Clementine Rose and the Famous Friend 7 (6 page)

Fortunately, no one else seemed terribly offended by Polly the Pomeranian. The guests were all chattering happily when Lady Clarissa returned with Mr and Mrs Biggins in tow.

‘I thought you were leaving,' Aunt Violet sniped.

‘No, your niece has kindly allowed us to stay. Polly's in our room,' the man said. ‘She won't be bothering you again.'

‘Clarissa, we have rules about pets,' Aunt
Violet began. ‘And this suit will not clean itself.'

Lady Clarissa ignored her aunt and walked to the other end of the dining room.

‘I'm happy to pay for your dry-cleaning, Miss Appleby,' Mr Biggins offered.

‘Oh, yes you … Oh. Right. Just as well, then.' Aunt Violet pulled a face and took a large gulp from the glass in front of her.

Clementine was watching Miss Richardson, who was quietly watching everyone else around the table. She looked serious again but Clementine remembered that she'd laughed when Polly popped up. Maybe she wasn't as cranky as Clementine had first thought. She could have one of those faces that looked cross even when she didn't mean to.

‘I thought Polly was funny too, Miss Richardson,' Clementine said to the woman. ‘It was just like a story Uncle Digby read with me last week. It was about a naughty dog who wriggled into the next door neighbour's house through the cat door and ate everything, including the father's socks.'

Miss Richardson frowned. ‘Did you like that story?'

Clementine nodded. ‘I loved it. It was
Melville the Mangy Mutt
by Agnes Wells. She's my favourite writer in the whole world. That's who I'm going to do my project on. I was about to say that when Polly escaped.'

A deep row of frown lines furrowed Miss Richardson's brow. ‘I thought children didn't like her books any more.'

Clementine shook her head. ‘I love them.'

‘Well.' A strange smile settled on the woman's lips. ‘That is a surprise.'

‘Do you know her?' Clementine asked.

‘I did a long time ago,' Miss Richardson replied.

Mrs Lee smiled. ‘I loved her books when I was a little girl too, Clementine. They were old-fashioned romps even –'

Mrs Morley interrupted her. ‘I've heard she's a crotchety old thing. Doesn't like children at all. Imagine that! Not like my Dennis. He adores children and they adore him.'

‘Who told you that?' Miss Richardson asked.

‘There was that article about her in the newspaper recently. The journalist said that her books were dull and old-fashioned and showed no love of children at all. If I were her I'd retire to the seaside and forget about writing another thing.'

Miss Richardson's face fell. ‘You shouldn't always believe everything you read, Mrs Morley.'

Clementine's eyes were wide. ‘Could you help me with my project, Miss Richardson?'

Lady Clarissa had been listening to the conversation too. ‘Clementine, Miss Richardson doesn't have time for that. She's very busy working on her book.'

Miss Richardson didn't say a word. She simply focused on the passionfruit cheesecake that Uncle Digby had just put down in front of her.

‘Oh well, Mr Smee will help me,' Clementine said. ‘And Uncle Digby.'

Digby Pertwhistle gave the girl a wink.

The rest of the weekend whizzed by. Apart from Miss Richardson, all the guests were gone by midday on Sunday. Clementine was disappointed not to see Polly again but Mr and Mrs Biggins had left first thing on Saturday morning. Mr Biggins was true to his word and left an envelope with a rather large sum of money to pay for Aunt Violet's dry-cleaning. On Sunday Ana had telephoned to invite Clementine around. She had spent the day with the Hobbs children, exploring their
garden by the stream and playing in the newly built tree house.

On Monday morning, twenty pairs of eager eyes greeted their teacher in the Year One classroom. ‘Good morning, Mr Smee,' the children chorused.

Clementine thought he looked especially handsome today with his red polka-dot tie.

‘Did everyone have a chance to think about their Famous Friend project over the weekend?' the teacher asked.

The children nodded.

‘Well, I'm keen to know who you've chosen.' Mr Smee pointed to Angus. ‘Who's your famous friend?'

‘I'm doing Hedley Humphrey,' said Angus. ‘He was a famous mountain climber.'

The teacher nodded. ‘Good choice. Have you thought about what you're going to wear?'

Angus's eyes lit up. ‘Yup. I've already got some ropes too, and Dad said that I could borrow a pickaxe but I'm the only one allowed to touch it.'

Mr Smee frowned. He'd speak to Angus's dad about that. ‘What about you, Clementine?'

‘I'm going to be Agnes Wells,' the child replied.

‘I loved her books when I was a little boy but I didn't know kids still read them today. I think she's gone out of fashion, although I don't know why. Maybe we could read one of her books together in class.'

Clementine nodded. ‘That's a great idea. But I don't know anything about her apart from her books. Can you help me find out some more things about her, Mr Smee?'

‘Sure can, Clemmie. We'll do that this afternoon. Miss Critchley is going to help us too.'

The morning sped past. Mr Smee led the children through all sorts of reading, writing and mathematics activities. After morning tea there was singing and craft. Finally, after lunch, the children met Mr Smee and Miss Critchley outside the library.

The head teacher was very impressed with
the famous friends the students had chosen, apart from Joshua's pick. Once she and Mr Smee convinced him that Batman wasn't a real person, it was time to get down to work. Tilda's job was easy because she was doing her project on her mother. But Mr Smee said that she still had to write her talk and work out how she was going to present it to the group. Tilda was planning to give the audience a short ballet lesson.

‘Where can we find out about Miss Wells?' Clementine asked Mr Smee.

‘Sometimes there are facts about authors at the back of their books,' he said. ‘And why don't we type her name into the computer and see what comes up?'

Clementine flipped to the back cover of the book she'd found on the shelf. There was a black-and-white photograph of a serious-looking young woman. Her hair was pulled back and she wore glasses on the tip of her nose. Pinned to her lapel was a sparkly brooch in the shape of a heart.

Clementine began to read the words aloud, sounding out the hard ones she didn't know. ‘It says that Miss Wells has written lots of books and she lives in the city.'

‘Mmm.' Mr Smee scratched his chin. ‘I've just printed something off for you, but I'm afraid it doesn't tell us much. Miss Wells seems to be a very private person.'

‘Could I just say a few things about her and then recite one of her poems for my presentation?' Clementine asked.

‘That's a great idea,' Mr Smee agreed. ‘You only have a minute or two anyway, or the assembly will go all afternoon.'

Mrs Bottomley's head appeared over the top of one of the bookshelves. ‘Yes, and we wouldn't want that, would we Mr Smee?'

‘Oh, hello Ethel,' he said.

‘It's Mrs Bottomley, thank you,' the woman snapped. ‘Next thing the children will be calling you Roderick. Jolly hippy.'

Mr Smee waggled his eyebrows at Clementine, who tried not to laugh.

‘What are you doing over here anyway?' Mrs Bottomley demanded. ‘I was planning to bring Kindergarten for story time.'

‘I'm sorry, Mrs Bottomley,' said Mr Smee. ‘I booked the library so that Year One could start their projects.'

‘No, you didn't. I can't see your name anywhere on this list.'

‘I think you'll find that's last week's sheet,' Mr Smee said.

Ethel Bottomley scanned the page. She squeezed her lips tightly. ‘Oh. I'll just take a book back to class with me then.'

Before she left, Mrs Bottomley scribbled ‘Kindergarten' into every afternoon slot for the rest of the week.

Clementine stood in the middle of the front stairs, looking up at her grandparents' portraits. She was practising a poem for Friday's presentation, but something wouldn't stick. She recited the first verse then her mind went blank again.

‘It's hopeless,' she said and stamped her foot.

Clementine hadn't noticed Miss Richardson standing on the landing. The woman had spent most of the week hidden in her room, but
Clementine had bumped into her in the garden a couple of times. On those occasions they'd talked a little, but whenever Clementine asked about Miss Wells, the woman made an excuse and scurried off as fast as her little legs would carry her.

Clementine started the poem from the beginning again. She stopped at exactly the same place.

‘And just as quick, you save the day, and make the bad things go away,'
a voice said from upstairs.

Clementine turned and saw the grey-haired woman. ‘Oh, thank you, Miss Richardson. I don't know why I can't remember.'

‘Why don't you think about the last word in each line because those are the ones that rhyme. That might help.'

‘That's a great idea,' Clementine enthused. She recited the lines to her grand father's portrait. ‘Did you hear that Grandpa? I remembered. How do you know that poem?' She turned to look back at Miss Richardson
but the woman had gone. ‘Thank you, Miss Richardson,' Clementine called, hoping that wherever she was she heard it.

‘Who are you talking to?' Aunt Violet asked as she appeared on the landing above Clementine.

‘Miss Richardson just helped me remember my poem. Do you want to hear it?'

‘No, not especially,' said Aunt Violet as she stomped past. Clementine sighed loudly and her great-aunt turned around. ‘It's not that I don't want to hear it, Clementine, it's just that I thought I'd save it until the performance at school.'

‘Are you coming?' Clementine was surprised to hear it.

‘I thought the invitation said that all members of the family were welcome,' the old woman remarked.

‘It did,' said Clementine. ‘But you don't usually like coming to my school things and I thought you were mad at me because I'm not doing my project on you.'

‘All right then, fussy pants, I won't come,' Aunt Violet sniffed and strode across the foyer.

‘But Aunt Violet, I want you to,' Clementine called after her.

The woman stopped. She spun around and stared up at the blonde-haired child. ‘Do you mean that?'

Clementine nodded. ‘Yes, of course I do.'

‘I'll come then. But only because you begged me to.' Aunt Violet turned once more, opened the front door and disappeared outside.

Clementine was confused. ‘Was she always so tricky, Grandpa?' She could have sworn she saw the old man nodding his head.