Violet Mackerel's Brilliant Plot

by Anna Branford

  Violet says, “My mind’s eye got it wrong.”

  “Mine sometimes does that too,” says Mama.

  “What do you do when your mind’s eye gets it wrong?” asks Violet.

  Mama thinks.

  “Wait a bit and then try something different,” she says.

  Then Violet gets her notebook, and she and Mama think outside the box together about the garden.

  Mama looks out the window where the soft patch of grass was. She says she has always rather wanted a Japanese sort of garden, perhaps with a fishpond and lots of white pebbles. Violet quite likes the idea of a fishpond but she thinks white pebbles might not be very nice to lie on in the sunshine, which is one of the things she likes to do when the weather is warm.

  Violet says she likes farm animals and has always rather wanted a farm, perhaps with some chickens, a sheep, and a smallish cow, which would eat all the leftover grass so the holes would not be so noticeable. Mama says she quite likes farm animals too, but not necessarily in her own garden, since keeping a farm is a lot of work, and also the neighbors might complain about all the clucking and mooing.

  So in the end they decide to go to the plant nursery and buy a packet of bulbs, since the earth has been freshly turned, and it is actually just the right time of year for planting them. Even though it is getting late by the time they get home, they neaten up the holes in the grass and plant the big, knobbly bulbs in the soft, brown soil.

  Violet is still disappointed, of course. It would have been much better to find some treasure or an ancient dinosaur bone, and to have been on a talk show, and best of all for the Blue China Bird to be nesting on the table next to her bed. But even so, she quite likes thinking of daffodils and jonquils starting to grow where the treasure was supposed to be.

  The next morning Violet feels a bit better about the whole garden incident. Sunday mornings are a warm and peaceful time, since it is usually just Violet and Mama because Nicola has basketball practice and Dylan has chess. Mama sits close to the heater and does knitting and Violet sits nearby, doing a puzzle.

  “What’s that going to be?” asks Violet, seeing the purple and blue wool weaving together like colors in a sunset.

  “A bag,” says Mama.

  Violet watches Mama knitting. It doesn’t look too hard.

  The archaeology plot did not work out quite as brilliantly as she had hoped, but Violet has not forgotten the Blue China Bird, and her mind’s eye is looking out for some new ideas.

  “Can I learn to knit?” asks Violet.

  “Of course,” says Mama, “when you’re a bit older.”

  “I was thinking more like now,” says Violet.

  “Knitting is complicated,” says Mama.

  “I like complicated things,” says Violet.

  Mama has some knitting needles that are quite good for a beginner. While she is finding them, Violet does some more plotting in her notebook. The plotting is mostly a picture of some woolly cats and trousers and smallish trees and other things she might quite like to knit. Then maybe she could have her own stall at the market, right next to Mama’s, and earn enough money to buy the Blue China Bird. (Also, she might be the first person in the world ever to have actually knitted a small tree, so she might get to be on a talk show after all.)

  Mama comes back with the needles and casts on some thick green wool for Violet.

  “Now,” says Mama. “You put the needle through, loop the wool around, bring the back needle forward, and flick the stitch off. Through, loop, forward, and flick. Through, loop, forward, and flick.”

  It turns out that two needles and a ball of thick green wool are quite a lot for two hands to do, even before you start looping and flicking.

  Mama fixes up the bit where most of the casting on got cast off.

  “Have another try,” says Mama. “Through, loop, forward, and flick.”

  Still it does not quite work.

  Through, loop, reloop, and twist.

  Through, doesn’t look right, turn over, and strange knot.

  Try to undo, drop, forget which needle, and get cross.

  Mama does not have her look of Sunday morning peacefulness anymore. She has more the look of when the toaster has made the smoke alarm go off and no one can find the car keys and Nicola is saying that she is the only person at her whole entire school who does not have a cell phone.

  “Knitting is a difficult thing to learn,” says Mama. “That box is full of my mistakes.”

  Violet puts down the knitting needles and wool and looks in the box. Inside it are some woolly squares with slight holes in them, scarves that are not at all long enough, some socks that stop around the toes, and one short, wide tube with some big, loose patches. It is made of lots of odds and ends of wool, all different colors, with spidery threads hanging from it. Violet quite likes the woolly tube, so she pulls it out of the box.

  “What’s this?” asks Violet.

  “It was going to be a leg warmer,” says Mama, “but I dropped a stitch or two, and anyway it is much too loose for a leg.”

  “Both my legs go in it easily.” Violet tries it on. “With arms in too,” she says.

  “Exactly,” says Mama.

  Violet goes up to her room and brings down a box of threads and ribbons and buttons, and sequins, beads, and other things she has spotted while having important ideas.

  The first thing she chooses is a green sequin that fell off a bridesmaid’s dress. She pushes one of the loose threads of the leg warmer through the middle of the sequin and ties a knot in the end to hold it in place. Then she starts the job of threading something from her box onto every loose end, weaving the dangling threads backward and forward through the knitting until they almost disappear.

  While she is sitting on the floor and working on the leg warmer, Violet spots one of the little gold links Nicola uses for her earrings under a chair.

  Violet carefully weaves the small thing in with the other treasures.

  Even though the leg warmer wasn’t exactly part of her plot, perhaps it is part of an important idea anyway.

  Every day after school that week, Violet works on the leg warmer. Slowly it gains more colors and dangles, beads and bits and sparkles. On Friday, Violet threads on the red button she found at the market. It is a bit muddy from being buried and found so many times, but you can still see a lot of the redness. It is a very good final touch.

  “Can I put it on the table at the market in the morning?” asks Violet.

  “Yes.” Mama smiles. “What will you call it?”

  Violet thinks.

  “It is called a Tubular Scarf,” she says. “It works like this.”

  She puts the leg warmer over her head and bunches it around her neck to show Mama. It fits quite loosely like a scarf.

  “Plus, you can do this,” says Violet, pulling the back part over her head like a medieval hood.

  Violet asks Mama for a shoe box to put the scarf in. But on the Friday night before the market, when the time has nearly come to put it inside and shut the lid, Violet finds that she would actually rather keep the lid off.

  If someone buys the Tubular Scarf, then maybe she will have enough money to buy the Blue China Bird, which is very important. But Violet wonders if the person who buys it will know it can be both a scarf and a hood. She wonders if they will notice all the small things woven into it, especially the red button. They might not realize that the scarf was made partly by her and partly by Mama. And all those things are actually quite important too.

  “Mama, do you ever secretly hope that people don’t buy your knitted things, so you can keep them a bit longer?” Violet asks.

  “Sometimes I decide I don’t want anyone to buy them at all,” says Mama, “so I keep them or give them to you or Nicola or Dylan.”

  “Giving things is different from keeping them or selling them,” says Violet.

  “Sometimes it’s nicer,” says Mama.

  Nicola only needs to sell two pairs of earrings tomorrow and the
n she will have enough money to visit Mojo on Wednesday.

  Dylan needs a bit more for his camera than he will probably get from playing his violin tomorrow, but he is still hopeful.

  Violet is sure now that it is all quite easy if what you want is something quite ordinary, like a haircut or a camera. Then you just do ordinary things, like making earrings or playing the violin. But the Blue China Bird is a different sort of thing. That is the problem.

  Violet writes on the lid of the shoe box with a purple marker.

  TUBULAR SCARF MADE PARTLY BY VIOLET MACKEREL, $10.

  Then she puts the scarf in the box. But for quite a long time she leaves the lid off.

  The next morning while it’s still dark, Mama says, “Wake up, Violet. It’s nearly five o’clock.”

  Violet decides she will wear her pajama bottoms to the market again, since last week she was especially nice and warm.

  Nicola and Dylan help Mama carry things out to the van, and Violet carries the box with the Tubular Scarf. She keeps the box on her lap all the way to the market.

  When they arrive, Violet helps set up the stall.

  “I’m not going to put the Tubular Scarf out just yet,” she says to Mama. “First I think I will go for a small walk.”

  Violet walks over to the stall of the man who doesn’t smile, so she can look at all the colors of the china birds on his table and check that the Blue China Bird is there.

  It is not.

  The man is busy rummaging in his van, so Violet looks carefully at every bird again, just to make sure. Mama says it is best not to worry until you are quite sure there is something to worry about. But now Violet has checked.

  It is definitely not there.

  “Did somebody buy the Blue China Bird?” asks Violet, who has a very uncomfortable feeling growing in her chest.

  The man does not turn around.

  “DID SOMEBODY BUY THE BLUE CHINA BIRD?” Violet asks, much more loudly.

  “Did you say something?” asks the man who doesn’t smile.

  And he smiles at Violet!

  “Sorry, I am a bit deaf,” he says.

  “I asked you about the Blue China Bird,” says Violet, whose heart is bumping around inside her. “The one that is about the color of a robin’s egg.”

  “Oh, that one,” he says. “I always unpack that bird last of all, because secretly I hope no one will buy it. It’s my favorite.”

  The man takes the beautiful bird gently out of its scruffy newspaper packaging and puts it on the table. Gradually, Violet’s chest goes back to normal.

  “It’s my favorite too,” says Violet. “Did you find it on an especially important archaeological dig?”

  “Pardon?” says the man.

  “You are an archaeologist, aren’t you?”

  “No,” says the man.

  “What are you, then?” asks Violet.

  He thinks for a bit.

  “A backpacker,” he says. “I bought my china birds from a potter, who I met when I was backpacking in Spain last year.”

  Violet thinks how nice gray eyes are with a green sweater, which is what the man has. But he looks as if he needs a jacket, too. He is rubbing his hands together and blowing on them.

  “You look cold,” says Violet.

  “Backpackers don’t mind the cold too much,” says the man, whose name turns out to be Vincent.

  “The best thing for coldness,” Violet tells him, “is to keep your pajama bottoms on under your clothes. Hardly anyone notices.”

  “Really? I might try that next week,” he says.

  A thought is coming into Violet’s mind, which is that if smiling Vincent had a Tubular Scarf, he could be nice and warm this week.

  And just as she is thinking it, she spies a small stray piece of the colored string Vincent uses to put paper tags on his birds. It has blown underneath the table.

  Vincent says she can keep it, so Violet picks it up and puts it in her pocket.

  Then she goes back to the van and gets out the shoe box with the scarf inside. She finds a pen in the glove box and scribbles out the part on the lid that says $10, but leaves on the part that says TUBULAR SCARF MADE PARTLY BY VIOLET MACKEREL.

  She feels a bit shy going back.

  “Hello again,” says Vincent when he sees her. “What have you got there?”

  “It’s a Tubular Scarf,” says Violet. “I partly made it.”

  “So I see,” says Vincent, reading the box. “Who made the rest?”

  “My mama,” says Violet.

  “Is she the knitter a few stalls over?” asks Vincent.

  “Yes,” says Violet, “and she is also a learner of French.”

  “So am I,” says Vincent. “In fact, I plan to go backpacking in France one day.”

  “Mama too,” says Violet. “She sounds like she has a hair in her mouth.”

  “She is doing well, then,” says Vincent.

  Violet opens the box and holds it out to Vincent. He takes the scarf out very carefully and tries it on. It fits him very snugly, and Violet thinks he looks warmer already. Then she shows him how you can also pull the back part up over your head like a medieval hood.

  “What a good idea,” says Vincent. “How much is it?”

  “Nothing,” says Violet. “It’s a present.”

  Vincent smiles the nicest smile of all.

  “I love it,” he says. “I especially like the red button.”

  In a funny way, it is almost as good as having the Blue China Bird, Violet thinks, to see him smiling and feeling warmer.

  “Since your mama partly made this, do you think she would mind if I stopped by later on to say thank you?”

  “I don’t think she would mind,” says Violet.

  When Vincent does stop by a bit later, he is still wearing the Tubular Scarf and he puts quite a lot of money in Dylan’s violin case.

  “Christmas carols are my favorite,” he says.

  Mama smiles.

  Violet is still really only testing out the Theory of Finding Small Things. She is also realizing that no plot, however brilliant, can be absolutely sure to work.

  But on Monday, Dylan has enough money to buy his camera, and now he is busy all the time—too busy, even, to say anything to anyone about Angus Podmore when Nicola is taking a very long time in the bathroom. He is always out in the garden, photographing the growing bulbs, which have little green shoots already.

  And on Wednesday afternoon not only does Nicola go to see Mojo at the hair salon, but Mama goes too, and they both come home with colored bits and straight bits and funny lengths at the back.

  And that evening, while Mama’s hair is still special, Vincent comes round to eat a roast dinner and practice French. When he arrives, he is wearing the Tubular Scarf, pulled up at the back like a medieval hood. They have to turn the volume up on the CD player, as Vincent really is a bit deaf.

  “Black!” says the man on the CD.

  “Nwaaaaaar,” says Mama.

  “Nwaaaaaar,” says Vincent, who now seems to smile all the time.

  After dinner, while Mama and Nicola and Dylan are busy clearing away plates and putting sprinkles on ice cream for dessert, Vincent takes something out of his pocket and gives it to Violet. It is wrapped in soft purple tissue paper.

  “What is it?” asks Violet.

  “A present,” says Vincent.

  Violet carefully unwraps the purple tissue. Then, even more carefully, she unwraps the scruffy newspaper underneath.

  And after that, Violet smiles the nicest smile of all.

  Because there in her hands, sitting in a soft nest of tissue and newspaper, is the Blue China Bird.

  Anna Branford was born on the Isle of Man and spent parts of her childhood in Africa and in Papua New Guinea. She now lives in Melbourne, Australia, with a large black cat called Florence. She writes, drinks cups of tea in her garden, and makes dolls and other small things, which she sells at early morning markets. (That’s where she first imagined Violet and her fa
mily.) You can visit Anna at annabranford.com.

  Elanna Allen lives most of the time in London with her husband and son, but sometimes you might find her in New York, visiting her old stomping grounds. At this very minute, she is in London, where she writes and illustrates children’s books and designs characters for television. She wrote and illustrated Itsy Mitsy Runs Away and has created characters for Disney, Nickelodeon, and PBS. Whether she is in New York or London, you can always say hi to her at elannaallen.com.

  Jacket design by Lauren Rille

  Jacket illustrations and hand-lettering copyright

  © 2012 by Elanna Allen

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  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and

  incidents are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2010 by Anna Branford

  Illustrations copyright © 2012 by Elanna Allen

  Text was originally published in 2010 by Walker Books Australia Pty Ltd.

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