Shrinking Violet (9 page)
Authors: Jean Ure
Hi, Katie!
You sound like you had really good fun at the party! My friend Sarah had a DJ last year but I don’t think it was the same one. I cannot remember his name, but he didn’t look like Prince Charles! I would remember if he had.
Our visit to the British Museum was totally brilliant! We saw all these ancient old mummies wrapped up in bandages. Quite s-s-s-Scary! But
very interesting, of course. Now we have to write our mummy stories. Lily says she is going to write one about a mummy that starts pouring “fountains of blood” out of his eyes. It is a mad mummy! Somehow or other it gets hold of a chain saw and starts running all about the museum sawing peoplein half. She says there are going to be “arms and legs chopped off and intestines spilling out”. You might think this shows what a great imagination she has, but in fact it was in a film we once saw, so all she is really doing is just copying.
My story is going to be about a sad mummy. He is a mummy who is suddenly brought back to life and can’t understand where he is, or why he is shut up in a glass case with everybody staring at him. He misses his wife and children! He doesn’t realise that he has been dead for thousands of years. I will have to work out a happy ending, though, as I wouldn’t want him to suffer for all eternity.
I must tell you that it was really funny, while we were at the museum. for starters, me and Sarah got a bit hyper on the train going there. We couldn’t stop giggling! We giggled at just about everything. Mrs Frost told us to behave ourselves or she would send us back to school, so that quietened us down a bit until we got to the museum and then, oh dear! We discovered a mummy that looked exactly like this really nerdy teacher that we have called Mr Spooner. He is very dry and withered, like a piece of old twig. Or like a mummy! If you wrapped him in bandages, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. It was Sarah that saw him first. She showed him to me, and before I could stop myself I had cried, “Mr Spooner! What is he doing here?” Everyone just collapsed into mad giggles. Even Mrs Frost nearly laughed, I
saw her lips twitch! She told us that we were the very worst bunch she had ever had to deal with.
I hope she doesn’t put it in my report!
We are just having half-term now. A week, after everyone else! I don’t know why we always seem to have different holidays from other schools. I am not doing anything special. Lily has gone away with one of her posh friends to a cottage they have. They are going to ride ponies and go to gymkhanas, and be all hectic. I could have gone if I had wanted, but I decided I would rather just stay at home. I have lots of things to do. Such as:
Sticking things in my scrapbook
Sorting photographs
Helping mum in Flora Green
Writing to you!
Please don’t worry about not having a computer. I would rather
write real letters and don’t mind if it is snail mail. I think that girl that you told me about, Carrie Francis, was extremely rude to say how did you survive.
Your maze that you sent me was HEAPS harder than the first one. I had to start it three times before I could find the way in. It was a really good one and I wish I could do one for you but I have tried and I can’t. So here is another word game. Can you find which flowers these are:
Uptil Sore Drogmail
foglevox Shopytalun
I think the last one is quite difficult!
Next weekend we are going to visit Little Nan and Popsy. (Popsy is what we call my granddad James.) It is Little Nan’s birthday. She will be the big six-oh. Sixty! All the family are going to be there. All my aunties and uncles and cousins. I will tell you about it.
I have been trying to think of a joke but I can’t so here are some book titles I have made up.
DOG’S DINNER by Nora Bone
HOLE IN THE BUCKET by Lee King
HOW TO GET RICH by Robin Banks (this one is my favourite!)
Now I have to go because Mum is calling that tea is ready. Bye for now!
xxxxxxxx Violet
PS The Lily that Lily is named after is not a droopy one but a big Spotty thing about 5 metres tall!
Friday morning, Lily came home from visiting Francine. Just in time for us all to go down to Nan and Popsy’s. Mum and Dad were both taking the day off work. Daphne, who looks after the shop when Mum is not there, was left in charge of Flora Green. I worried that without me and Mum she wouldn’t be
able to manage, as weekends are really busy, but Mum told me to just relax and enjoy myself.
“Talk about an old head on young shoulders,” she said.
“She just has a strongly developed sense of duty,” said Dad, as we piled into the car. “Which is more than I can say for some people,” he added, glancing over his shoulder at Lily.
Lily was in a sulk. Francine’s mum had brought her home, but Francine’s mum was then driving back down to the country because tomorrow there was some big horsy show or something that Francine was taking part in and Lily was dead resentful.
“I could have taken part! I could have ridden Cobbie! Francie said I could. She was going to let me borrow him! I don’t see why I had to come to Nan’s birthday. I went last year! Why do I have to come again?”
Mum said, “Because it’s a family thing and Nan’s going to be sixty and she would be very disappointed if you weren’t there.”
“But all we do is play stupid games! That’s all we ever do. I could have been riding Cobbie! I bet I’d have got a rosette!”
She went on and on about it. She said it was all right for me: “She
likes
playing stupid games.”
I do like playing games, it is true, and so does Lily when she’s actually there. But she’d had such a good time with Francine I could sort of sympathise with her. She’d been riding every day. She’d helped out at the stables; she’d gone to a Pony Club meet; she’d made heaps of new friends; she’d taken Cobbie over a jump that nobody else had been able to manage; she’d only come off once – “And even then I remembered to hang on to the reins!” – and now she was thinking that instead of becoming a PA when she grew up she would enter the horsy world and ride for Britain in the Olympics.
She told us all this in the car as we drove to Nan’s. Nobody else got a word in edgeways! It’s always the same when Lily gets obsessed. Like the time she was going to be an ice skater, and the time she was going to be a pop star. I think to be fair to her she probably
will
be something. I mean something with a great big capital S. It just depends which particular enthusiasm she’s got going when it comes time to leave school.
“Francie’s mum says I have a really good seat!” bawled Lily, bouncing up and down in the back of the car and making me feel sick. “She says I can ride Cobbie whenever I want. She says I can go down there again at Easter if I like. She says I could even go h —”
Lily stopped.
“Go what?” I said.
“Oh!” Lily waved a hand. “ Just … you know!”
“
Go what?
” screeched it at her. Lily cringed back against the seat. “
Go hunting?
”
“ didn’t say that,” said Lily.
“You were going to!”
“I was not!”
“You were too!”
“I was
n
—”
“Lily and Violet!” Mum turned
in her seat and thundered it at us. “Stop that! Right
this minute! I don’t want to hear another word. Have you got that? Not another word!”
Lily and I glared at each other. We sat the rest of the way in simmering silence. A few minutes ago I’d been half wishing that I’d told Katie it was me going to stay with Francine. I would have had so much to report! The only reason I hadn’t, really, was ’cos she was just staying at home with her mum and I wouldn’t have wanted it to seem like I was boasting or anything. Now I was glad! Katie felt the same way I did about fox hunting. I’d always thought Lily did, too, but she obviously didn’t. Because she
had
been going to say fox hunting! She was a TURNCOAT.
I think she must have felt a bit ashamed of herself ’cos she was nice as pie to me all weekend, and when we went to bed that first night she whispered, “You know I wouldn’t really go hunting.” I was glad that she wouldn’t but I did think she should have said something to Francine and her mum. I’d said something to Katie! And that was
before
I knew she was on my side. She might not have been. She might have got into a huff and never written to me again. So I just, like, grunted at Lily and pulled the duvet over my head and pretended to go to sleep. I didn’t want to hear any more about her and her horsy friends!
When we got home on Sunday I looked eagerly at the front door mat to see if there was a letter for
me, but there wasn’t. Lily said, “Are you expecting something from the Blob? Don’t tell me you’re still
snail
mailing?”
“She hasn’t got a computer,” I said. “I did ask her!” I said this for Dad’s benefit. “I said we could e-mail but she said her mum’s got a lot of bills to pay and they can’t afford a computer just at the moment.”
Lily looked at me like she wasn’t hearing right. “Can’t afford a
computer!
”
“She hasn’t got a dad,” I said.
“Why not? Where is he?”
“I don’t know. She hasn’t told me.”
“You mean, you haven’t asked? I would ask!”
“That would be a personal question,” I said. “You can’t ask people personal questions. Her mum and dad might be divorced.”
“So what? Lots of people’s mums and dads are divorced. Francie’s mum and dad are divorced. She doesn’t care who knows. I’d say straight out,” boasted Lily. “Are your mum and dad divorced? That’s what I’d say. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. I
mean, it’s nothing odd. Not like not having a computer. That is just so weird! How do they live?”
“They live just the same as anybody else,” I said, crossly.
Lily looked over at Dad and made her eyes go big. I know she was expecting him to be on her side, what with him being a computer person and all, but Dad just laughed and said, “You could do with a spell on a desert island, my girl!”
Hooray! That told her.
Hi, Katie
,
I
know it’s not my turn to write but I wanted to tell you about my ace weekend with my nan and granddad.
Nan had a birthday cake with SIXTY CANDLES on it. Truly! She counted them. It was a VERY BIG cake! It took her several goes to blow out all the candles. In the end we had to help her!
What made it such fun was that all the family came and we played games. All the family is: aunties and
uncles (two of each); my great aunt (Nan’s sister); my cousins (Six in all).
Two of my cousins are boys, but they are quite nice. This is because they are still little!!! One of them is Seven and the other is five. They have not yet had time to grow horrible … Of my four girl cousins my favourite is Stephanie as she is like us and hates fox hunting. Stephanie is twelve. You would get on with her!
The games that we played were:
Miming
2O Questions
Charades
How does it resemble me?
This last was particularly funny! How it is played is that one person has to go out of the room and all the rest think of an object. The person then comes back and goes round in a circle asking “How does it resemble me?” and trying to guess what it is. It was SO hilarious! When my nan went out of the room the object chosen was: a flower
pot. Well, she came back and started to ask questions, and when she got to my granddad and said, “How does it resemble me?” you will never guess what he replied! Very solemnly he said, “It has a hole in its bottom.” Nan looked quite shocked for a moment so that I felt sure she was going to tell him off for being rude, but in the end she couldn’t help laughing, and so then we all did.
Charades was also fun. In case you don’t know it, this is where you divide into teams and each team chooses a word and breaks it down into syllables. You then act out each syllable and people have to work out what the word is.
I was in a team with Stephanie, Uncle Dave, my dad and my great aunt Annie. Our word was AEROBICS. (Air-o-bix.) When we did the first syllable Aunt Annie pretended to be an opera singer (Singing an AIR). She dressed up
in a big lacy tablecloth and put a lamp-shade on her head! She is a very dignified sort – She is a head teacher!!! – and it was just hilarious. I couldn’t help wondering what the children at her school would think if they could see her!
It was a really great weekend. Even Lily enjoyed it, though she was moaning like crazy on the way there as she didn’t want to leave her friend Francine and miss out on riding a pony called Cobbie in a gymkhana.
What sort of things do you do when you go and visit your nan? Where does your nan live? Mine lives in St Alban’s, which is not so very far away.
Tomorrow we go back to school. WOE. I don’t really mind though it would be far more fun just to go on playing charades and seeing my Aunt Annie in a lampshade! Her school had
already been on half-term. We were a whole week later than everyone else but we break up a week earlier. On the other hand we do LOADS of homework and we start at half-past eight every morning and don’t finish until half-past four, which I think is quite a LONG DAY.
Please write soon!
Lots of love
from your friend
Violet XXX
PS This is a joke my Uncle Dave told me. How do you make a sausage roll? Push it!
PPS Did you manage to work out all the flower words?
