Violet Mackerel's Brilliant Plot

by Anna Branford

  For Sylvia (my granny)

  —A . B.

  Garjean, this is for you

  —E. A .

  Contents

  Chapter 1: The Red Button

  Chapter 2: The Important Idea

  Chapter 3: The Thinking Box

  Chapter 4: The Mind’s Eye

  Chapter 5: The Archaeological Dig

  Chapter 6: The Slight Disaster

  Chapter 7: The Leg Warmer

  Chapter 8: The Tubular Scarf

  Chapter 9: The Smiling Man

  Chapter 10: The Blue China Bird

  Violet Mackerel is quite a small girl, but she has a theory.

  Her theory is that when you are having a very important and brilliant idea, what generally happens is that you find something small and special on the ground. So whenever you spy a sequin, or a stray bead, or a bit of ribbon, or a button, you should always pick it up and try very hard to remember what you were thinking about at the precise moment when you spied it, and then think about that thing a lot more. That is Violet’s theory, which she calls the Theory of Finding Small Things.

  “Wake up, Violet,” says Violet’s mama. “It’s nearly five o’clock.”

  It is Saturday, which is market day. Violet yawns. It is still dark. Mama’s hair is a bit damp from her shower and it smells like mangoes and blossoms. Violet leans forward for a snuggle and nearly falls asleep again.

  “Just stay awake until we’re all in the van,” says Mama. “Then you can sleep as much as you like.”

  Violet’s big brother, Dylan, and big sister, Nicola, are already awake, and they are helping to load up the van with fold-up tables and chairs, the big canopy umbrella, and boxes and baskets of Mama’s knitting. They are going to the market like they do every Saturday morning, to sell the woolly things Mama makes.

  Violet thinks she would quite like to wear her pajama bottoms under her skirt today. They feel nice and warm from bed. Sometimes if you say things like “Can I wear my pajama bottoms to the market?,” people say things like “No.” But if you just put your skirt on over the top, and have your eyebrows slightly raised like someone who is thinking of something very important and interesting, no one says anything at all.

  When Violet, Mama, Nicola, and Dylan arrive at the market, even though it is still not properly light, lots of people are already there, bundled up and rubbing their hands together with coldness, unfolding and unpacking their things to sell. No one notices Violet’s pajama bottoms.

  Violet’s favorite person at the market (apart from Mama and Dylan and Nicola and herself) is a man who never smiles. He sells china birds, small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, and he is there every week. Violet says hello to him as she always does, and he doesn’t even look up, which he never does. But after waking up at nearly five o’clock in the morning, Violet doesn’t feel much like chatting or smiling either. So she feels that even though he never says hello back, she and the man might share a sort of understanding.

  The man’s china birds are all different and all very dirty. Dylan says that they are probably brand-new from a factory. He thinks the man has just put dirt on them so that they will look ancient and he can sell them for ten dollars instead of two. But Violet doubts it. She thinks it is much more likely that he is an archaeologist. She suspects that he specializes in digging up ancient china birds.

  Violet would quite like to own one of the man’s birds in particular. It is made of pale blue china, the color of a robin’s egg. It is always right at the back of the table.

  And just as she is having that thought, out of the corner of her eye, Violet spies a small red button on the dusty market ground.

  Violet picks up the red button.

  She puts the button in her pajama pocket, hidden by her skirt. It is a safe and secret place.

  Right when I spied that red button, she says to herself, I was thinking of how much I would like to own that Blue China Bird. So now I know, thinks Violet, that it was not just a silly wish but a very important idea.

  However, the bird is ten dollars, and Violet does not have ten dollars. Violet does not even have one dollar.

  Violet thinks.

  It is quite nice to hear the noisiness and busyness of the market growing as more and more people start to arrive, but it can be a bit distracting when you are trying to have a brilliant idea. So Violet gets a blanket and a cushion out of the back of the van and makes herself a sort of nest in the backseat. From her nest, Violet can still see what is going on at the market, but she can think more clearly.

  Violet’s sister, Nicola, has her own plan. She is a teenager and all she wants is a haircut by a person called Mojo who only works at a particular hair salon on Wednesdays. Nicola has made earrings with wire and pliers, and she is arranging them on the same table as Mama’s woolly things. She is pinning them to a cork-board with a sign reading HANDMADE EARRINGS BY NICOLA MACKEREL $2. Violet likes Nicola’s earrings and she thinks quite a few people will probably want to buy them.

  Violet’s brother, Dylan, has his own plan too. He is almost a teenager and all he wants is a camera. He is playing his violin next to Mama’s stall with his violin case by his feet, and every few minutes Violet hears the jingle of people throwing coins into it. Dylan only knows three songs, and one of them is a Christmas song, and it won’t be Christmas for a very long time. But none of the people at the market seem to mind, and he is getting quite a few coins to save for his camera.

  When you only want something ordinary, like a camera or a haircut, you only need an ordinary plan, like playing the violin or making earrings. But if what you want is something really, really important, and if the importance has been proven by your own personal theory, then ordinary plans are no good.

  What you need is a plot.

  A brilliant plot.

  Fortunately, Mama keeps a note-book in the van and she doesn’t mind people plotting in it. Violet reaches over to take the notebook and a pen out of the glove box, and then rearranges her nest so she can rest the notebook on her knees.

  This is what she writes:

  Then it is just a matter of thinking what to write next.

  Mama sometimes says that it is quite helpful, when you are trying to solve a difficult problem, to think outside the box.

  Outside-the-box thinking is how Mama thought of doing knitting when Dad left and she was feeling sad. People made suggestions like “Perhaps you could try jogging in the mornings” and “Why don’t you take an evening class?” But those are inside-the-box sorts of ideas, and not much good for people like Mama.

  Knitting is different.

  The blanket Violet is nesting in was one of the first things Mama ever knitted. She made it especially for Violet—soft and feathery brown—because Violet likes small brown sparrows, and she added some purplish patches because actual violets are purple. It is Violet’s favorite blanket.

  Knitting makes Mama happy and relaxed, even when the phone is ringing and there is someone at the door, and Dylan is yelling at Nicola, “If you don’t get out of the bathroom now, I will tell Angus Podmore that you love him,” and Nicola is nearly crying because she still has conditioner in her hair and she can’t come out. So Violet thinks that knitting was quite a good idea of Mama’s.

  Violet decides she might try the trick of thinking outside the box. So she crosses out the part in her notebook where she has written “Actual Plot” and instead she draws a big thinking box.

  Inside the box she writes ordinary ideas, such as:

  When the box is full of very ordinary ideas, she writes her interesting ideas outside it. These are things like:

  Violet likes these ideas, especially the
ones outside the box, but she feels that she has not yet stumbled upon a brilliant plot. These are all only quite good plots.

  Violet must have been thinking and plotting for a while, and maybe even falling asleep a little bit (which is easy to do if you have made a very comfortable and warm nest), because Mama pokes her head in the van and says, “Are you all right in there?”

  “Yes,” says Violet. “I’m just doing some plotting.”

  Violet decides to take a break from plotting because Mama has bought everyone some little pancakes called poffertjes. They come in a paper cup with a drizzle of maple syrup and a long, pointy wooden skewer to spike them with. They are one of Violet’s favorite things.

  Violet sits by the knitting stall with Mama and Nicola and Dylan, and they all spike at their poffertjes and get a bit sticky. And just as Violet is thinking about stickiness, and not actually about plotting at all, a funny thing happens. The beginning of a brilliant plot suddenly sprouts in her mind.

  When she has finished her last poffertje, Violet crawls underneath the table of Mama’s knitted things. She is hidden by the tablecloth hanging down, so no one can see what she is doing. Using the pointy wooden skewer from her poffertjes, she begins to scratch in the dirt. The top layer crumbles easily away, so Violet digs some more, scooping the dirt into a little pile beside the growing hole with her hands.

  “What are you doing?” asks Mama after a while, peeking under the tablecloth.

  “Being an archaeologist,” says Violet.

  A good plot is now settling properly in Violet’s mind. If she finds something very precious, like an ancient jewel or a rare dinosaur bone, she will become rich and famous for her discovery. Then she will be able to buy the Blue China Bird. It would be good to find even a very small thing, just to be sure the idea is an important one, but so far there is just more dirt.

  Violet scratches and scoops under the table. She doesn’t find any ancient jewels or rare dinosaur bones. She takes the red button out of her hidden pajama pocket and buries it a little bit in the dusty dirt. Finding things you have hidden yourself isn’t quite as much fun as finding proper treasure, but it is much better than finding nothing.

  Soon Mama is ready to pack up the stall, and Nicola is saying that if she hears Dylan’s Christmas carol one more time, she will chop off her own head. Violet has not found any treasure. She hasn’t even found anything ordinary, like a paper clip or a bottle top.

  Just the red button, over and over again.

  But she is not ready to give up just yet.

  That afternoon when they get home, Violet’s mama does her French lesson. She is learning from a set of CDs and a book.

  “Red!” says the man on the CD.

  “Rooooooge,” says Mama.

  “Green!” says the man on the CD.

  “Vairrrrrr,” says Mama, as if she has a hair in her mouth.

  Mama has been trying lots of new things lately. Stuck to the wall in the kitchen is a small piece of paper on which she has written the words “If You Can See It, You Can Be It.”

  After Dad left, a few of these bits of paper started to appear around the house.

  “Is that your theory?” Violet asks.

  “Sort of,” says Mama.

  “What does it mean?” asks Violet.

  “I think it means that if you can picture something very clearly in your mind’s eye, you can make it happen.”

  Violet quite likes the idea that her mind has an eye.

  “What does your mind’s eye see?” Violet asks.

  “Well, first I see you and Dylan and Nicola growing up happy and healthy. And then when you are all grown up, I see myself in Paris, speaking French and maybe knitting scarves and leg warmers for a boutique or two,” says Mama, squatting down to pick up something.

  “What’s that?” asks Violet.

  “One of Nicola’s earrings, I think,” says Mama, putting it in her pocket, as Violet has explained the Theory of Finding Small Things to her before.

  “If I am not quite grown up, can I come with you to Paris?” asks Violet.

  “Yes,” says Mama.

  “And if I am properly grown up, I will send you postcards from my archaeological digs.”

  “I would like that,” says Mama.

  Violet goes to her room, where she has taken her notebook of plots. At the top of the page she writes:

  Then she closes her eyes.

  Her mind’s eye sees all sorts of things, like herself on a talk show with the caption “Girl archaeologist discovers new dinosaur, to be named Violetosaurus mackerelus.”

  The talk show host says to her, “So, Violet, how did you actually find the bone that led to this incredible discovery?”

  “Well, Max,” says Violet (since Max seems to be the name her mind’s eye has given to the talk show host), “there was a Blue China Bird at the market, and I was thinking outside the box about how I could get it. . . .”

  The studio audience says, “Ahhh!,” because they think it is a nice sort of wish. But they are also amazed by her cleverness. They are all planning to send her china birds when they get home, so she will end up with hundreds of them. Probably all the talk show hosts will want to interview her after that. She might even be the richest and most famous dinosaur-bone discoverer in the world.

  Violet opens her eyes again.

  “If I Can See It, I Can Be It,” she says to herself.

  Then she goes outside into the garden, and the real dig begins.

  The wooden skewer from the market was a good tool for digging under the table, but Violet suspects it is not the best tool for an archaeologist. There are proper spades and trowels in the garden shed, which will make her job much easier. There are even some old, soft paintbrushes, perfect for getting the very last of the dirt off precious treasure or old bones. And there might be all kinds of interesting things buried in the garden. Violet hopes there will even be a stray sequin glittering in the grass in the sun, to show her exactly where to dig.

  Violet assembles her archaeologist’s tool kit, and when it is complete, she scans the garden for a sparkling hint. But there is nothing. So she decides to start right in the middle, where the grass is nice and soft. It looks like just the sort of place a dinosaur bone might be.

  Violet digs and digs and digs. Sometimes she hits something hard (which always turns out to be a rock or a pipe, and not an ancient bone). Then she works on making the hole wider instead of deeper.

  “If I Can See It, I Can Be It,” she says to herself.

  As she digs, getting hotter and hotter and tireder and tireder, Violet makes sure she keeps on thinking about the Violetosaurus mackerelus. It will probably get in the newspaper, maybe even on the front cover, as well as on Max’s talk show. Then, when she is very rich and famous, Violet will buy Mama a whole rainbow of colored wool. She will also buy Dylan a camera and Nicola a haircut by Mojo.

  They will all say, “Violet, as well as being a brilliant plotter you are so generous, always thinking of other people and not of yourself.” (Although actually, first of all, she will buy herself the Blue China Bird.)

  Suddenly Violet hears a sort of coughing, gasping noise.

  She looks up.

  It is Nicola, and she doesn’t look as though she is thinking of Violet’s generosity. In fact, she looks more as if Dylan has been talking to Angus Podmore.

  “What . . . are . . . you . . . doing?” she asks.

  “I’m being an archaeologist,” says Violet.

  When she looks around her, though, she can see why Nicola’s mouth is still a bit open. Their small back garden looks quite different with so much of the grass the wrong way up.

  “Archaeologists have to make a little bit of mess,” says Violet. “Otherwise, they might never find any treasure at all.”

  “A little bit of mess?” Nicola gasps. “You’ve wrecked the garden!”

  “I have not,” says Violet very crossly.

  “You have so,” says Nicola.

  “Peabr
ain!” yells Violet.

  “Garden wrecker!” Nicola yells back.

  Then Mama comes out to see what all the fuss is about.

  “Oh, Violet,” says Mama, putting both her hands over her mouth and then over her eyes. “What were you thinking?”

  “I was thinking of a brilliant plot,” says Violet in the crossest voice she has ever, ever used. Clearly, no one is being at all amazed by her generosity.

  Somehow the discovery of Violetosaurus mackerelus, the talk show and the newspaper, the rain­bow of wool, the camera, the haircut by Mojo, and even the Blue China Bird seem to swirl and drain away like dirty bathwater.

  Violet runs to her room and flops on the bed and howls and howls, and her pillow gets wetter and wetter.

  After a little while Mama comes in and sits down on the bed next to her.

  “Nicola said you were being an archaeologist again,” says Mama.

  “Yes,” says Violet, into the pillow.

  “There isn’t any treasure in the back garden,” says Mama.

  “How do you know?” asks Violet, still into the pillow.

  “Your dad and I shoveled that dirt there ourselves when we first bought the house, before you were born.”

  “Nobody ever tells me anything,” says Violet, wondering what other important information they have all been keeping a secret.

  “Maybe you could have asked before digging up the garden,” says Mama.

  Then there is more howling, followed by lots of hiccups and a difficult time talking.

  Mama’s hair still smells a bit like mangoes and blossoms. It is nice, when you are having a slight disaster, to smell something like that.