Miss Blaine's Prefect and the Vampire Menace

by Olga Wojtas

  But a moment later, I realised I couldn’t possibly let him do it.

  “It’s a very kind offer, but no,” I said. “Think of your photoallergic eruption. You’d be exposed to direct sunlight. It’s too dangerous. Also, when you’re doing your lizard impersonation, the children might fall off.”

  His expression was pained. “I do not do lizard impersonations, contrary to the misinformation in that … that book. I am suggesting transporting them like this.”

  Before my eyes, he turned into a massive shaggy-haired wolf. The children were delighted and rushed up to pat him. I settled the wee gloved scone on the wolf’s back, complete with a chunk of broken mirror, some nails and twine, and the wolf sped off.

  Quicker than I could have imagined, we had a row of children across the mountainside. The wee scone, simply a speck in the distance, turned his piece of mirror until the angle of incidence, at which the sunlight hit it, sent the light bouncing across to Cart Woman’s daughter, who had the second piece of mirror. The row of children continued building up the angles of reflection until the village of Sans-Soleil was flooded with sunshine.

  The villagers stood open-mouthed, basking.

  “Is this what it’s like in other places?” asked one.

  “Oh yes,” said Cart Woman airily. “I’ve seen sunshine lots of times when I’ve been out with the cart. It’s nice.”

  There was enthusiastic agreement.

  Madeleine, still clinging to Sylvain, murmured, “To have my beloved and sunshine – I ask for nothing more in life.”

  I didn’t need to look at Mary Garden to know she was rolling her eyes, as was I.

  The great grey wolf, which had returned to wait in the village square while the children organised themselves, transformed itself back into Dracula.

  “The mirrors will need readjusting from time to time,” he said. “But the children are more than capable of calculating how and when. Let me know when you need me.”

  “Milord,” said the mayor, “in recognition of your service to our community, I bestow on you the freedom of Sans-Soleil.”

  The villagers broke into applause.

  “That’s very kind,” said Dracula diffidently, “but I wonder if perhaps I could have a little cheese instead?”

  “How are you going to cope with all this sunshine?” I asked.

  “I have my lovely windowless room,” he said. “And if I go outside, I’ll take my bed with me and keep the lid closed.”

  Faintly, from a long way away, came the sound of singing. The sweet, high trilling of children. As they carried out their trigonometrical exercise, they sang a new verse for their song, of their own invention.

  We like sunshine, we like sunshine,

  We like cheese, we like cheese,

  We like doing sums and we like singing songs with

  Harmonies, harmonies.

  A bit of tweaking, and Maman could have a promotional jingle for her Sans-Soleil marketing strategy.

  The crowd, led by the mayor and the magisterial cheesemonger, were heading out of the village square. Dracula and I followed them to the kirkyard where we found Sylvain directing an exhumation of the other coffins. The smell of decay was horrific, but I now recognised it as cheese rather than anything more sinister.

  “Come with me,” I said to Dracula, and led him over to a mound of earth. I licked my finger, pressed it on to the earth, and licked it again.

  “I thought so,” I said in triumph. “Scottish mineral gleys. This is where those villains chucked out your bedding.”

  Dracula picked up a handful of soil and held it against his face. “Oh, it’s so soft,” he murmured. “I’ve missed it so much. I’ll have it transported back to the castle, and at last I can get a good night’s sleep.”

  They weren’t Scottish mineral gleys at all, but Dracula, happily transforming himself into a wolf to go and collect the children, didn’t know that, and the placebo effect can be powerful.

  There was a touch on my arm. Mary Garden. She unrolled some papers she had been clutching, and I saw they were my posters.

  “These caught my eye as we were on our way to the court,” she said with a slight blush. She was definitely well on the way to becoming a real star, noticing anything that had her name on it.

  Except it wasn’t her name.

  “I’m terribly sorry,” I said. “I put your name in French because they’re not terribly cosmopolitan here.”

  “I can see that,” she said. “Don’t worry, all publicity is good publicity.”

  It was obvious that she came from an age before social media.

  “And I’m sorry the posters don’t mention Mr Debussy. I had no idea he would be playing the piano.”

  “Dinna bother about him. He gets enough publicity. These posters are very bonnie – is it all right if I keep them?”

  “I’d be honoured,” I said.

  “I’ve got a wee pal in Paris, Henry, who’s keen on making posters. He’d like to see them.”

  I almost didn’t dare ask the question. “Not Henri Toulouse-Lautrec?”

  “That’s him – do you know him?”

  “No. No, I don’t. But I’m sure he wouldn’t be interested at all. I wouldn’t bother showing him them.”

  “Dinna be daft, he loves a poster.”

  I was cringing with embarrassment. I had brazenly nicked his iconic images of Loïe Fuller, La Goulue and Jane Avril. “If he sees them, can you pass on a message? Tell him they’re not plagiarism, they’re an hommage. Can you remember that? It’s important to make sure he knows that.”

  She picked up on my anxiety. “Of course. They’re nae plagiarism, they’re an hommage.”

  I hoped he wouldn’t be too cross. Perhaps there was a way to distract his attention from my posters. I clutched Mary Garden’s arm.

  “Can you tell him something else? Can you tell him the National Galleries of Scotland are going to put on a big exhibition of his work?” No need to mention it would be over a hundred years from now.

  “I’ll tell him that too. He’ll be richt pleased. He’s a richt good laugh and a great cook. He makes a lovely pudding he calls chocolate mayonnaise.”

  He might be a good cook, but he was rubbish at marketing. “Nobody’s going to want to eat something called chocolate mayonnaise,” I said. “It sounds totally disgusting. He needs a better name for it than that.”

  Mary Garden looked thoughtful. “Escoffier invented a pudding for Nellie Melba. Peach Melba, he called it. I could get Henry to call his invention Chocolate Garden. You should see how he makes it, melted chocolate and sugar and butter and egg yolks, and then he puts beaten egg whites in it. You’ve never eaten anything so tasty. Chocolate Garden would be the perfect name for it.”

  With sudden clarity, I understood what Toulouse-Lautrec had invented. Mary Garden couldn’t be allowed to persuade him to name his confection after her, or it would change the course of history – the history of desserts, at least.

  “No,” I said. “You don’t want it to be called Chocolate Garden.”

  “Aye, I do,” she said.

  “No, you don’t. You’ve got your reputation to think of. It would diminish the brand. Poor old Nellie, whenever anyone mentions her, they don’t think wonderful lyric soprano, they think Escoffier’s puddings.”

  “They do?” she asked uncertainly.

  “Absolutely,” I said. “The minute you said Nellie Melba, the first thing I thought of was peaches and ice cream and raspberry sauce.”

  “I dinna want that,” she said. “But you said chocolate mayonnaise sounded disgusting and he needed a better name for it.”

  “Mousse au chocolat,” I said. “Tell him to call it that. If he does, I guarantee it will be a success.”

  “I’ll tell him,” she agreed.

  Four coffins were being opened, to reveal wheels of cheese. Excitedly, the villagers brought out their small change and surrounded the mayor and cheesemonger. Sylvain kept order while Madeleine watched with quiet prid
e.

  I motioned for her to join us.

  “When Mary Garden and Debussy get back to Paris, they can send you music to replace the pages you turned into thyme and marjoram,” I said.

  “Bien sûr,” said Mary Garden.

  Madeleine looked bewildered. “What’s she saying?” she asked.

  “She’s saying she’ll be delighted. And I’m sure it won’t be long before you’re invited to Paris on a concert tour.”

  Mary Garden nodded enthusiastically.

  “Although,” I added, “it’s probably safer if you avoid Debussy’s Pleyel.”

  “Certainly safer for Debussy when my Sylvain’s around,” Madeleine said drily. “Excuse me a moment.” She went off to join the crowd.

  “Debussy’s going to dump Maman when he gets to Paris, isn’t he?” I asked Mary Garden.

  “Aye, but she’ll have nae problem finding someone else. There’s Fauré, or Maurice Ravel, or if she wants someone closer to her own age, there’s Saint-Saëns. Michty, what’s wrong with you?”

  The abdominal pain was stronger than I remembered.

  “I’m fine,” I lied, managing to straighten up as Madeleine approached. She was carrying a wheel of cheese.

  “Is that for Dracula?” I asked.

  “No, the mayor and the cheesemonger have agreed to provide him with cheese for life,” said Madeleine.

  If vampires lived for ever, it was going to be a costlier deal than they expected.

  “This is for you, Madame Maque-Monet-Gueule,” Madeleine said, holding out the cheese. “To thank you for saving my Sylvain. And for being my friend. I’m afraid it’s only cheese – all the ones containing brandy were snapped up right away.”

  “That’s perfect,” I said. “And every time I taste this, Madeleine, it will remind me of you.”

  I took off my head torch and gave it to her. “You’ll need this fascinator for your trips to Paris. They’ll be so impressed that you have your own electric light.”

  Another spasm gripped me.

  “So sorry,” I gasped. “Got to go.”

  Cart Woman overheard. Her eyes lit up. “Will I get the cart ready? Are you going all the way to Paris?”

  “Much further than that,” I managed to say, “but I’m afraid I’m making other arrangements.”

  I saw her look of disappointment and then she, Madeleine, Mary Garden and the kirkyard disappeared. The temperature plummeted and I felt myself whirling through the decades of the twentieth century, into the twenty-first … and I was back in the library meeting room, clutching the cheese. There before me was the yellow-covered Polygon edition of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. I hoped the success of my mission had redeemed me in Miss Blaine’s eyes.

  I unlocked the cupboard on the far wall and shoved the volume in, alongside all the other copies of That Book, hidden well away from the reading public.

  I took the cheese to the kitchen, and left it on the counter with a couple of Post-its on it, one saying, “Shona’s half” and the other, “Help yourself”. I hoped nobody would complain about the smell.

  I was about to head downstairs when I caught sight of myself in a mirror. I was wearing my normal work clothes, but my face was still covered in watercolours. Given that librarians are expected to look smart, clean and professional, there could be a question-mark over my stage make-up. I quickly scrubbed it off before anyone saw me.

  Coming back down to the main library hall, I passed the CD section. One in particular caught my eye. I went over and picked it up. “Debussy Preludes,” I read. “Track 8: The Girl with the Flaxen Hair.” Written in 1910; inspired, according to the notes, by one of Leconte de Lisle’s Chansons écossaises. I knew where the true inspiration had come from.

  As I passed the fiction section, I scanned the S shelves in case That Book had sneaked in, but all was well. There was Solzhenitsyn, Stevenson … and along to the right I spotted that other name – Stoker. I surreptitiously removed the volume from the shelf. Another farrago of misinformation and innuendo that many an unwary reader would take as fact.

  Far from being turned into the undead by Dracula, I owed him my life. He had saved me from being buried and/or burned alive.

  “This is for you, Draculek,” I murmured as I hurried back upstairs with it to the cupboard. It was a sizeable hardback and it took me a while to ease it onto the shelf. I was very careful not to damage it or the books on either side of it. I could never harm a book, not even Those Books – it’s a librarian thing.

  And then I thought: now I’ve got two books to look out for. I’m going to need a bigger cupboard.

  Acknowledgements

  A huge thank-you to the kind readers and reviewers who wanted to know What Shona Did Next;

  to Sara Hunt and all at Saraband, especially Ali Moore for her meticulous editing, and proofreaders Hamzah Hussain and Grace O’Duffy;

  Maggie Topkis and all at Felony & Mayhem;

  matchmaker Mary Thomson;

  alpha plus reader Iain Matheson;

  the supportive and encouraging writing coven: Margaret Ries, Elaine Thomson and Michelle Wards;

  Gallic expert Bill Kirton, who embodies the University of Aberdeen’s motto, Initium sapientiae timor domini, “Fear of one’s tutor is the beginning of wisdom”;

  Mary Johnston (née Mackie), Doric expert and speaker, an gweed freen;

  mathemagician Duncan Dicks;

  technical advisers Simon Brown, Norma-Ann Coleman, Sue Glover and Lesley Rowe;

  Dame Muriel Spark and Bram Stoker;

  and Alistair, an affa fine loon.

  The Author

  Olga Wojtas was born and brought up in Edinburgh where she attended James Gillespie’s High School – the model for Marcia Blaine School for Girls, which appears in Muriel Spark’s The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Like Dame Muriel herself, Olga was encouraged to write by an inspirational English teacher there – in Olga’s case, Iona M. Cameron. Unlike her heroine, Olga has a deep respect for Dame Muriel’s work and is a member of the Muriel Spark Society. A former Scriever of the Federation of Writers Scotland, Olga won a Scottish Book Trust New Writers Award and has had more than forty short stories published in magazines and anthologies.

  Also by Olga Wojtas:

  Miss Blaine’s Prefect and the Golden Samovar

  Copyright

  Published by Contraband

  An imprint of Saraband,

  Digital World Centre, 1 Lowry Plaza

  The Quays, Salford, M50 3UB

  and

  Suite 202, 98 Woodlands Road

  Glasgow, G3 6HB

  www.saraband.net

  Copyright © Olga Wojtas 2020

  All rights reserved.

  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 first obtaining the written permission of the copyright owner.

  ISBN: 9781912235506

  ISBNe: 9781912235513

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, Elcograf S.p.A

  Shona McMonagle, a Morningside librarian and proud former prefect at the Marcia Blaine School for Girls, is thrilled when entrusted by Marcia Blaine herself to undertake an important mission. Shona isn’t entirely clear on the details, but she soon finds herself in 19th-century Russia, and her task appears to be pairing up the beautiful, shy, orphaned heiress Lidia Ivanovna with Sasha, a gorgeous young man of unexplained origins.

  But, despite all her accomplishments and good intentions, Shona might well have got the wrong end of the stick about this, her first special assignment for Miss Blaine. As the body count rises, will she discover in time just who the real villain is?

 

 

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