by Paula Hayes
OL shouted, ‘Not still!’
‘Still? What is this still business?’ I said.
‘Lucy told me that Dawn would flirt with Colin in the most open and obvious manner. One time at a mutual friend’s wedding, Dawn drank three shandies and put her hand on Colin’s knee! Lucy was beyond livid. Outrageous and disgusting behaviour.’
I now didn’t feel so bad about getting a bit OTT with my ‘make amends’ finale. So I told OL exactly what happened and what I said to dear old Dawn (not).
OL was delighted I’d given Dawn a fright but beyond outraged that Dawn’s new old dogs are still skinny and mean. So I promised I’d check on them before I leave GG’s house and if they did not look happier and healthier I was going to call the RSPCA. Then we were both really sad because I don’t want to leave her ever and OL doesn’t want me to go.
I pulled out one of the drawers of the mirror’s wooden base to hide the finger in a safe spot. Inside it was a small pile of yellowing crinkly newspapers dated from 23 December 1947. These old papers had articles on Other Lily and her mysterious disappearance. I read the first article. There was a photo underneath it. It is the photo of OL and Lucy holding onto a cat, except the photo had been cropped and enlarged and so it’s just of OL’s face. She is soooo pretty. I cut out the first newspaper article and have stuck it in my journal. There are heaps of them — mostly they are about how OL’s disappearance is still a mystery.
MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE OF LOCAL GIRL
Dec. 23.
Christmas preparations in the small south west town of Treebark have ceased as the town searches for one of its brightest and most promising young students, thirteen-year-old Miss Lily Beryl Dunnings of Flotsam Road.
Her twin sister, Miss Lucy Dunnings, last saw the missing girl out the front of the family’s Edwardian home. She confirmed Lily was practising cartwheels and handstands and then stopped to make a daisy chain. This has been verified by neighbours from across the road, a Mr and Mrs F. Daglish.
Miss Lucy Dunnings says that was the last time she saw her sister outside of the house.
Mr Kenneth Dunnings (of Dunnings Hardware and Nursery) and his wife, Mrs Beryl Dunnings (CWA best sponge cake winner, 1936 to present), declined to comment as they are overcome with worry.
The alarm was raised by Miss Janet Knoblett, a recent graduate teacher to Lily and Lucy. Miss Knoblett visited the Dunnings on the 22nd with a tin of chocolates for the family as they had shown great kindness to her in her first teaching post far from her home. She found the family ‘in a state of absolute chaos’ as they searched for Lily. Miss Knoblett was asked to notify Sergeant Glendennings, who authorised a search party. The Dunnings family could not shed any further light on the disappearance.
I put the papers aside, wrapped up the finger and placed it in one of the smaller boxes by itself. And that’s when I had another idea.
‘Lily?’ I asked with trepidation because I did not want to get her hopes up, ‘Can you feel your finger? Even in the slightest bit?’
And she answered, ‘Why no, dear heart, that is why it was lost for many a year and I am so grateful to you for finding it.’
But I continued on, ‘What happens when you jiggle it, then?’
‘I certainly can’t feel the jiggle, but I must admit,’ and then she hesitated, ‘I must admit that when you said you had popped me into the Milo, I did get a warm sensation up my hand, which has never happened before. And just then I felt a cold tingle.’
‘Like running water?’
‘Yes!’ she squeaked.
And so this is my idea.
In Harry Potter, portals are opening and closing all the time and perhaps, just perhaps — this is not a guaranteed fact but an idea I am having — this mirror portal might be opening up now for the first time since Edgar the Pudding Head cast his terrible spell. And it’s somehow related to Nimmy dying. And this is why Lily has some sensation in her finger.
To test my theory I asked OL if she had any sensation where her tippy-toe might be.
‘No, nothing of the sort.’
‘Try to look a little deeper,’ I urged her.
So she closed her eyes and then lifted her missing toe leg up and pointed it at me, then all of a sudden her foot swivelled in the direction of the pile in the corner. So I went to the corner and there were chocolate tins and shoeboxes and patterns for awesome cotton frocks and, underneath the delightful junk, was a pretty red sewing basket. Apparently it belonged to Beryl who said it was strictly ‘out of bounds’, as it contained her sharpest Art Nouveau sterling silver sewing scissors WITH Floral Repousse handles from the Motherland and ‘could not be replaced for love or money.’
‘It’s in the sewing basket,’ gasped OL, as if she was a magician or something and I, her faithful assistant, opened the basket and started to take out measuring tapes and loads of cotton bobbins and the hallowed scissors and scraps of what is now vintage material but at the time it was cutting-edge fashion. There were so many cool sewing patterns that I got a bit distracted. (Note to self: learn how to sew awesome vintage stuff.)
When I came across the special scissors, they were wrapped in velvet, like the Queen’s best brooch. I unwrapped them to reveal the freakiest scissors in the entire world. They actually had horrible little flowers all over the handles AND at the bottom of the blades were two little kids’ faces popping out of roses. The children’s eyes were rolled in toward each other like they were asking the other one, ‘What’s up?’ It was plain creepy … more like ‘What’s up with Beryl?’
I got worried the toe was not in the sewing basket because I couldn’t see it. I lifted everything carefully because even though I am now used to the finger, a large piece of toe with a scratchy broken nail was a bit of a spew-making thought.
‘I can’t see it,’ I told OL, and she closed her eyes and started to really get into the vibe of it.
‘It is definitely in there,’ she said, ‘keep looking.’
Just then, I spied a little blue box of pins and my vibe was very strong that the tippy-toe was inside it. And I was right. I opened it up and there, sitting on a nest of pins, was the toe, still plump and fresh. There was a bit of dirt under the nail but nothing too much.
I held it up like a trophy and OL clapped her hands in sheer delight. I moved toward the mirror so she could have a good look at it and after a minute or two she gazed at me with her big blue eyes and said, ‘What do you think this means?’
My mind was swirling with possibilities and all seven of the Potter books hit me hard in the head — one at a time. Kerplunk! Kerplunk! Kerpow! Not literally, of course, but I now know that anything is possible.
I answered that this is a very promising turn of events and promise is a very good thing indeed. And I really, really, really wanted to touch the glass … and I nearly did as fingerprints are overrated but pain is not.
I shook my head because even in my own head I dare not think what it might mean. That either the best thing in the world might be happening — that Other Lily comes out of the mirror. Or that it’s the worst thing in the world — that she is dying too. Why is she becoming like a faded postcard? Alarming! If she can now feel stuff, maybe she can age too. Maybe she is reconnecting with our time and could shrivel up in the mirror and turn into one of those old skinny ladies that wander around at the Home smiling at everyone with lopsided lipstick. (Except without the lipstick … obviously.)
Other Lily has been in the mirror for sixty-seven years. When she went into the mirror, Queen Elizabeth was all young and pretty plus she was getting married to a handsome prince who was adorable but now looks like a naughty goblin. The Queen is still very pretty for a very old lady. There are some old newspaper clippings in a shoebox of the bride and groom looking happy. In today’s newspaper, the couple is on page seven … still smiling and looking happyish.
Maybe OL will turn into an eighty-year-old just like that and the shock of rapidly aging organs will explode and kill her. Then she will be a pud
dle in the mirror. I can’t feel a vibe on this one. Something is changing, OL can feel stuff but she is now as flat as one of Zinnia’s old DVDs all the time. I am very worried but still very excited. It is a paradoxical thing.
Just then I heard a knock on the front door so I quickly put the toe with the finger in the drawer and said a quick goodbye to OL. I locked the Rosy Room and ran to answer the front door. It was Fern, of course, and she had the three peeved cats in a cat travelling box, wailing like they really had been cleaved open with an axe.
Fern hugged me tightly and said, ‘How are you, Lily Pilly?’ and I replied with great indignation, ‘I am fine, Frondsy.’ This made her laugh (odd girl) and then she waved her arms around dramatically and slapped her hand to her head and exclaimed, ‘I have forgotten the cat food,’ and I replied, ‘It is alright because GG has remembered it and will pick some up on the way home from the Home.’
‘Bless,’ sighed Fern like GG is a leprechaun or a gnome, but he is neither.
Then there was another knock on the door and it was the man from Silver Chain. He had all kinds of stuff to make Nimmy comfortable for her last few days. He went about measuring and setting up stuff in GG and Nimmy’s bedroom and made lists and then went away and came back with more stuff. Soon Nimmy and GG’s room looked a bit like the Home, so I went and cut some roses from the ancient rosebush and put them into a vase. I thought this was a lovely touch but I am still bleeding.
So it really truly must be happening — Nimmy is coming home! Yay! But it is such a long way to the Rosy Room from this bedroom off the front door that it might as well be to Antarctica. Will it be enough for OL to have her dear one in the same house? I was starting to feel one of my highly suggestible states coming on and that I could easily slip into hysteria. So I went into the kitchen and grabbed some cake and a paper bag and breathed deeply until I felt I was able to eat the cake without being sick.
Next thing I knew, Sophie the nurse was knocking on the door and she had more stuff from the Home, but she was wearing her own clothes and looked different. She looked younger and she had put in her second ear-pierced earrings and was wearing her long blonde curly hair out of her usual tight bun. Quite Awesome. TOTES JEALOUS.
Sophie said the ambulance was transporting Lucy right now because she was reasonably stable at the moment. So Nimmy and GG are in the back of the ambulance like they are riding in a horse-drawn coach — just like the Queen and her Prince in 1947.
Fourteen
It is UNBELIEVABLY DIFFICULT to get some privacy and peace around here at the mo. There is SO MUCH going on that it is impossible to sneak into the Rosy Room as much as I would like to. (I know Other Lily is going bonkers with anxiety and anticipation.) Other Lily has had an idea but she needs me to execute it. Execute is a bizarre word for carrying out a plan. I can’t stay long with her and the more nervous I get, the more difficult it is to get the key in the door. Stress City. Other Lily is rattling like crazy and she is lucky the house is so noisy and full of people because otherwise we would be busted for sure.
My family members keep on arriving!
Yesterday
Fern — 11.05 am drove in her Hyundai with traumatised cats.
Today
Mum and Dad — 12.42 am took a plane home and then drove the Subaru down.
Zinnia and Manuel — 5.22 pm took two planes and a bus and a taxi.
Linden (AKA Pig Boy) is here already, which is a darn shame (old-fashioned swearword that is nicer than new-fashioned swearwords).
Linden and Fern are not talking because Fern has unfriended Linden on Facebook, thanks to a funny cat meme that offended her big-time. Zinnia and Manuel are speaking in Spanish all the time. I asked Zinnia what they were saying and she said they were angry that the taxi driver ripped them off. I thought they were declaring their passionate love for each other, it sounded so good.
Fern, Zinnia and Manuel are planning a trip across Europe with their old friends. Apparently, travelling across Europe used to be called ‘touring the Continent’, because good old GG piped up and said he and Nimmy had done that. So then Zinnia was desperate to get into the Rosy Room and find all the old letters and photos. PAR AVION? NO WAY JOSÉ!
GG asked me if I had found them and I said no, I knew nothing about the tart box of blue aerogrammes but I was your girl if you were looking for the perfect pavlova. GG smiled at me in a funny way. Then he tried to open the door but of course it was locked. He looked for the key, which normally hung on the wall, but it was not there. Of course it was digging into me. GG turned and looked carefully into my face and I looked back. I was hoping my vibe was travelling telepathically into his brain. And then finally GG totally got me. Sure, he had no idea of what he was ‘getting’, but he was on Team Lily … pending an explanation. Grandad then turned to Zinnia and said, ‘Oh Zinnzy, I have misplaced the key, I will look for it later. So sorry.’
And Fern was like, ‘Oh GG, don’t worry about it, we can look for it later,’ and Zinnia dabbed at her eyes and smiled and said, ‘Yes, later GG,’ like he was dying too.
And then Fern gave me a look that said, ‘Hope GG isn’t losing it?’ and I looked into the distance and sighed as if to say, ‘The poor darling,’ and Zinnia smiled at me. She is so pretty when she smiles. Meanwhile, the key was all caught up in my crop top and singlet straps and had worked its way under my armpit and was sweating like crazy.
Nimmy slept through all of this. She had an open-mouth snore going on that showed the gap where her front tooth used to be and it was a bit off-putting. She was a full-time resident of Nimmy Land and I hoped she was thinking about pretty patterned material and jiggling wiggling fingers, and that she might see Beryl and Ken soon.
Everyone was getting on everyone else’s nerves so Sophie took Nimmy’s vital signs and told GG and everyone it was okay to go and have a walk around the park because it was only three streets away. I said I don’t want to walk, I want to read my book, so they left me in the good room and I watched until they wandered higgledy-piggledy around the corner in a multi-size pack and out of sight! Hurrah!
Mum and Dad were sleeping because they are so old and jetlagged. Sophie was having a nap in the easy recliner chair in GG and Nimmy’s room. She was out cold, poor thing — her shift at the Home had started at 4.30 this morning. I knew I must be quiet or the plan would be ruined.
I took the finger out of my pocket and very gently stroked Nimmy’s scaly old face with it. Then I opened up her hand, placed the finger in it and closed the hand up. Nimmy did not stir at all and I got scared I was too late. I watched her closely and I also watched Sophie closely while secretly wishing my hair could be all blonde and curly too.
Five minutes later, Nimmy woke up and tried to say something but the words were all mixed up and back to front. Sophie was still snoring her box off. PHEW!
This is when things started to happen.
Nimmy opened her hand and saw the finger and looked hard at it. Then her eyes looked to me and they opened just a little bit wider, like she was trying to say, ‘Am I really holding Lily dearest’s finger again?’ and I answered with words and said, ‘Yes, it is really Lily,’ and then Nimmy’s papery old gnarled hand squeezed hard and opened, and the finger danced for her. It was waltzing on the palm of her hand. Nimmy’s eyes looked to me as if to say, ‘You are seeing this too, I am not crazy?’ And I answered with words, ‘You are not crazy. It is Lily doing her thing … especially for you.’
Out of the corner of my eye I caught a strange metal thing with wheels sitting under the window, and as I looked harder at it I realised it was Nimmy’s wheelchair and then I had an idea. It was an awesomely scary idea that could have gone very wrong. But once I had the idea, there was no way I could forget it and I had to move quickly.
Nimmy’s eyes were closed and she had a lovely smile on her face as I raced over to the wheelchair to set it up. It took two attempts and I got my finger caught and I could not stop myself from shouting out, ‘OUCH.’ This woke up Sophie
and she caught me with the wheelchair by Nimmy’s bed, with my hand under my arm and tears running down my face. She said, ‘Lily sweetheart, what is going on?’
I had the presence of mind to say I was going to take Nimmy for a stroll around the garden as the weather was delightful and GG said she really loved her garden.
Then I had to sit through a bit of a lecture on why this was not a good idea and this was when I slipped into a highly suggestible state to the POINT OF NO RETURN as I blubbed, ‘Listen, Sophie, I am not an idiot but you have to believe me that Nimmy needs to go to the Rosy Room right now, while she is stable, even if I am not.’ And then it was like Nimmy heard me and was completely on Team Lily-times-two because she opened her hand and out rolled the dancing finger and I shouted, ‘Go for it, Lily,’ and she did. And Sophie did not run away screaming like Pig Boy, she actually sat down on the bed and looked at the twirling finger very carefully and calmly, although her mouth was wide open and I could actually see her molar fillings on the left side. She was so cool and composed and then I remembered she was a trained professional.
Then she said something that no adult has ever said to me. She asked, ‘What would you like me to do?’
So it was time for my mouth to flop open as I shouted, ‘WHEELCHAIR … NOW … COAST CLEAR.’ I couldn’t get proper sentences out and my mind was whizzing along like a wheelchair on a forty-five degree angle.
With two gentle moves, Sophie got Nimmy into the chair and Nimmy’s eyes opened wide like we had supercharged her or something. This was scary but good. She was awake but I had no idea if she was in Nimmy Land or Lily Land at this stage. I threw her lap rug over her and opened the door. I whispered to Sophie, ‘It’s safe to proceed,’ as I really wanted to be all professional too. I got my Hermione Granger groove on as there was no room for erroneous mistakes.
I could tell Other Lily was seriously conniptive because the mirror was rattling like crazy and I was totally channelling Hermione because as we whizzed past Dad and Mum’s bedroom I had the presence of mind to say, ‘Darn those buses and trucks,’ like GG does when the house rattles a lot.
