The Extremely Inconvenient Adventures of Bronte Mettlestone

by Jaclyn Moriarty

  I set off, leaving them slowly creaking up and down.

  It took so long for Aunt Carrie to open the door that I began to think she wasn’t home.

  Her cottage seemed to have been eaten by crawling vines. I had to push them aside to knock. A stone bench sat crumbling by the door, and some of the vines were working on eating that, too. There was also a broken umbrella and a pair of dusty gumboots.

  The door opened slowly, and there was Aunt Carrie, shielding her eyes from the sun.

  The last time I saw Aunt Carrie, when she had visited Gainsleigh, I had been six years old. I remembered her as big and boisterous, with eyes the colour of violets, thick hair piled on the top of her head and pinned in place with a silver clip. She had laughed enormously when I told her a joke I had learned from the Butler, and I had felt so pleased that I ran to find the Butler and asked him for another. Aunt Carrie laughed even louder at my second joke and announced that she would ‘Take this one out for tea and cakes, right away, if that suits you, Isabelle?’

  At the tea room, she had sung songs with me loudly, not caring about people at other tables. The whole thing had seemed wicked, but also wonderful.

  Something had burned in the kitchen, I think, as the tea room had become smoky, so a waiter had begun opening windows. One of the windows was jammed shut, and Aunt Carrie had held up a finger—‘Hold that thought, Bronte,’—skidded over and hoisted the window open for the waiter.

  ‘You are strong,’ he had told her, amazed, and she had replied, ‘Why yes, young man, I am strong,’ and then she’d grinned at him.

  Now, as she blinked down at me from her cottage door, the only thing I recognised was the colour of her eyes.

  She was wearing a nightgown and she was as thin, faded and small as a bedraggled cat. Her hair had been cut short and lay in a sort of tatter on her head.

  ‘Bronte,’ she smiled, her voice also thin and faded. ‘Have you been knocking long? Only, I fell asleep just now. So sorry. Please.’

  She reached for my suitcase, but her shoulders were so bony I doubted she could lift it.

  I handed over the violets instead.

  ‘Oh,’ I said, realising. ‘Your eyes are the colour of violets. That must be why I had to get them for you. I’m sorry they’re so …’

  It occurred to me that wilting was exactly what she was.

  ‘Let me put them in a vase,’ she said, and she drifted into her kitchen and began opening and closing cupboards.

  At every window, the drapes were tightly closed so the cottage was dark. As my eyes adjusted, I saw that it was crowded with stacks of cardboard boxes.

  ‘Have you only just moved in?’ I asked.

  ‘Been here years,’ she said vaguely.

  My aunt was still opening cupboard doors and rummaging around so that plates and glasses clattered and clinked.

  ‘Let me get you some lunch,’ she said finally, giving up on the search for a vase. She put the violets in a water glass instead, and ran the tap to fill it.

  ‘No, thank you,’ I replied. ‘I’ve already eaten.’

  Aunt Carrie moved slowly across the room, stepping over stacks of newspaper. She opened a door to a tiny room which she called her ‘guest room’, and invited me to put my suitcase inside.

  ‘Now then,’ she said next. ‘Shall we play a board game?’

  This was unexpected.

  ‘Good idea,’ I said, to be polite, and she crawled along the floor to reach the lowest bookshelf, and drew out a dusty game. Next, she swept a lot of clutter from the table to the floor, and we sat down opposite each other.

  We played the game for the whole afternoon. It was a dull game, one of those ones where you roll dice and then move a counter. Now and then you jump over a square, or move back two squares. Sometimes she won, sometimes I did. It was pretty even.

  Eventually, it grew so dark that Aunt Carrie turned on a lamp. ‘Now then,’ she said. ‘Dinner’.

  She crept around her kitchen, opening cupboards, turning on the stove, and sighing. At last, she placed a pot of macaroni and cheese in the middle of the table, along with two spoons.

  ‘Just eat it from the pot,’ she said.

  She took a very small spoonful for herself and sat back and watched me eat. After I’d had enough, she said, ‘Did I forget dessert? I used to make a good fruit … what’s it called? Fruit crumble?’

  ‘I’ve got Ricochet oranges!’ I remembered.

  At this, there was a brief glimmer in her eyes. ‘You’ve been to Rawsons’ stall?’ she said. ‘They get Ricochet oranges in sometimes.’

  That reminded me. ‘Aunt Carrie,’ I said. ‘Did you send a note to two children and tell them to wait in the park for me to pass?’

  Aunt Carrie blinked. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Was I … supposed to do that?’

  I took out the oranges and Aunt Carrie smiled, but she still only ate half a wedge. She twisted the other half around in her palm. I ate the rest of her orange myself, and then I peeled another. I could have eaten the whole sack. Aunt Sue had been right: these oranges were like happy new friends who will laugh at your jokes and sing songs with you. Every time I took a bite, I found myself beaming. I tried to catch Aunt Carrie’s eye with my beam. She smiled ever so faintly, and set the half-wedge down.

  It was like she was not there. She was not at the table. She was not sitting opposite me. I was sitting in this cottage, eating Ricochet oranges, all alone.

  ‘Aunt Carrie,’ I said, ‘I think you must be ill. Could I fetch a doctor for you?’

  Again, Aunt Carrie smiled her wispy smile.

  ‘Dear Bronte,’ she said. ‘I am not ill. Or anyway, not with an illness that a doctor can cure.’

  ‘Oh, I think they can cure most illnesses,’ I told her breezily. I didn’t know that for certain, but I thought it only fair to give a doctor a go at curing her. ‘Do you know what it’s called?’ I said. ‘Your illness?’

  Aunt Carrie began to gather the orange peelings. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It’s called sadness.’

  I considered that. I’d been sad myself at times. So far it had never made me skinny. If anything, it would have been the opposite, since the Butler baked meringues or chocolate éclairs whenever I was low.

  ‘We should look into what’s making you sad,’ I said. ‘And fix it.’

  My aunt smiled again. ‘A broken heart,’ she said. ‘Can’t be fixed. Believe me, I have tried.’

  I frowned. It seemed to me that most things could be fixed eventually. If you tried once and it didn’t work out, it only meant you had to try again.

  ‘It was somebody you loved?’ I asked.

  ‘It was,’ she said. ‘A long time ago. He was so big, Bronte. And his hair was wild! Curls springing out here, and here, and here!’ Her hands pranced around on top of her head. It was the liveliest I had seen her. Then her arms dropped to her side again. ‘And I let him go, Bronte. I let him go, and lost him.’

  ‘Oh, well,’ I said. ‘Let’s find him.’

  Aunt Carrie smiled mistily and suggested I have a bath, brush my teeth and put on my pyjamas. So I did. The cottage sat quietly all the while, so that the noise I made moving around seemed like garish colours.

  Once I was in bed in the guest room, Aunt Carrie came in, kissed the top of my head, and told me that she would have to work each day of my stay. She was a filing clerk in a nearby office, and hoped I would be all right. Aunt Carrie was the second exception to the three-day-visit rule (my cruise-ship aunts had been the first).

  I told her I would be fine, thank you, but I wondered what I could possibly do each day for the next two weeks. There was nothing around except fields.

  After a while, all the lights went out and I heard a slight creak, which I guessed was my aunt climbing into her bed in her room.

  I lay in the darkness. A tap was still dripping in the bathroom in a clip-clop way, like a horse trotting along at quite a pace. I got up, turned off the tap more tightly, and went back to bed. So now there was not even a friend
ly horse to keep me company.

  In the middle of the night, I woke up in a panic. I sat straight up in bed, my heart beating wildly. I was frantic.

  Only, I didn’t know what I was frantic about.

  I took deep breaths, as Aunt Isabelle had taught me to do whenever I got in a state. And I asked myself the same question that Aunt Isabelle would have asked: ‘Whatever is the matter, Bronte?’

  The answer placed itself neatly before me.

  I had seen them before. The children in the playground. The boy in a red jacket, sitting on a swing. The girl in a blue dress, standing by a seesaw. I knew them.

  This only set my heart beating faster. It made no sense! I climbed out of bed and started doing star jumps—something else that Aunt Isabelle had taught me to do when riled up.

  I tried to jump softly so as not to wake Aunt Carrie.

  Thump, went my feet.

  But how could I know them? I had never been to Stantonville before!

  Thump.

  I did know them. I had seen them on this journey! I was sure of that.

  Thump.

  But when on this journey?

  Thump.

  There were so many aunts!

  Thump.

  I would have go to through them. I would go backwards.

  Thump.

  Aunt Alys, Aunt Maya, Aunt Lisbeth.

  Thump.

  Aunt Nancy, Aunt Sophy, Aunt Claire.

  Thump.

  Aunt Emma, Aunt Sue—

  I stopped.

  I sat on the edge of the bed.

  From Aunt Sue’s place, I had walked to a café called the Dishevelled Sofa. I had eaten Today’s Special!! and drunk the house-made lemonade. I had been nervous. I had stared at a painting, to calm myself down.

  The painting had been set in a children’s playground: a boy in a red jacket seated on a swing, a girl in a blue dress standing by a seesaw and staring at me.

  The next morning, I found a loaf of rye in Aunt Carrie’s breadbox and made myself toast. Aunt Carrie was still sleeping, so I set out into the day.

  It was early but it was already hot again. I walked quickly past the trees, through the gate, over the hill (the sign for Ricochet Oranges was still there, but somebody had tacked a piece of paper to it saying Sold Out), across the fields and back to the post office.

  I sent a telegram to Aunt Sue in Livingston.

  I had never sent a telegram before but it turned out to be quite easy. You just say, ‘I’d like to send a telegram please?’ and the man asks who you want to send it to, and what you want to say.

  My first ever telegram said this:

  The post-office man suggested I could use abbreviations for many of these words, to save money, but that seemed impolite.

  I was so pleased with myself for sending a telegram that I decided to send another. This one to the Dishevelled Sofa Café itself.

  I went to the diner next door and had another fruit frosty and slice of cheesecake to reward myself for sending telegrams. Then I returned to the post office and asked if there’d been any reply.

  ‘Not yet,’ I expected the man to say. ‘Bit too soon, eh?’

  In my head, I could hear him saying this very clearly. But he didn’t. He handed over two telegrams. The first was from Aunt Sue.

  The second was from the café.

  ‘DSC stands for Dishevelled Sofa Café,’ the post-office man told me, reading over my shoulder.

  ‘Yes,’ I agreed.

  I sent a reply to Aunt Sue telling her that no, not living at the post office, ha ha, and I looked forward to seeing them at Aunt Franny’s.

  Then I looked at the second telegram for a while.

  ‘Is there a library around here?’ I asked the post-office man, eventually.

  ‘Not in Stantonville. There’s one in Mosman Village. About two hours’ ride from here.’

  I thought about that.

  ‘May I send another telegram?’ I asked.

  ‘You don’t need to telegram ahead to the library,’ he said. ‘You just go there. You have a horse?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Not with me, anyway.’ And I explained that, in fact, I wanted to telegram a different library, one I’d been to before, on Lantern Island.

  ‘Lantern Island?’ he said. ‘Much too far. About ten days’ ride from here. And you’d have to get your horse onto a boat.’

  ‘I don’t have a horse,’ I reminded him. ‘And I don’t want to go to the Lantern Island Library. I just want to send the librarian a telegram.’

  At last he relented and let me send the telegram.

  The librarian replied within five minutes. Dear child! she wrote, and then she said that everybody on Lantern Island missed me, which I found unlikely. I hadn’t even met everybody on the island. She told me that she was an ‘ardent admirer’ of the art of Ronaldo C. Torrington herself, and had a print of one of his paintings in her kitchen, and then she gave me his postal address.

  ‘11 The Picturesque Way, Carnegie Waters,’ I read aloud. ‘Sayer Empire. Do you know where that is?’

  ‘Two kingdoms west of here,’ the post-office man replied. ‘About six hours’ ride. You have a horse, you say?’

  ‘Still no.’

  I chose a postcard for Ronaldo C. Torrington.

  Next, I bought a stamp and mailed the postcard. I thanked the man in the post office for his help and said I hoped I would have a horse with me the next time I saw him. He seemed baffled by that.

  I walked back to the playground. It was empty now, but I wandered around, sat on the swing and swung a while. I waved at the pony in the field behind the playground but it only flared its nostrils and carried on eating the grass.

  Nothing else happened, so I headed back to Aunt Carrie’s.

  When I arrived, there was a note from Aunt Carrie:

  ‘No!’ I half-shouted at the note. I tried to be more polite. ‘No, thank you,’ I said to it instead. ‘I don’t want to play the board game again.’

  I looked around the dark cottage. It seemed to me that it was probably my job to make Aunt Carrie happy and interesting again. I had read plenty of stories about children meeting grumpy older people and cheering them up. They did this by being delightful and sunny themselves, and also by opening all the curtains. At first, the grumpy people found the child irritating, but then they could not help but be charmed.

  I wasn’t sure how to be delightful and sunny, but I could open curtains.

  Anyone can.

  I ran around the cottage, pushing open all the curtains.

  Once I’d done that, I wondered if I should close them. The light bursting into the room was not very strong because of the creeper vines covering the windows, but it was strong enough to illuminate dust and mess everywhere. Even the furniture seemed to cower.

  Well, I had cleaned Aunt Emma’s cottage for her on Lantern Island, so I could do the same for Aunt Carrie. I would knock it over in an afternoon, I decided.

  But that was nonsense. I worked all afternoon but I’d scarcely made a difference by the time Aunt Carrie arrived home. She seemed alarmed by the opened curtains and hurried to close them all again. Then she looked around for the board game, but I had hidden it. She sat down on the couch, saying, ‘Let me just have a think where it could be, Bronte,’ and fell fast asleep.

  I remembered that in many stories about children and grumpy people, there’s a part where the child gets mad and shouts something like, ‘Buck up!’ or ‘Snap out of it, you grumpy old git!’ That sort of thing. I’ve always been surprised that shouting at somebody will cheer them up but it works in the books. (You can also slap the sad person across the face with your glove.)

  So I went and shook Aunt Carrie’s shoulder. I’ll be good at this part, I thought.

  ‘HEY!’ I yelled. ‘WAKE UP! CHEER UP AT ONCE!’

  Aunt Carrie half-woke and said, ‘Oh, darling, I’m sorry, I’ve fallen asleep, haven’t I? Shall we get the board game?’ and then her eyes closed again.

  I s
at down beside her. In the dim light, I could see that great purple shadows looped under her eyes, and that the bones stood out sharply in her cheeks.

  Shouting at Aunt Carrie would never make a difference.

  There was nobody there to cheer up.

  The only thing, I decided, was to make Aunt Carrie’s cottage as pleasant as possible. So that she might have a reason to come back and be here.

  After that, the days fell into a pattern.

  In the mornings, I went to the post office to see if there were any telegrams. I ate morning tea in the diner and walked to the playground to see if there were any children or clues. There were never any telegrams, nor children, nor clues.

  Then I came back to Aunt Carrie’s place, opened all the curtains and windows, and cleaned. Each evening, Aunt Carrie would come home, close the curtains, and look for the board game. She never found it. (I’d hidden it under the wood box.) She would sit on the couch and fall asleep. Much later, she’d wake and say, ‘Oh, you must be hungry. Did I fall asleep?’ We would share macaroni and cheese and a Ricochet orange, and go to bed.

  The more I cleaned, the more reckless I became. At first I was careful not to touch any of Aunt Carrie’s boxes, or open cupboards or drawers. But I saw that this would get me nowhere.

  So I took everything out of every cupboard and drawer, threw it all away (it was grimy and chipped, broken and mouldy), and scrubbed the empty surfaces.

  Next, I opened the cardboard boxes and unpacked them. I hung dresses in the wardrobe in Aunt Carrie’s bedroom, and folded cardigans into her drawers. I’d only seen her wearing a nightie or a plain grey dress, but the boxes were full of shimmery, silky gowns and velvet capes with hoods. There were also shiny sets of cutlery and fine dinnerware, which I placed in the kitchen cupboards. They made me feel less guilty about having thrown away the chipped plates. Some of them had only had a tiny chip, actually.

  I found a gramophone and a stack of records, and placed these on a side table.