Ondine (9 page)

‘Is Auntie Col coming here tonight?' Shambles asked out loud. ‘Could she turn me back?'

Ondine froze for a moment. Shambles wanted to be a real man again. Which meant she'd finally get to see what he looked like. In her mind, she'd begun
giving him features she found pleasing. But what if the end result fell short? What if he was – gulp – gobsmackingly ugly? In her heart, she knew that was a selfish way of looking at things. Shambles was entitled to his former life. He should be allowed to be himself again no matter what he looked like.

It's the personality, not the package that counts.

Another sad thought popped into her head.
If Shambles becomes human again, there'll definitely be no more snuggling in bed
.

She shook the imaginings from her mind in the same way she shook the dust from the old curtains.

‘Becoming human again is a good idea, Shambles. We could do with the extra manpower,' Ma said.

Typical Ma.

‘Hey, look at this,' Marguerite interrupted. She held up a sheet of old newspaper. Because it had been protected from sunlight, the paper had retained its original off-white colour, and the contrasting black text was easy to read. ‘It's an obituary of the old Duke of Brugel. Must be the current Duke's father. Oh, and it's a juicy one too. Listen to this: it says he died without
having to answer to charges of embezzlement.'

‘Keep hold of that. It might come in handy,' Da said.

‘So might this,' Thomas said, lifting up a section of exposed floorboard. ‘There's something down here.'

Working together, Da and Thomas pulled up another two boards. All of them were cut into short lengths, as if designed to come away together.

In the cobwebby recesses beneath the bar-room floor lay a large metal box. It reminded Ondine of the deposit box in the kitchen, where they put all their money for safe-keeping until the banks opened on Monday.
²⁹
The mysterious box was so heavy they called in Chef to help them lift it out. The men grunted and groaned, pulled it free with an ‘oomph', then dropped the box at their feet.

More dust billowed.

A tingle of excitement crept into Ondine's throat – and it wasn't just the dust – as she began to imagine what might be in the box.

‘What's in it?' Marguerite asked the hushed room.

In a flash, Shambles dropped down from Ondine's shoulder and clambered on to the box, chewing at its leather straps until they came free. Thomas and Josef lifted the lid. Their mouths fell open. So did Ondine's. And Ma's, and Marguerite's. Even Shambles's wee furry mouth, full of nippy fangs and a little pink tongue, gaped in shock.

‘Saturn's rings!' Ondine gasped.

‘Looks like we've found a way to pay for the renovations,' Da said.

‘What did I tell you? I knew Shambles would bring us good luck,' Ma said.

 

25
The spell checker thinks this should be ‘cleric' but religion has nothing to do with this. ‘Skerrick' means scrap, as in scrap of paper, scrap of cloth or scrap of information.

26
Always have a big breakfast. It gets the metabolism going for the day and helps you think straight. Skip breakfast and you lose ten IQ points.

27
It was for twelve people.

28
In a parallel universe, Ondine remained at Psychic Summercamp and failed all her subjects, then returned home to find a pile of smouldering ash where the hotel and her home used to be. Josef had walked into the kitchen and discovered Cybelle and Chef in a passionate embrace. He'd lost his temper and thrown the nearest thing to hand – a jug of water – at the pair of them. The jug missed its target and landed in the roiling deep fryer, which exploded and set the kitchen on fire. They didn't know the health inspector was due to arrive the next morning, but in any case, his visit was a moot point.

In yet another parallel universe, the health inspector decided to arrive two weeks early and was hit by the 7.05 express as he attempted to cross the train tracks. This was because the pedestrian walkway hadn't opened yet.

29
In Brugel banks are open on Mondays from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., Tuesdays from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., Thursdays and Fridays from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Closed Wednesdays and weekends.

As an interesting side note to history, Brugel's Prime Minister vetoed Euros after he saw the first pressing of Brugel's 20-cent Euro coin featuring a banker in a hammock. The coins were withdrawn from circulation, but are available for bids over US$20 on eBay. Bidders should contact user profile pmforlifeme for more details.

T
he contents of the box gleamed in the afternoon sunlight shining through the front windows. Gold rings. Bracelets. Fine threads of necklaces studded with diamonds. Brooches. Earrings with drop pearls. A tiara with red gems that might have been rubies – Ondine couldn't tell. Not a tangled mess, as you might expect, but all sorted and segmented into neat little compartments. Underneath the tray of gleaming jewellery they found wads of banknotes, stamped with faces and places on them, which Ondine didn't recognise. They must have been made before the currency changed.
³⁰

‘Do pirates come this far inland?' Cybelle held up a necklace with a delicate anchor-shaped charm at the clasp. The anchor spun back and forth, catching the light. Strange that the main feature of the necklace should be at the back, until Ondine realised it was designed to be worn with your hair up.

Marguerite stepped closer to admire the booty. ‘Do we invoke the international treaty of “finders keepers”?'

Unable to stop herself, Ondine reached forwards and picked up a couple of elegant necklaces. One looked as delicate and complicated as a crocheted doily, if you could make a doily from spun silver then BeDazzle
³¹
it with diamonds.

Ma sounded out of breath. ‘Let's just think about this for a minute. Think about where all of this may have come from.'

Ondine could have sworn she saw a gob of spittle dart from her mother's mouth, as if she were salivating over their new-found riches. Nobody else took any
notice of her – they were all too busy making strange ‘ooh' noises and admiring piece after piece.

‘Let's move it to the back room for the moment, so we can keep working on the clean-up,' Ma said at last.

‘Er, no, my love, I think this means work stops for the day,' Da said, rubbing his hand over his chin in thought.

‘Have ye all lawst yer minds?' Shambles said, climbing Ondine's shoulder. ‘There's a halth inspecta coming.'

Ondine shook her head to try and grab hold of her senses again. ‘Um, everyone, Shambles just made a good point: we need to hide the loot from the health inspector.' She too found herself caught in the web of admiration. The next object she picked up was a simple bracelet made from braided gold. She couldn't help testing the latch to see if it would fit around her wrist.

‘Stop thinking how good it looks on ye,' Shambles warned.

With reluctance she put the fine piece back in the box.

Ma took a deep breath and stepped back. ‘Chef,
Thomas, Josef, get that box out the back somewhere safe. We'll keep going with the cleaning up in here.'

A heavy creak of timber provided an immediate stop to the discussion, as the front door pushed open to reveal a suit-clad woman (and not the man they'd been expecting) holding a clipboard. A pair of soda-bottle thick, tortoiseshell-rimmed glasses sat on the bridge of her thin nose, making her deep grey eyes appear much larger than they should.

In a flurry of movement, everyone tossed their jewels into the box. The men made themselves look busy. Ma and her daughters stood in front of the box to hide it.

Something about the woman looked odd to Ondine. It wasn't her short, salt-and-pepper hair or her enormously wide bottom and thighs, barely reined in by her too-tight skirt, although that did look weird. For a moment longer Ondine found herself staring, before she worked it out. The woman had no eyelashes at all.

‘Quick, make a distraction,' Shambles ordered.

Extending her hand in greeting, Ondine walked
towards their visitor. ‘Hello, you must be the health inspector. My name's Ondine and I've just come back from Psychic Summercamp. May I please read your palm? Oh, thank you,' she said, taking the woman's hand before she had time to refuse. All the while, Ondine's heart hammered behind her ribs, shocked at her own audaciousness.

‘You have a rodent on your shoulder,' the woman said, her eyelash-less eyes widening even more.

‘Grrrrr,' Shambles said.

Lurch
went Ondine's stomach. Perhaps the ferret on the shoulder wasn't such a good idea, hygiene-wise? ‘Oh please, pay him no mind – he's my familiar, and he's also my assignment from Summercamp. And he's a ferret, not a rodent. Member of the stoat and otter family; completely different species to rodents. They're very clean animals, ferrets. Can't speak for rats or mice though. Well, look here at your life line.' Ondine channelled her mother's skill of jumping from one subject to the next without pausing for breath.

It wasn't a case of seeing anything in the palm, because Ondine didn't have a clue what to look for.
It didn't matter – all she had to do was distract the woman, not divine her future. Which meant saying the the first thing that popped into her head.

‘You have three grown sons. The youngest is a teenager who is still at school, but the other two are older and have careers now.'

‘How did you know that?' the woman said, her steely grey eyes softening at the information. She still hadn't introduced herself, but that opportunity seemed to have passed.

Keep going, that's the best diversion.

‘You don't like what the eldest is doing. It's not that you disapprove, it's just that you worry about him. He is really happy because he's following his dream. The middle son is a bit of a plodder. He's good, but he's coasting along, isn't he? You know he can do better but he won't apply himself. The youngest is your baby, and always will be, but you need to let him grow up and make his own mistakes.'

‘Well, I'll be!' the woman said. ‘If you tell me what my name is then I'll really believe you're psychic.'

Something tingled inside Ondine, a mixture of full-blown
pride at her success so far and adrenalin at how daring she had become. ‘It's Wilma Klegg, but that doesn't make me psychic, merely observant. It's written on the top of your clipboard.' A smile of satisfaction spread over her face. A buzz of confidence filled her soul.

Hey, I can do this.

‘Ondine, please leave the health inspector alone, she has a job to do,' Ma said as she approached them. Her mother's voice sounded annoyed and imperious. To an outsider, it would seem like the mother was rescuing a visitor from a precocious child. However, the de Groot women knew Ondine had just saved them a whole heap of trouble.

As Ma led Mrs Klegg towards the kitchen, she turned back to Ondine and mouthed the words, ‘Thank you.'

‘Ye did well, lass. That was inspired, like.' Shambles gave her a wet, whiskery kiss on the cheek. ‘I'm really proud of ye.'

A little thrill of excitement raced through Ondine. ‘I just said whatever popped into my head. I guessed
she had kids, because you don't get thighs like that on a spinster. I took her right hand, and I saw the ring on it, with three sapphires, so I figured that she'd had three boys.'

‘Eh? Jewellery marks children?'

Ondine beamed. Who'd have thought she'd enjoy pretending to be psychic? ‘Why yes, Shambles. When a woman gives birth, the very least her devoted husband can do is to shower her in jewellery to mark the occasion. It's a very strong tradition in my family. Haven't you seen my ma's rings, with the rubies set in them? One ruby for each of us.'

‘Top marks for being observant. But what about all that guff about her boys and how she treats them?'

A chuckle escaped Ondine's lips as she bent down to the floor to scoop up mouldy newspapers for the fire, checking them first in case they contained anything juicy about the former Duke. ‘I just thought about the way Da thinks of us. I think I'm starting to work out why he's so strict with me. I'm his baby; he doesn't want me growing up too soon. When the first child leaves the nest, the parents fall over
themselves with worry. I just figured that if Mrs Klegg had three boys, and we're three girls, how different can it be? I just told her what she wanted to hear.'

‘Well then, yer truly psychic. The old lady Howser would be proud of ye.'

‘Mrs Howser?' Ondine thought of her Psychic Summercamp instructor. ‘I bet she hasn't even noticed I'm gone.'

With a pang she thought of her friend Melody, and how much she missed her.