by Kitty Wilson
‘Okay, thank you. Should I just say I’m a friend of your daughter, sir, the one who dresses as a rabbit?’
‘Ha. No, that could be either of us. Best say you’re a friend of Pippa’s or a colleague, you know, in case you get the job I’m guessing you’re here for. Actually, if you say that, he and my brother will interrogate you…’
‘Oh, I’m used to family interrogations.’
‘Maybe, but not this one. You’ll know you’re in trouble when they haul my mum in. Best just say Pippa sent you and keep it vague. He’ll still bump you up the queue but won’t invite you over for dinner or ask what your father does. I hope.’ She started to pull up her costume again, struggling to get her hands into her paws and then fumbling over the zip. ‘Right, I best get back to school.’
‘Are you alright there?’ Kam wanted to offer to help, but felt zipping her up may well breach the rules on touching in social situations. He didn’t really know what to do with his hands; they suddenly felt awkward and unnecessary. They couldn’t fix cars, and he was unsure about the appropriateness of them zipping up rabbits. He also quite liked the idea of being invited to dinner by the mechanic. He was interested to see what Pippa was like in a family situation. And whether all the family were larger than life as she was.
‘Paws are the worst. I am so glad I’m not actually an animal. Having paws is even harder than long nails. I shall never take my hands for granted again.’
‘Probably a good plan. Here let me help you back to school with the chocolate.’
‘Oh, you’re fine. I can do it. You don’t want to leave the car like that. Penmenna may not be a criminal hotspot but there is such a thing as taking the mickey and you leaving this car with the engine running would be it. Here, if you just help load me up that would be grand.’
‘Hmm, that doesn’t seem very gentlemanly…’
‘No, but it does sound very sensible. Now, are you going to let me go in or stand here arguing with me?’
‘Fair point, but let me introduce myself first. I know you’re Pippa so it’s only polite to tell you my name: I’m Kam.’
‘Hi, Kam. Pleasure to meet you. She reached out her paw and raised her eyebrow. Kam laughed out loud and shook her fur-clad hand.
‘That’s the first time I’ve ever shook hands with the Easter Bunny.’
‘Well, make the most of it. I suspect you won’t get the chance again in a hurry.’
‘Ha, no. probably not. It’s been an absolute pleasure meeting you, Pippa. You are a fun-fur-clad superhero and I can’t thank you enough.’
‘No worries, glad to be of help.’
‘You’ve put a spring in my step.’
‘Really? That’s bad.’
‘Not as bad as a receding hare line.’
‘Just stop!’
‘I know, I’d best hop to it.’
‘Seriously. I help you and this is how you repay me?’
‘It’s been an egg-citing morning so far. I carrot wait to see how the rest of the day pans out.’
‘Get out of this car park before I call security.’
‘Is that the scary looking woman I met earlier?’
‘Oh, we have many. Prison-guard facial expression, scrapped-back hair and trouser suit, or predatory yummy-mummy wearing ladybirds? Oh shit. I shouldn’t have said any of those things. Forgive me. Oh and forget – please forget – I said that as well. Most unprofessional.’
‘I’ll keep your secret seeing as you fixed my car. Although, I’m half tempted to go back inside for another explore. But I guess it would be sensible to get to your dad’s and keep my fingers crossed that it is just the wire thing.’
‘Good plan. Nice to meet you, Kam.’
‘And you too. I owe you one. Here.’ He balanced the last egg box on top of the other two. ‘It feels wrong not helping you carry this. Are you sure you can make it back inside?’
‘Of course I am. Now stop your chitchat or I won’t be back in time and we’ll have some very sad children.’
‘Okay, go. And thank you.’ Kam headed back into the car but couldn’t help but watch her and really hope he got the job. ‘Oh!’ he wound down the window and shouted out ‘Remember, don’t worry, be hoppy!’
Chapter Three
Pippa entered the infant playground, with a broad grin on her face. Kam had been a bit of a departure from the regular school day and she hoped he got the job.
‘Ah good. We wondered where you had got to. Can’t have our Easter Bunny disappearing today. Although you do seem to have lost your head.’ The head of the PTA greeted her in her characteristic tone – faux politeness barely veiling constant criticism. The faux politeness usually being fairly quickly dropped.
Pippa loved her job as a teaching assistant but this woman, Marion Marksharp, and her fawning and freakily identical acolytes, drove her scatty and she was fairly sure she wasn’t paid enough to deal with the levels of stress the head of the PTA brought with her. Any more than three minutes of talking to the woman and Pippa started to panic she would develop a rash. Following Marion around as she marched from playground to playground barking commands and shoving over-excited pupils out of the way was not Pippa’s idea of a happy springtime celebration.
However, she was at work, so breathed deep, counted to three and then answered the woman standing in front of her, shaking with righteous organisation.
‘It’s in the staffroom, Marion, I’ll just…’
‘No need. Sarah, get the rabbit head from the staffroom, and bring it to the infant playground. Thank you.’ Marion issued the command into her walkie-talkie.
‘Now, let’s just run through everything one more time. Eggs spread out fairly amongst both playgrounds: check?’
‘Actually, Marion, I’ve got some extra. That’s where I was. I had to fetch them from the car.’
‘For goodness sake, all Easter Eggs were supposed to be collected by lunchtime and hidden by half past one. What on earth were you doing?’
‘Working in the classroom, Marion, and then covering lunch duty.’ Pippa felt her eyes roll as she answered back. This woman made her feel like she was thirteen again: deeply resentful and full of sass.
‘I suppose it can’t be helped.’ Marion looked like she distinctly thought it could have and should have been, before pulling her walkie talkie to her mouth again. ‘Code red, code red. Miss Parkin has forgotten to hand in her eggs, more eggs to come. I repeat more eggs. Could I please have someone from each playground to come and get the extras. Right, are all the teachers informed of and aware of the times we need the classes outside by?’ The woman didn’t stop for breath. Maybe she didn’t need to. In fact, if she was not actually human and breathing normally wasn’t a thing she had to do, quite a lot of things would make sense. Pippa found herself looking at her to see if she could spot signs of the paranormal, but even with all the squinting in the world, she couldn’t spot a pair of horns or ghostly aura. She just looked like Marion Marksharp in full steam mode.
‘Yes, Marion, Class One and Class Three will be in their playgrounds by thirteen forty-five and Classes Two and Four will come out at fourteen-thirty. That gives us time to hide the second tranche of eggs,’ Jenny, Marion’s deputy and possible twin, responded in the same military tone.
‘Right, excellent. Here comes Sarah with your head, Miss Parkin. Now if you could kindly keep it on, that would be much appreciated.’
‘I’ll do my best.’
‘Well, dear, it shouldn’t be that hard. I’m sure you’re more than capable. But if you feel it requires it, I shall be more than happy to staple you in.’ Marion narrowed her eyes, tilted her head and fake-smiled before racing across the playground as something, or someone, caught her eye.
Pippa wondered if it would result in immediate dismissal if she rammed the PTA’s walkie-talkie where the sun didn’t shine.
‘Hello, how you doing? Do I see steam coming out of those bunny ears?’ Sylvie, the specialist PE teaching assistant slid next to her, and Pippa could
see Sylvie grinning at her through her little bunny eye holes.
‘I might have to kill her.’
‘You’d be fairly easy to pick out from a line up – the suspect fled the scene wearing head to toe grey fur and a pair of whiskers.’
‘Ha-ha, very funny. I don’t know how you bear her.’ Sylvie had joined the staff team last year during the September term and, like their headmistress, Rosy Winter, she was one of the few members of the school community who didn’t seem to think Marion was the devil incarnate. Pippa respected Rosy endlessly and was very fond of Sylvie but for the life of her could not see why they were so forgiving of this tyrannical monster with her tautly stretched skin, bird prints and power heels.
‘She’s not that bad once you scratch the surface.’
‘Hmm, scratching her I could get behind, but I dread to think what I’d find under my nails if I tried. It would probably generate some weird kind of organism that sprung to life after midnight, roaming the village with a walkie-talkie and an iPad, screeching at anyone she passes.’
‘I like her. Well, I loathed her, but then I got to know her. Turns out she means well, really she does. And her boys adore her. That has to be indicative of something.’
‘Stockholm syndrome?’
‘Mrs Marksharp.’ Sylvie called over to Pippa’s nemesis, currently hauling a PTA member out of the bushes and shrieking abuse at her.
‘Not in the bushes, for goodness sake! Has everyone here actually been lobotomised? I was quite clear. Miss Winter has requested we don’t send the children into the bushes this year, what is the mat… oh hello, Sylvie dear.’ Marion spun as she heard Sylvie calling.
Pippa felt herself sigh and roll her eyes again. Much more time spent around Marion and her eyes were going to spin right out of their sockets. She knew Sylvie, an ex-ballerina, was on Marion Marksharp’s ‘People I Value’ list, but so bright were the beams now heading in their direction she felt like flopping her ears over her eyes for protection.
‘Oh hello, darling, how are you? And the lovely Alex? And the children of course?’ Monster Marksharp stalked her way over to them, having dropped Ashleigh’s mum, Alison, on the playground floor, and grinning the most frightening grin since The Joker.
‘We’re all fine thanks, Marion. Alex has just got home from South Sudan, so we’re all enjoying having him back. Give him a few days and we’ll catch up. Richard and the boys?’
Pippa spotted a flash of something indecipherable cross Marion’s face.
‘Yes, yes. The boys and I are off to Bordeaux for the holiday. Chateau break, they’re very excited.’
Pippa was amazed ‘the boys’ got through passport control. She fully expected Rafe, the eldest, to top Interpol’s Most Wanted within the decade.
‘Sounds nice. Harmony has sent me out to see if you’re ready for us yet?’
Harmony Rivers was the Class Three teacher and known as Hippy-Dippy Harmony by the less kind members of the school community. She was on a personal crusade at the moment to raise everyone’s awareness of the plight of the school hamster and had her class designing escape plans to set him free. Apparently, it was to help teach critical thinking skills.
Harmony spent her holidays fighting injustice wherever she saw it, waving placards and singlehandedly trying to stop global corruption. Interestingly, whilst she seemed to have no problem facing down dictators, it was no secret throughout Penmenna that she was absolutely terrified of Marion. Sending Sylvie was a sensible call. Pippa wished it were an option for her.
‘I don’t know how that woman is a teacher. Can she not tell the time? It’s not even like she has to try and decode the Victorian school clocks on the wall. The world is digital these days and yet she still struggles.’
‘I don’t think she has a mobile phone, Marion.’
‘Of course she doesn’t. She probably relies on some method involving slugs and a cartwheel at home. She’s got five minutes. And you can tell her that Miss Winter has said there’s to be none of that stupid sharing of the eggs in her class later. Dividing the spoils is downright communist and there’s no place for that sort of nonsense inside this school.’ Marion grinned her biggest crocodile grin as she delivered this news and Pippa did a double take.
The classes had been sharing the eggs out for years now. She couldn’t imagine that Rosy Winter would have changed the practice and she wouldn’t know about it. Pippa was the teaching assistant in Rosy and Lynne’s class for a start.
‘You are so naughty, Marion. You know that’s not true; you’re just trying to wind her up. I’m not telling her that.’ Sylvie had no truck with Marion’s suggestion but sent her a warm grin all the same.
‘Tut, you’re no fun. Tell her three minutes. We need her here in three minutes.’ And Marion formed a moue complete with downcast glance, as if Sylvie had stolen her favourite toy.
As Sylvie turned to leave, they heard the creaking of the door the other side of the playground and the sound of twenty four and five-year-olds spilling out into the playground with frenzied grins of anticipation and hunting for chocolate.
Marion looked up and quickly reverted to type. The walkie talkie was back in hand.
‘Time minus zero and go. I repeat, time minus zero and go. What on earth are you still doing here? Go, go, go!’ she barked at Pippa. Her words bounced around the playground, amplified by the walkie talkie welded to her lips.
‘Hop to it. Do hurry up! Idiots and incompetents, the lot of you!’
Chapter Four
It had almost been a full week since the start of the Easter holidays and Pippa hadn’t stopped to relax for a minute of it. The holidays were normally jam-packed with events where she could sell her vintage clothing, as tourists descended upon the county en masse. This one had been no different. Meaning that she raced through the front door of her parent’s house only just in time for family dinner, a weekly event where everyone was expected to attend or they’d face the wrath of their mother. Wrath that may take the shape of sad face biscuits for the next week or all the washing done without the use of any fabric conditioner, both options considered nuclear by the Parkin family’s matriarch.
The fact that neither Pippa, Polly or Pete asked their mother to wash their clothes was of no consequence. The fact that she broke into both Pippa and Pete’s houses every few days to collect their laundry was an argument they had all tried and failed, both individually and collectively, to win. Pippa was the oldest and had begged and begged her mother not to keep coming around and letting herself in. But her mother protested she always knocked first and was only being helpful.
Pete had claimed that they could move to three different parts of the world and she’d still find a way to do the washing and expect them to turn up without fail every Thursday. Polly reckoned she’d invent either a hoverboard or zappy device so she could continue to come and visit them randomly, let herself in, take the laundry, and fill the cupboards with bleach and carpet cleaner.
However much the three moaned – and they did – about how their mother had her ever-loving fingers all over their lives, they did all enjoy Thursday dinner. It was always full of laughter and what they had known forever.
‘Hey mum.’
‘Hey love.’ Her mum, Jan, uncurled herself from crouching by the oven where she was swooshing the potatoes from side to side, all fluffed up and covered with garlic and slabs of butter and smelling like heaven.
‘I’ll lay the table. Are the others here yet?’
‘Yes, Pete is in the shed with your father and Polly is upstairs in her room. Apparently, she can’t come out again until June. These exams will be the death of her and she’s sitting up there with a cling film wrapped around her hair and a bottle’s worth of ketchup squished on underneath.’
‘She’s doing what? Ketchup?’ Pippa washed her hands and then grabbed the cutlery from the draw.
‘What can I say? She’s seen it on the internet. She dyed her hair emerald green yesterday and woke up this morning hating it. Sa
ys it makes her look dead. Then the internet told her… it told her’ – Jan seemed to think the internet followed you around the house speaking to you, rather like she did – ‘that the red in the ketchup would balance out the green in her hair. A natural colour wheel it said. Have you ever heard anything so stupid? I tried to tell her. Now I’m leaving it up to her. I’ve bought some hair dye remover and left it in the bathroom cupboard, and when she decides she doesn’t like smelling like a burger van then she might use it.’
‘Oh, I’ll nip up and see her.’
‘No, she’s in a foul mood. Save yourself and stay here and lay the table. We’re starting a bit later tonight; we’ve got the Carpenters coming.’
‘Oh, okay then, table for seven then?’
Pippa grabbed some extra knives and forks and headed into the dining room. The Carpenters had been family friends since forever and they all ate together every major holiday.
‘No, eight.’ Her mother’s answer made Pippa pause.
‘Eight?’
‘Yes, eight. James is home so he’ll be coming too. It’s nice for Karen as he hasn’t been back in years. Talking of beautiful young men—’
‘I wasn’t aware that we were.’
As ever, Jan ignored that which she didn’t want to hear. ‘I was most disappointed when you wouldn’t tell us anything about that lovely young man you sent to Dad’s. Nothing at all. And he was so cute. Dad showed me on the CCTV. Lovely young man. You need to accept that time is getting on; I had had both you and Peter by the time I was your age.’
Pippa smiled: Kam had been cute. Those beautifully fringed eyes, and those awful jokes. She had been attracted to him immediately – boom! – out of nowhere. She wasn’t letting her mother anywhere near him! Plus, she didn’t want children yet. What was so hard for her mother to understand? Pippa was nowhere near ready for the whole happily-ever-after that her Mum and Dad had. Surely that much was obvious. Plus, these days you were no longer considered a failure if you hadn’t popped two children out by the age of twenty-five (a milestone she had long passed). Unless, it seemed, you were a Parkin.
