Emily's Penny Dreadful

Emily’s Penny Dreadful

More books by the same
author

Emily’s Penny
Dreadful

Bill Nagelkerke

This e-book edition first
published in 2016 by Bill Nagelkerke.

Copyright 2016 Bill
Nagelkerke

Emily's Penny
Dreadful

ISBN-13:
9781311250568

The moral rights of the
author have been asserted. This book is copyright. All rights
reserved. Except for the purposes of fair reviewing, no part of
this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without
permission in writing from the copyright owner and the publisher of
the book.

PART ONE

UNCLE RAYMOND ARRIVES

 
Chapter
One             
             

Emily had never, ever heard of a Penny
Dreadful, not until the day Uncle Raymond and Auntie Dot
arrived.

The week before, almost a year to the day
since Gran died, Uncle Raymond and Auntie Dot’s home had burnt to
the ground. Emily’s mum - who was Uncle Raymond’s sister - had
immediately insisted that Uncle Raymond and Auntie Dot come and
stay with them.

  “
I like Auntie Dot a
lot,” said Emily, when she heard the news from her sister Sibbie,
“but not Uncle Raymond. Not very much.”

  “
You never have,”
Sibbie reminded her. “Not even when you were a baby. He made you
grizzle and cry.”

  “
Why was that?”
asked Emily.

“
He pulled funny faces at
you,” Sibbie explained, and

“
you were
scared.”

  “
I’m not scared of
him now,” Emily said. “I just think he’s grumpy. And he still pulls
faces, except they’re not funny. They probably never
were.”

  “
I
thought they were,” said Sibbie.
“And I can remember them better than you can.”

“
I don’t remember the early
ones at all,” said Emily.

“
That’s because you were a
baby. Babies don’t remember anything. People who write books are
always grumpy,” Sibbie added. “They can’t help it. They suffer from
brain-strain, Dad says so.”

  “
At Gran’s funeral
everyone was sad but Uncle Raymond stayed grumpy,” Emily
remembered.

  “
That’s just the way
he is,” said Sibbie. “You’re grumpy too, a lot of the time. And you
love writing stories, so you’ll probably turn out just like Uncle
Raymond.”

  “
I won’t,” Emily
insisted. “I’m only grumpy now because I’ve had to move back in
with you.”

  “
Hmm,” said
Sibbie.

“
Uncle Raymond says that a
lot,” Emily pointed out.

“
So does
Mum. Maybe
you’re
the one who’s like

Uncle Raymond.”

  “
Huh! No way!” said Sibbie. She went on: “Chances are that
Uncle Raymond will be extra grumpy because he and Aunty Dot are
having to move in with
us
.”

“
Why do
they
have
to?”
asked Emily. “When they came for Gran’s funeral, they stayed in a
motel. Dad said Uncle Raymond didn’t even
want
to stay with
us.”

  “
I don’t blame him,”
said Sibbie. “Who’d want to listen to you babbling on day and
night?”

  “
I don’t babble,”
exclaimed Emily. “That’s just for babies. I have
conversations.”

“
Is that what you call
them,” said Sibbie. “At the funeral I heard Uncle Raymond say to
Mum that you were precocious.”

 
Emily considered.
“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

  “
The way Uncle
Raymond said it, it sounded bad.”

  “
I don’t like Uncle
Raymond very much,” Emily said again.  

“
He does talk like he’s
swallowed a dictionary,” said Sibbie. “Anyway, motels cost a lot.
And, according to Mum, Auntie Dot and Uncle Raymond have had a
big

shock. Mum thinks it will
be best for them to be

around family for a while.
It won’t be forever.”

“
It better not be,” said
Emily. “How do you spell precocious?”

  “
P R E C O . . .
that’s how it starts, I think,” said Sibbie.

 
Emily went to check
in her dictionary.

 
It was her favourite
book.

Chapter
Two             
             

“
The man’s a paid-up member
of the Grammar Police,” Emily heard Dad complain to Mum that
morning. “He really gets up my nose.”

  “
Who are the Grammar
Police?” Emily asked. “And what man are you talking
about?”

  “
Uncle Raymond of
course. And the Grammar Police are people who not only mind their
own ‘p’s and ‘q’s but everybody else’s as well,” complained Dad.
“Last time he was here, Raymond told me off for saying ‘my wife and
me’ when apparently I should have said ‘my wife and I’. Ridiculous!
As if things like that matter. It’s a load of old tosh.”

  “
Oh,’ said Emily.
“Sibbie said I might turn out like Uncle Raymond. Does that mean I
get up your nose, too?”

  “
You’re nothing at
all like Uncle Raymond!” said Dad.

 
He kissed the top of
Emily’s head and hurried off to work.

 
Mum winked at Emily.
“Don’t look so worried,” she

said. “Your Dad and Uncle Raymond manage to
get

on well enough if they have
to. And they
will
have to, for the next little while at least.”

  “
Am
I like Uncle Raymond?” Emily
asked her mother. 

  “
You’re very
different, believe me,” her mother answered.

*

Dad wasn’t home from work yet when Uncle
Raymond and Auntie Dot arrived.

 
Mum and Auntie Dot,
as well as Sibbie, sat down at the kitchen table and got talking
straight away.

 
Uncle Raymond and
Emily stood back from the huddle. They both looked grumpy. Uncle
Raymond had something clenched under one armpit. He seemed to have
put on even more weight since Emily had seen him last.

  “
She likes to
pretend she’s grown up,” Emily whispered to Uncle
Raymond.

  “
Who?”

  “
My sister. But she
isn’t. Grown up, I mean.”

“
Of course she isn’t,” said
Uncle Raymond. “I suppose she suffers from delusions of
grandeur?”

  “
Yes,” said
Emily.

Mum paused midsentence. “Why don’t you show
Uncle Raymond the room he and Auntie Dot are going to have,” she
told Emily.

  “
My
room,” said
Emily.

“
There’s really no need to
show me,” said Uncle Raymond. “I still know my way
around.”

  “
I’d better,” said
Emily. “I have to explain what you’re allowed and not allowed to
move around in my room.”

 
Uncle Raymond
grunted. “Very well.” He pulled a face.

  “
Don’t do that!”
Emily said. “I might grizzle and cry.”

“
What are you talking
about?” said Uncle Raymond.

  “
You made me grizzle
and cry when I was a baby,” Emily explained.

  “
Did I? I don’t
remember. All babies grizzle and cry, surely?”

“
According to Sibbie, you
pulled funny faces, that’s why,” said Emily. “Just like you did
now. Except that one wasn’t funny. It was an ‘I don’t like that’
sort of face.”

  “
I wasn’t pulling a
face,” Uncle Raymond said,

immediately pulling another one. He followed
Emily down the hall. “Was I?” he asked.

Emily turned round and
nodded.

  “
Hmm,” said Uncle
Raymond.

Chapter Three

Emily stopped outside the door. “Here is
it,” she said.

  “
Thank you,” replied
Uncle Raymond, in the careful and precise way that Emily remembered
so well from the funeral. “As I told your mother, I remember the
layout of this house from our last visit. I presume nothing has
changed since then. The rooms have not shifted position, have they?
Presumably the hallway still runs north to south? The French doors
still open outwards and close inwards? The windows are still made
of glass? The yappy little fox terrier next door is still barking
mad? In fact, is that what I hear now?”

 
Emily looked sternly at Uncle Raymond. “That’s
definitely
not funny,”
she said. “Bertie is my most favourite dog. He’s teaching me to
bark.”

  “
I
wasn’t being funny,” said Uncle Raymond. “Teaching you to do
what
?”

  “
Bark. But everything
has
changed,” said Emily. “This is my room
now.”

 
Uncle Raymond
sighed. “You said so just a moment before, somewhat emphatically.
There’s no need to repeat yourself.”

  “
But I have to say
it more than once,” Emily pointed out. “If I don’t, you might end
up staying forever. In that case, I’ll never get my room
back.”

  “
I see,” said Uncle
Raymond. “Forever isn’t even a remote possibility, let me assure
you.”

Emily nodded. “Last time
this was Sibbie’s room as well as mine,” she said. “That was before
Dad turned the sunroom into a bedroom for her. He finished only two
weeks ago last Saturday. That’s how long this room’s been
completely mine. Not long at all.”

  “
I appreciate your
great sacrifice,” said Uncle Raymond. “Satisfied?”

  “
Mum and Dad said I
had
to give it up,” said Emily. She gave Uncle
Raymond a fierce look. “I’ve had to move back in with Sibs and her
sunroom is tiny compared to this.”

  “
Compared
with
, not
to
,”
Uncle Raymond replied, using his most pompous voice.
“
To
is the
preposition to use when you are comparing two things that are
essentially different.”

  “
That’s grammar,
isn’t it?” Emily asked.

  “
Without a doubt,”
said Uncle Raymond.

  “
Dad said you’re a
paid-up member of the Grammar

Police,” said Emily.

  “
Did he,
indeed?”

 
Emily nodded. “He
said it was ridiculous. And a load of old tosh.”

  “
Did he?’ Uncle
Raymond repeated. He pulled another ‘I don’t like that’
face.

 
Emily nodded again.
“But our teacher once told us that the police are there to help
people. And she thinks grammar’s important. So what you’re doing
must be okay.”