I Conquer Britain (3 page)

I repeated all my new words over in my head as I steamed towards customs.
Holiday… brilliant… trolley… cert… dead cool… Holiday… brilliant… trolley… cert… dead cool…
I couldn’t wait to get out of the airport. I picked up speed.

From the expression on the face of the customs inspector, I figured his job was a grim and unhappy one, and that his life outside of Terminal Three probably wasn’t much better. He waved me over with a flick of his fingers as soon as I stepped through the doorway.

“You don’t mind if I take a look in your bags, do you?”

I did mind. My destiny was waiting for me. I said that to tell him the truth I was kind of in a hurry.

He nodded. “I noticed that.”

I said that if it was all the same to him I’d just as soon skip it this time because not only my destiny but the Pitt-Turnbulls were waiting for me.

He nodded again. “We’ll start with the box of peaches, shall we?”

I tried to reason with him. I said I took the green lane because I didn’t have anything to declare.

“Look at me!” I cried. “Do I look like I’m smuggling drugs or guns or stuff like that?”

He said I’d be amazed what he’d seen in his hundreds of years of going through other people’s belongings. He said he reckoned that anything was possible.

I said I’d be willing to swear on the Bible that he could trust me. But reason never works with most adults I’ve tried it on, and it didn’t work with him.

He waved at my cart. “We’ll just have a little look to make certain.”

Nothing ever goes the way it’s supposed to with my family. When you live with people like that you learn to take disaster pretty much in your stride. It’s why I’m so adaptable. “OK,” I sighed, “but I really hate to see you wasting your valuable time.” I heaved the box onto the counter.

“I’ve only ever been searched once before,” I told him as he started to untie the string around the box as if he was defusing a bomb. “When we drove into Mexico by mistake. My mother has no sense of direction.”

“Is that so?” He took out the presents from Gallup and Tampa.

“She’s totally hopeless. She can’t even find Brooklyn without a map, and we’ve lived there for six years.”

He looked at Gallup’s painting for a few seconds, then he opened Tampa’s box.

“Anyway,” I went on, “even though we were only in Mexico for like ten minutes they tore the whole van apart.”

He moved on to my CD player and CDs. “And did they find anything?” he asked without looking up.

“Of course not. We hadn’t been there long enough to buy a taco.”

Next he took my make-up and toilet bag and the books I’d brought along for all those quiet English afternoons sitting in the garden sipping tea.

“It was all pretty traumatic. They kept asking us how long we’d been in Mexico and Jake kept saying five minutes.”

Next came my jewellery bag and the candles and charms I use for my altar to the Earth Goddess.

“I believe in keeping my spiritual self in touch with the cosmos,” I explained. “You can’t live just on bread, can you?”

The inspector said, “Ummm.” Then he reached in and took out the woven bag Sal brought me back from Thailand.

“You’d don’t have to look in there—”

He pulled out a strip of rag and held it up. It looked pretty grubby hanging from his hand like that. “And this is?” There were long, dark hairs wound around it.

It wasn’t like I hadn’t tried to warn him. “That’s for my hair. You know, to make it wavy?”

He dropped the rag back in the bag. “In this country we have curlers.”

He finally came to the black velvet bag covered with stars that Sky gave me for Christmas. “And what have we here?”

“That’s my herbs and oils and stuff like that.”

The oils were in tiny blue bottles and I’d put the herbs in old film canisters.

He opened one of the bottles and sniffed. “I think you’d better come with me.”

He took me into this windowless room with fluorescent lights like in some cop show. The only furniture was a big formica table and a couple of plastic chairs. It was about as cheerful as a morgue. I figured I was lucky I was in the most civilized country in the world or I might really be in trouble.

He took everything out of my duffel (including the stuff I hadn’t exactly had time to wash before I left and my yoga mat) and spread it all out on the table. All the while he was doing that he was asking me every dumb question he could think of.

Where was I going?

(Well, where did he think I was going, Katmandu? Um, duh… Don’t tell me I got off at the wrong stop?)

I said London.

Where had I come from?

(A night of passion between my parents sixteen years ago near the Cherokee Reservation – I’m lucky they weren’t near a Ford plant.)

I said New York.

Who packed my bag?

(The upstairs maid – couldn’t he tell I was way too busy having my summer designer wardrobe fitted to do it myself?)

I said that in my family, if you wanted something done you did it yourself.

Was my bag with me the whole time?

(No, it went to the airport by itself.)

I said of course not, they put it in the hold with everybody else’s luggage.

It went on like that for about a hundred and fifty years. I was just about to walk out and find a toilet when the door opened and another customs guy came in.

He smiled at me. “I’m Mr Wottle.” He didn’t smile at the inspector. “What’s going on here?”

The inspector told him what was going on.

Mr Wottle looked at all my stuff and then he looked at me and then he looked at the inspector again. “Have you gone mad? She’s just a girl.”

The inspector said that they have soldiers in Africa who are only eight years old.

“Not wearing lace skirts they don’t,” said Mr Wottle.

The inspector held up my velvet bag. “She’s got some suspicious substances in here.”

I said I didn’t. I said what I had was essential oils and the herbs I use when I’m making spells. “Change can be stressful,” I explained. “I figured I might need some help from the Earth Goddess.”

Mr Wottle had a sigh a lot like my mother’s. “I’ll take it from here,” he said to the inspector. He nodded towards the door. “You go back to your station.”

Mr Wottle was a lot more user-friendly than the inspector. I told him all about how I’d come to London because I was swapping lives with Sophie Pitt-Turnbull, just like in a reality TV show.

“Her parents are Robert and Caroline,” I said. “He’s a writer and she’s a painter. Just like my parents.” Which was just about all I knew about them except that Caroline used to drink Pimms and lemonade and like ABBA and Robert doesn’t write travel books (which is what Sal writes) but novels.

Mr Wottle was worried that the Pitt-Turnbulls might have thought I’d missed my flight and given up and gone home.

“I’ll go with you, see you’re all right,” he said as he helped me repack my stuff. “If they’re not there, I’ll put you in a cab myself.”

To tell you the truth, I’d been a little bummed out by the inspector and all his questions and his sniffing and him giving me the evil eye and everything. I’d started to think that maybe I should’ve stayed in Brooklyn after all if this was the kind of reception I was going to get. But Mr Wottle restored my good spirits. Except for the accent (which also wasn’t anything like Mr Young’s) and the fact that he was bald as a pool ball Mr Wottle reminded me of Grandpa Gene. I was sure that everything was going to be totally Boom Shiva from then on.

Living up to the reputation the English have for being gentlemen, Mr Wottle insisted on pushing my cart.

“She was a lot like you when she was your age, our Gem,” Mr Wottle was saying as we stepped into the arrival area. “The hair and the clothes and the make-up and all. Had to go all the way into London to get her a pair of Goth boots for her birthday one year. Sprained her ankle twice the first week.”

That’s when I spotted the Pitt-Turnbulls standing behind the barricade. They didn’t look like a writer and an artist (not any writer or artist I’d ever lived with). He was wearing slacks and a jacket (a jacket in July – I figured that was what Mr Young meant by civilized) and she was wearing this flowery dress and a string of pearls. They looked like they were going to a wedding (which is the only time either of my rents would ever get that dressed up). If Caroline hadn’t been holding a sign that said Cherry Salamanca on it in really neat lettering you would have thought that they’d wound up at the airport by mistake. This wasn’t really what I was expecting. What I was expecting was a couple pretty much like Jake and Sal (only English of course and not so financially challenged). But I could tell right away that the Pitt-Turnbulls weren’t
anything
like the Salamancas. They looked so straight and totally normal that they could have stepped out of a fifties sitcom (you know, where nobody ever shouts or argues or has a really bad day). I wasn’t discouraged by this, though. First of all, I figure that everyone has hidden depths. You think you know what a person’s like by looking at them, but you don’t. You just know what they look like. A person can look like a bum but have the heart and soul of a saint. And a person can look like the most respectable person in the world and be a total, lying crook. Second of all, I decided that this normal thing was really a bonus, since I was used to abnormal.

Caroline was smiling but it wasn’t what you’d call a happy smile. It was the kind of smile you make when you realize you’re on the wrong bus. You know, like you have no idea where you’re going but you know you’re going to be really late for something earthshakingly important and that something really cosmically awful is going to happen but you hope that if you keep smiling it won’t be as bad as you think.

Robert’s smile was more like his pants were too tight.

I decided that the only thing to do was convince them really fast that even though I probably wasn’t anything like their daughter they weren’t going to regret taking me into the bosom of their family. I waved. “Yo!” I shouted. “Here I am!”

Caroline saw my hand moving back and forth. Her smile pretty much went into rigor mortis. And her elbow went into Robert’s ribs. He looked over and totally stopped smiling. Caroline’s fingers fluttered in my direction.

You had to feel sorry for them. I mean, we were pretty much in the same boat, really. They were expecting somebody like their daughter (which meant they were doomed to incredible disappointment). And also they didn’t look really adaptable.

“You won’t believe what happened!” I cried cheerfully as Mr Wottle and I reached the Pitt-Turnbulls. I went to hug Caroline, but she was pretty fast for someone who dressed up to go to the airport and dodged out of my way. She kissed the air on each side of my head instead. I figured this must be some English thing and kissed the air on each side of her head. It seemed to work.

Caroline welcomed me to London. “Robert.” She touched his arm. “Robert, this is Cherry.”

Like he couldn’t figure that out for himself.

Robert nodded. “Well … well…”

The way he was looking at me, you’d think he hadn’t known whether he was expecting a Masai warrior or a teenage girl.

“We were beginning to get worried about you.” Caroline’s mouth was still smiling but her voice was wringing its hands. “Weren’t we, darling?” Darling nodded. Caroline turned to Mr Wottle. “She hasn’t been arrested, has she?”

Mr Wottle and I both laughed, but you could tell that Caroline wasn’t trying to dazzle us with her incredible sense of humour.

“Oh, no, no,” Mr Wottle assured her, “nothing like that. We’ve just got to be a bit thorough these days…You know, terrorists and all.”

Robert was staring at my eye make-up so hard that I figured my mascara must’ve run or something. “Well, you certainly know how to make an entrance,” he said to me.

“I am sorry if there’s been some bother…” Caroline managed to look at me and Mr Wottle at the same time, which made it hard to tell which of us she was apologizing to.

“No bother.” Mr Wottle touched my shoulder. “It’s just that the young lady has an intriguing assortment of potions with her. Made the inspector a trifle nervous.”

“It’s incredible!” I laughed again. “They thought I was smuggling drugs! Can you believe it? Me! I don’t even take prescription medicines.”

Robert however was nodding like this came as no surprise to him. “Did they now?”

“Oh, how dreadful for you,” murmured Caroline. “You poor thing.”

I didn’t want her to think me and England had gotten off on the wrong foot or anything. “Oh, it wasn’t dreadful. It was great, wasn’t it, Charley? I haven’t laughed so much since the time Gallup put Houdini in Big El’s car.”

Caroline was the most determined smiler I’d ever met. “Houdini?”

“Houdini’s Gallup’s rooster,” I explained. “And Big El’s our landlord.”

“Of course,” muttered Robert.

“We had a good laugh, right enough,” said Mr Wottle.

I said I couldn’t wait to tell Jake and Bachman.

“Jake?” Caroline blinked. “Bachman?”

“Jake, you know, my mom? Your friend?”

“Oh, Jacqueline!” Caroline made a sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a sneeze. “I didn’t realize…” Her smile fluttered. “Sophie calls me Mum.”

“A rose by any other name,” I said. “And Bachman, he’s my best friend. He’s promised to keep an eye on Soph while she’s in Brookyln. You know, make sure she doesn’t die of mega-boredom or anything.”

Caroline didn’t really look like this was the best news she’d ever heard but she kept on smiling. “Why, how kind of you.”

“So, are these your bags?” I could tell from his voice that Robert was a man who believed in regular suitcases, probably matching. “The big one looks like it’s been in a war.”

I said that it had. “It was in Vietnam with Grandpa Gene. He still won’t use chopsticks because of what happened to him.”

“Well, then…” Robert looked at Mr Wottle. “Perhaps we’d best be getting on. Let you get back to work.”

After Mr Wottle made his goodbyes, Caroline turned back to me and said she was sorry about the rain. “I was so hoping it would be nice for your arrival.”

I’d never had anyone apologize to me about the weather before either. “That’s OK. We have rain in Brooklyn.”