Alice-Miranda In New York 5

by Jacqueline Harvey

  ‘Well, I’m glad to be of service – and what better place to trot out my new talents than New York, New York. I wonder if there were any Broadway producers watching.’ Dolly raised her eyebrows. ‘I might have a new calling. Cooking, inventing and Bollywood dancing. And you know I feel fitter than I have in years. I’ve been thinking about adding belly dancing to my repertoire, but Shilly’s not so keen. I think she’s afraid of the outfits – a little too revealing for her taste.’

  Hugh laughed.

  ‘On a more serious note, sir, are you alone?’ Dolly thought the apartment was much too quiet for Alice-Miranda to have returned with her father.

  ‘Yes, I left the girls heading towards Times Square. I’ve got some work to do,’ Hugh replied.

  ‘Would you like me to bring you a drink?’ Dolly enquired.

  ‘What I’d really love is a strong cup of tea if you wouldn’t mind?’ Hugh asked.

  ‘I’ll get that now. Will you take it in the study?’

  ‘Yes, please.’ Hugh Kennington-Jones exited the dining room and strode along the hallway to the study. He pushed open the door and walked over to the huge mahogany desk. There, he took the key from where he’d placed it under the lamp base and opened the top drawer, removing Nanny Bedford’s diary and laying it on the desktop.

  Hugh opened the book and stared at the swirling script in front of him. Reading Nanny Bedford’s diary was a little like being in possession of a time machine, he thought to himself.

  It made him smile to read Nanny’s account of his birth and how his mother just adored her newborn son. Hugh felt a twinge of sadness. She wasn’t to know what lay ahead, that her life would be cut so unfairly short.

  And then when Hugh was just eighteen, his father had suddenly died of a brain aneurysm while getting ready for work one morning at Pelham Park. Hugh was away at school in his final year. With no living siblings, Pelham Park had come to him, but it wasn’t somewhere he wanted to live. He felt very little affection for the foreboding mansion with its hundred-plus rooms. Early on, he’d left it in the capable hands of their family butler and housekeeper but Hugh had had a gnawing feeling that a house like that, sitting idle, was extraordinarily wasteful. For a long time he simply didn’t know what to do with it.

  A lesser young man would have baulked at the thought of all that responsibility, not only for the house but the company as well. But Hugh, having inherited his mother’s commonsense as well as his father’s business brain, worked alongside his father’s trusted aide and confidant, the positively ancient Archibald Button, to ensure that the business would continue to function while he took time doing all the regular things young men his age did, including travelling and going to university. It was true that he spent most of the holiday periods working at Kennington’s but he allowed himself the luxury of not taking over the business until the age of twenty-six. Henry Kennington-Jones had died at sixty-seven and Hugh vowed the same fate would not befall him. He wanted some balance in his life.

  When he met and finally married Cecelia Highton-Smith after nearly eight years of courtship, he had happily moved into her family home, Highton Hall. Much prettier than Pelham Park, it had a warmth and liveliness he’d never before known in a house. Just looking at the place made him smile and together they forged a life full of happy memories there. It was his wife who suggested Pelham Park be turned into a nursing home for the disadvantaged. She reasoned that Kennington’s could afford to run it as another arm of the business, subsidised by the massive profits from the grocery stores. They certainly didn’t need two monstrous family piles. With her new baby on her hip, Cecelia oversaw a massive renovation, removing the dark wallpapers and gloomy drapes. Over almost two years, new life was breathed into the Park’s ancient walls. Cecelia was inordinately proud of the project and Pelham Park had been hailed as a model of philanthropic endeavour, and one of the loveliest aged-care facilities in the country. Cecelia’s only regret was that they didn’t get to visit more often. Alice-Miranda particularly loved her time there playing with the residents.

  Hugh thought about what Hector had said to him earlier. Could it really be true that his brother was out there somewhere? Alive? Hector would be on his way home now, mid-flight, so there was no point telephoning him until the morning at the earliest.

  Hugh found himself wondering how difficult it would be to have his brother’s casket exhumed from the family crypt. He hadn’t decided yet if he should pursue it. But if his brother wasn’t dead, then where on earth was he, and why would Hugh have been allowed to believe for all these years that he was gone?

  Hugh didn’t hear Mrs Oliver come in.

  ‘Looks intriguing.’ She placed the teacup down on the edge of the desk and stared at the open diary.

  Hugh was jolted back to the present. ‘Oh! Dolly, thank you. ‘I’m not really sure I want to know. He stared at the yellowed pages. ‘It belonged to my Nanny.’

  ‘Goodness, sir, wherever did you get that from?’ Dolly smiled. ‘Any deep dark family secrets?’

  Hugh looked up at her. ‘That’s just what I’m afraid of.’

  ‘Well, let’s hope not, sir. Mr O’Leary telephoned to say that he was picking up Cecelia and Alice-Miranda in about half an hour. I’ll serve dinner at 7.15 pm if that’s all right with you?’

  ‘What was that?’ Hugh was lost in his thoughts.

  ‘Dinner at 7.15 pm?’ Dolly repeated.

  ‘Yes, of course. Thank you. Oh and Dolly, if you wouldn’t mind, please don’t tell Cecelia about this old thing.’ He nodded at the diary. ‘It’s nothing.’

  But Dolly Oliver was unconvinced. She’d been with Hugh Kennington-Jones for long enough to see that something had him rattled.

  'Girls, please make sure that you’re at the back doors on time today,’ Mr Underwood grilled.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Alice-Miranda asked Lucinda, who was sitting beside her.

  ‘The park. We go at least twice a week. We get to run around and have some fresh air – and the teachers get to buy coffee and hot dogs and pretzels,’ Lucinda whispered. They were supposed to be finishing off their poetry.

  ‘Is it just the fifth grade?’ Alice-Miranda asked.

  ‘No, sixth today as well,’ said Lucinda.

  Felix Underwood groaned.

  ‘What’s the matter, sir?’ one of the girls asked.

  ‘I just remembered that it’s 5U’s turn to look after Maisy. Any takers?’ He glanced around the room at the girls, whose hands seemed glued to their desks.

  Only Alice-Miranda’s arm shot into the air. ‘I will, sir,’ she smiled.

  ‘No.’ Lucinda looked at Alice-Miranda and clutched her hands to her face. She was shaking her head.

  ‘What?’ asked Alice-Miranda. ‘Is something the matter?’

  ‘No, Lucinda’s just being a drama queen, aren’t you, Lucinda? I’m sure that you’re going to love looking after Miss Maisy,’ said Mr Underwood. ‘Thank you for the offer. You’ll have to go downstairs to reception and get her lead and accessories.’

  ‘Accessories?’ Alice-Miranda asked.

  ‘The pooper scooper and the plastic bags,’ Ava replied.

  ‘Of course. What about Maisy? Where will I find her?’ Alice-Miranda asked.

  ‘Oh, believe me, she knows the routine. She’ll be waiting at the back door. Park days are her favourites,’ Felix Underwood informed her.

  Alice-Miranda could hardly wait to look after Maisy. She reminded her of their gardener Mr Greening’s labrador Betsy. They had the same lovely temperament.

  Lucinda kept scowling at Alice-Miranda all through the rest of the lesson, which happened to involve a geometry quiz which meant the girls couldn’t talk any more.

  Alice-Miranda whizzed through the questions on triangles, and she loved finding the area and perimeter of a range of shapes, some of which
required several different methods to achieve the solution. She handed her paper in to Mr Underwood a full fifteen minutes before the test time was up.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want to go over this again?’ he asked her as she placed the paper on his desk.

  ‘No, sir,’ she replied. ‘Thank you for a lovely test. It was very enjoyable.’

  Felix Underwood wondered if she was making a strange attempt at humour. Alice-Miranda sat back in her seat and pulled a book from her desk. She had recently become addicted to Anne of Green Gables and sat smiling to herself as she read Anne’s adventures.

  Felix Underwood hadn’t planned to grade the papers until after school but Alice-Miranda’s test sat there all alone, just begging for attention. Finally, curiosity got the better of him and he slid it across the desk. The first page involved some fairly straightforward questions about shapes so he wasn’t surprised that she got them all correct. The second page was different – much more difficult – and he could hardly believe it when every answer received a tick. Alice-Miranda scored one hundred per cent on a paper that he thought would challenge some of his brightest students.

  He scribbled the mark on the top, beside which he drew a big smiley face and wrote ‘well done’. When Jilly Hobbs had told him last week that he was receiving a new student from overseas for a short period he was thrilled by the prospect. Broadening his girls’ horizons was a wonderful opportunity for them all. When Jilly told him that the girl hadn’t yet turned eight his enthusiasm waned. Babysitting a third-grader was not something he wanted to do for the next month. He had protested that she’d be better served in one of the younger grades but Jilly Hobbs just smiled and said, ‘She’ll be fine. I’m sure you’ll be pleasantly surprised, Felix.’ Not one to argue with the boss, he had hoped she was right.

  From the moment he met Alice-Miranda, Felix Underwood knew there was something different about her. He’d never seen a child introduce herself so confidently and when she couldn’t contain her excitement about their art lesson at the Met he knew she was something special.

  The bell rang, rousing Alice-Miranda from her jaunt in Avonlea. Several girls were still finishing their tests and others were depositing them on Mr Underwood’s desk.

  ‘You shouldn’t have offered to look after Maisy,’ Lucinda groaned as she and Alice-Miranda made their way out of the classroom.

  ‘Why not? She’s adorable,’ Alice-Miranda protested.

  ‘Did you know that her nickname is Crazy Maisy? She didn’t get that for nothing,’ Lucinda grinned.

  ‘So the new girl is about to find out the hard way, hey?’ Ava joined Alice-Miranda and Lucinda as they walked towards their lockers.

  Quincy caught up to her friends and began to giggle. ‘Man, Alice-Miranda, you’re in for something special.’

  ‘What’s the matter? Why do you think it’s so amusing that I offered to look after Maisy? I thought you’d all love to do it,’ Alice-Miranda said, frowning.

  ‘It’s okay, Alice-Miranda, we’re just teasing,’ said Ava.

  ‘Not!’ Lucinda and Quincy burst out laughing.

  Alice-Miranda was beginning to wonder what on earth she’d let herself in for. But she knew she’d find out soon enough.

  ‘Hurry up guys, we want to make sure we have time to eat lunch. Alice-Miranda, I’ll get some extra for you,’ Quincy offered.

  ‘Oh, it’s all right. I’m not that hungry,’ she replied.

  ‘Believe me, you’ll need every ounce of strength you can get if that mutt gets up to her usual tricks,’ said Quincy.

  Alice-Miranda ducked into reception on her way to the cafeteria.

  ‘Hello Miss Cleary.’ Alice-Miranda appeared at the reception desk window.

  ‘Hello to you too, Miss Alice-Miranda. How are you enjoying Mrs Kimmel’s?’ Miss Cleary leaned forward in her seat to get a better view of the tiny child.

  ‘I love it,’ Alice-Miranda replied. ‘Everyone’s so kind and the lessons are great fun.’

  ‘That’s good news,’ Cynthia Cleary replied. ‘What can I help you with?’

  ‘I need to get Maisy’s lead and her accessories, please.’

  ‘Really?’ Miss Cleary’s brown eyes widened. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Of course. I volunteered to look after Maisy in the park,’ Alice-Miranda replied.

  ‘Good luck, sweetie pie.’ Miss Cleary hopped off her chair and opened a cupboard behind her. She retrieved a lead with some small plastic bags. ‘Here you go. Just don’t mention the “s” word and you’ll be fine.’

  Cynthia Cleary handed Alice-Miranda the equipment.

  ‘What’s the “s” word Miss Cleary?’ Alice-Miranda asked.

  The telephone rang and Miss Cleary answered it. ‘Good afternoon, Mrs Kimmel’s School for Girls, this is Cynthia speaking . . . Oh yes, ma’am, I can help you with that.’ She pointed at the receiver and mouthed to Alice-Miranda, ‘I’m going to be a while.’

  ‘I’ll bring it back after playtime,’ Alice-Miranda smiled. ‘Well, not all of it, perhaps.’

  Alice-Miranda waved and skipped off to the cafeteria to join her friends.

  A few minutes later, Whip Staples opened the front door and walked into reception. He was clutching a pair of garden clippers and a small plastic bag full of geranium offcuts.

  ‘Hey Whip, what are you doing in about half an hour?’ Cynthia Cleary asked him.

  ‘What do you need?’ he asked.

  ‘You know our new girl, the little one, Alice-Miranda? She just came and collected Maisy’s lead. If you can spare the time, you might want to take a stroll over to the park and make sure that pooch behaves herself.’

  ‘Happy to,’ Whip Staples grinned. ‘She’s a cutie, that one.’

  ‘Yeah, she sure is,’ Cynthia Cleary smiled.

  Alice-Miranda met Mr Underwood at the back door at exactly five minutes to one. Just as her teacher had predicted, Maisy was already there, her tail wagging like a windscreen wiper on high speed. Alice-Miranda reached down and clipped the lead onto her collar, and was rewarded with a slobbering smooch to the side of her face.

  ‘Thanks Maisy. Yuck!’ the child laughed as she took out a tissue and wiped her cheek.

  Alice-Miranda spotted Alethea and Gretchen standing with the other sixth grade girls. She looked up and gave them a wave. Gretchen smiled and waved back but Alethea just sneered.

  Mr Underwood called the roll for his class and Miss Patrick did the same for the sixth grade. At 1 pm two lines of girls meandered their way down East 76th Street towards Central Park, stopping at the lights at Madison Avenue and then again at Fifth. Alice-Miranda wondered what the girls had been talking about. Maisy wasn’t the least bit difficult to control as she trotted alongside her, obeying every command. ‘Sit’ when they reached the lights, ‘walk’ when they got a green light and ‘stay’ when the girls needed to move to the side of the footpath to let other pedestrians through.

  ‘You’d better hold on,’ Lucinda advised Alice-Miranda as the group crossed Fifth Avenue and made their way through the gates towards the Alice in Wonderland statue and the model boat lake.

  Alice-Miranda felt Maisy strain against her lead.

  ‘Settle down, Miss Maisy, we can have a lovely run around once we’re safely inside the park,’ Alice-Miranda told her.

  There was large patch of lawn for the girls to play on or they could just sit on the grass and chat.

  Mr Underwood and Miss Patrick headed straight for the kiosk while the girls dispersed, some climbing onto the mushroom which formed part of the life-sized bronze Alice in Wonderland statue, others taking up residence on the park benches scattered around the edge of the grassed area, and a few walked over to watch the tourists navigating their model boats.

  Lucinda, Ava and Quincy led Alice-Miranda and Maisy around the lake, pointing
out some of the park’s more famous landmarks.

  Maisy trotted along beside her mistress, perfectly behaved. Alice-Miranda wondered what the others had been fussing about. Alethea and Gretchen were standing by the lake watching the boats when Alethea suddenly called out, ‘Oh look, how cute, there’s a squirrel!’ apparently to no one in particular.

  Maisy stiffened; she stopped in her tracks, her eyes darting from one side of the path to the other.

  ‘Come on, Maisy,’ Alice-Miranda urged her on. ‘I can’t see anyth-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-ng.’

  The labrador took off at breakneck speed with the tiny child behind gripping tightly to the lead. Maisy raced into the bushes around a tree and shot back out again. Ahead of them a grey ball of fur darted in and out of the trees, at one stage racing straight up into the foliage overhead. Maisy leapt at the tree trunk, jumping up and down on the spot. Just as Alice-Miranda caught her breath the squirrel fled from its hiding spot and raced across open ground. In the distance, Alethea was watching and laughing so hard she thought her lungs would burst.

  Maisy raced around the boat lake with the squirrel ahead. Alice-Miranda would never have believed that the dog could move so quickly, the way she lumbered around the hallways at Mrs Kimmel’s.

  ‘Maisy, STOP!’ The tiny child strained on the dog’s lead. Maisy ran around the edge of the lake, then across the grass and right through the middle of a picnic rug, where she sent the diners ducking for cover.

  ‘I am so sorry.’ Alice-Miranda’s brown curls were flying as she strained to keep a hold on the wayward mutt.

  ‘Why you!’ One elderly picnicker shook his fist at Maisy. His wife was busy removing pasta salad from her hair.

  The squirrel stopped. It twitched then stood up on its hind legs, as if daring its hunter to come closer. Alice-Miranda pulled as hard as she could and finally Maisy came to a halt.

  Alice-Miranda was puffing and shaking and wanted to get back to the elderly couple and apologise properly. Lucinda, Ava and Quincy reached Alice-Miranda just as a voice from the edge of the pond shouted again: ‘Oh, how cute, can you see it? There’s another squirrel!’