aunt Harmonica, who would skim through them and decide which pile to put them in. Some of the letters were very funny, and we all laughed as we heard of the bossy exploits of the bossy teachers. There was one who even tried to boss the school hamster and was bitten on the finger when she shook it at him. Then there was one who always said exactly the same bossy things at exactly the same time of day. This bossy teacher found that
her class was able to predict what she was going to say and said it for her even before she opened her mouth. She had to make up a whole new list of things about which to boss people after that.

We stopped for the night and continued the task the following day. Then, just before midday, I opened the last letter and handed it to Aunt Harmonica. This last letter did not count at all, as it was from someone who went to a school where there was a bossy dog. This dog barked at you if you did anything which it thought was wrong, and thus was very unpopular. The only thing that the children at that school liked about the school dog was that when visiting sports teams came to the school, the school dog would rush out and nip the ankles of the visitors while the game was being played. This meant that the visitors always lost, which made the school dog into something of a hero.

“Now,” said Aunt Harmonica, sounding very relieved, “let’s look at the third pile.”

There were only three letters in the third
pile and my aunts looked at them very carefully. They read them and then re-read them. Then they held them up to the light in the hope that that would help. At last, after much discussion between themselves, they chose one.

“This girl must be talking about Majolica,” said Aunt Veronica. “Look, she says here that this teacher goes red in the face when she starts to boss people around.”

“That’s exactly what Majolica used to do,” agreed Aunt Harmonica. “And look, she says that they even found her being bossy when nobody was there to boss around.”

“Majolica often used to do that,” said Aunt Veronica. “Yes. There’s no doubt about it. We’ve found our sister!”

We made a large bonfire of all the other letters and then prepared to leave the campsite. The letter had come from some distance away, and Aunt Veronica said that we would need quite some time for the journey. If we set off at once, we could find a place to stop overnight and would reach the school the next morning.

So we said good-bye to the farmer and thanked him for his kindness. Then we set off, the farmer standing on his doorstep looking very puzzled as to how the trailer made no noise when it moved. I waved to him from my window, and he waved back, but when I looked again he was scratching his head in utter bewilderment.

We found the school with little difficulty. It was midmorning by the time we arrived and so the children were all in their classrooms having lessons. I wondered what we were going to do next, but Aunt Veronica soon answered that question.

“We’ll stay right here,” she said. “When the children come out at lunchtime, we’ll see Majolica. I can guarantee that.”

I wasn’t sure what she meant, but I knew that things always seemed to work out with Aunt Veronica so I did not worry.

When we heard the lunch bell, Aunt Veronica got out of the trailer and stood at the
school gates. The gates were made of iron bars and over the years had become a bit twisted. They looked as if one or two cars had backed into them at times, and there were also places where bars had slipped out of their places and had not been put back.

Rolling up her sleeves, Aunt Veronica took out one of the misshapen bars and began to twist it back into shape. Some of the children noticed this, and came running to watch her. Soon others saw what was going on, and joined them. Within minutes, there was a large crowd cheering with delight as Aunt Veronica bent the gate back into proper shape.

There was the sound of a shrill voice from the other side of the playground. Out of the main door of the school, a large figure advanced purposefully.

“What are you doing, children?” the voice screeched. “Have you nothing better to do than hang around the gates? What about your lunch? How do you expect to grow properly if you don’t eat lunch? Well, come on, answer me!”

The figure paused, noticing what was attracting the children.

“And you!” the teacher shouted at Aunt Veronica. “Put the school gates down immediately! We simply won’t have people twisting the school gates like that! Did you hear me? Put those gates down at once! This instant!”

Aunt Veronica ignored the order and continued to twist the gates. She had almost finished, and the gates were beginning to look straight again.

“Did you not hear me?” barked the teacher, advancing toward Aunt Veronica. “Do I have to repeat everything several times? Is there something wrong with your ears, may I ask?”

Aunt Veronica gave a last great twist on the iron bars and then looked up. When the teacher saw her, she stopped in her tracks.

“Veronica!” she exclaimed.

Aunt Veronica’s face burst into a smile. “Majolica!”

Then Aunt Veronica rushed forward to hug her sister.

“She’s going to twist the teacher!” cried somebody in alarm. But when they saw the smile of delight on Aunt Majolica’s face, they knew that everything was all right.