Operation Bunny

by Sally Gardner

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  For Ellen Butler, my dearest friend—

  With love, S

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Fin

  Look for the Wings & Co. fairy detectives’ next case

  About the Author/Illustrator

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Daisy Dashwood and Ronald Dashwood had everything a young couple could dream of: a house in the suburbs, with box hedges shaped like squirrels, two cars in the drive with customized license plates—HER1 and HIS2—a tennis court, a small swimming pool, a gym. They even owned a villa near Malaga in Spain. But the one thing they didn’t have, the one thing neither money nor nature had been able to give them, was a baby.

  Their next-door neighbor, Miss String, had suggested kindly that perhaps Daisy should make a wish.

  “A wish,” said Daisy Dashwood. “The cheek of the nosy old bat. As if you get anything by wishing.”

  “Quite right, Smoochikins,” replied her husband. “Best to believe in facts and figures, not in airy-fairy wishes and daft stuff like that.”

  Ronald knew about such things. He had made his money as a hedge fund manager—whatever a hedge fund manager was. Daisy couldn’t agree more. She trusted in her credit cards: silver, gold, and platinum.

  Miss String’s house was a real eyesore. At least, that’s what Daisy called it.

  It had crooked turrets and large windows and a charm that the Dashwoods’ house would never possess in a thousand years. Miss String’s ancestors had once owned all the surrounding countryside. Bit by bit, the huge estate had been nibbled away by debt until finally Miss String had been forced to sell the remaining land, leaving her with only the house and garden.

  Now Miss String’s house sat in the middle of three bossy buildings, every one of her wealthy neighbors wanting a slice more of her large garden for themselves.

  It was Ronald Dashwood who had made what he considered to be a wildly generous offer for nearly all of the garden. This would have left Miss String a small patio at the back and a footpath at the front so that she could get into her house.

  “The cheek of the old bat,” said Daisy Dashwood when Ronald’s offer was turned down. “What does she need so much garden for? And the vegetable plot? Oh, my days, hasn’t the woman heard of home deliveries? The next thing she’ll be telling us is that she doesn’t own a computer, or even a TV.”

  On both counts Daisy Dashwood was correct. The modern world had somehow passed by Miss String and Fidget, her cat. The closest it had ever come to knocking on her front door was the dreadful collection of “executive” homes that had sprung up around her. Whatever “executive” meant.

  One summer morning, the Dashwoods were eating breakfast when Daisy spotted a headline in the newspaper.

  BABY THOUGHT TO BE A BOMB.

  “Listen to this, Ronald.”

  “What, Smoochikins?”

  “It says, Yesterday, Stansted Airport was closed from ten o’clock in the morning until four in the afternoon, causing”—Daisy paused—“pan-de-mon-ium. A hatbox believed to contain an explosive device had been left in the main concourse of the terminal. Andrew Vole, 46, head of the bomb disposal team, said ticking could be heard coming from inside.

  “‘It was a very good thing,’ he added, ‘that the baby started crying before we did our controlled explosion.’

  “When the lid was removed, a baby girl, less than three months old, was found lying in blue tissue paper. Beside her was a trick clock with a cuckoo that squirted water.

  “The police are now searching for the owner of the hatbox, whom they suspect to be the mother of the infant. They said they had nothing to go on other than the name printed on the hatbox, Emily’s Millinery.

  “For the time being, the baby is being cared for at Cherryfield Orphanage. A nurse has named her Emily after the hatbox and Vole after the bomb disposal officer.”

  Daisy paused, then said, “Ronald,” in a voice that sounded like a cross between a whine and a peacock scream. It was the special voice she used when she wanted something expensive or difficult to get.

  “I am all ears,” said Ronald, and he was. He had a shocking pair of sticking-out red ears. In fact, they were the first thing you noticed about him.

  “What I wish—” said Daisy.

  “What I know,” interrupted Ronald, “is that you never wish, Smoochikins.”

  “Well, I’m going to make an exception, just this once.”

  “All right,” said Ronald. “What is it you wish for?”

  “I wish that baby was mine.”

  Ronald smiled lovingly at his credit-card-munching wife and said, “Whatever little Smoochikins wants, she shall have.”

  And in less time than it took to grow mint, the Dashwoods had adopted Emily Vole. As Fidget the cat said to Miss String on hearing the news, a wish can be a dangerous thing.

  “I agree,” sighed Miss String as they sat in their enchanting garden one afternoon while the kettle was busy making the tea. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  “Always best,” agreed Fidget. “Humans, in my considered opinion, don’t think things through, especially when it comes to wishes.”

  Which was quite right. Daisy Dashwood never thought at all if she could help it. She had just made a wish. Why, isn’t that what everyone does? Make a wish—it’s easy-peasy.

  Chapter Two

  Five years later, Daisy Dashwood had to admit that Emily Vole wasn’t exactly what she had had in mind when she’d made her one and only wish. What she had really wanted was a baby girl with blue eyes and blond hair, ideally the same color as her own strawberry-blond hair extensions. The trouble was that Emily’s eyes were far too dark for her to be a true Dashwood offspring. But worse than the ebony eyes was Emily’s hair. It was jet-black.

  Not even Daisy, the proud owner of Paradise Beauty Salon, could do anything to improve the situation. There was no getting away from it. The child just didn’t fit in with the Dashwoods’ ancestral color scheme.

  Fortunately, Emily was brighter than a queen’s pearly button, brighter by far than her two adoptive parents. At three, she was well aware she was not what Daisy had wished for. By four, she had grown used to wearing the blond wig and the blue contact lenses. By five, she had an inkling of what was to come the minute she heard that Daisy Dashwood was pregnant.

  “Oh, my days. Triplets,” said Daisy. “Well, now we definitely don’t need Emily. Could we send her back to the orphanage? I have the receipt for her somewhere.”

  “Not really, Smoochikins,” replied Ronald, watching his wife rummage in her real alligat
or handbag. “It wasn’t a receipt—it was the adoption papers.”

  “Well then, we can say she was a dress rehearsal and we don’t need her anymore, seeing as we have three coming our way.”

  “It wouldn’t sound good, Smoochikins.”

  “I can’t cope,” said Daisy, raising her hands in the air. “It’s all too much. I tell you, it’s all too much.”

  “There is always boarding school,” suggested Ronald helpfully. “Then we need only see the brat in the holidays.”

  Daisy Dashwood’s hopes of being rid of Emily were somewhat blighted in that department too. Wrenworth School only took boarders from the age of nine. Everywhere that did take younger girls cost at least thirteen designer handbags a term.

  “I have an idea,” said Ronald to his ever-expanding wife. “Perhaps it is the best idea I’ve come up with in ages.”

  “Go on then, don’t keep me in suspenders. Spit it out.”

  “We make Emily earn her keep.”

  “How?” asked Daisy.

  “With three little pairs of feet on the way, we will need all the help we can get and—”

  “That’s genius,” interrupted Daisy. “We’ll tell any nosy busybody who asks about Emily that she is being home educated. Which is the truth. We are educating her to be a nanny and a housekeeper.”

  That was when Emily Vole found out she had lost her job as the Dashwoods’ adopted daughter. The blond wig and the blue contact lenses vanished. So did the pink bedroom, which wasn’t all bad. Pink was a color Emily hated. It did come as a surprise to find that she was expected to sleep in the laundry room alongside the washing machine and the dryer. Her bed was to be the ironing board.

  Never once did it cross the Dashwoods’ minds that Emily was far too young to be left in charge. All they cared about was that the house was kept neat and tidy.

  Daisy had no intention of staying at home. Every day she went off to work.

  “But, Smoochikins,” said Ronald. “You should be resting, not working at your beauty salon. After all, you have three little pairs of hands inside you. And three little pairs of feet. That makes thirty little fingers and thirty little toenails. Not to mention three brains.”

  “Oh, shut up. That’s disgusting,” said Daisy. “Of course I’m going to work. Who, other than me, will check on my staff? I have a lot of people’s hair extensions resting in my hands. They rely on me. There’s no way I’m staying in the house all day becoming fatter than a fairground balloon. Emily will run the house.”

  And run the house Emily did.

  Chapter Three

  The role of general dogsbody turned out to be a lot harder than the role of adopted daughter with wig. At least as adopted daughter, Emily had been able to wear pretty dresses and had a bedroom full of toys, although there were no books, which was a pity because Emily loved stories.

  When Emily heard that the Dashwoods were expecting triplets, she had hoped that she might be returned to the orphanage. There was no doubt in her mind that her real parents were looking for her. It had been a bitter blow to find she was to go no farther than the laundry room.

  Emily had decided that really she was the daughter of a princess who had fallen in love with a gypsy. He had won the young princess’s heart by baking cupcakes with red and green icing, her favorite colors. The lovers ran away to the magic forest where they were married by fairies.

  One terrible day, the princess’s father, the king, discovered his daughter’s hiding place. He ordered the magic forest to be chopped down unless she returned to the palace. The fairies told Emily’s parents they would be very much missed but begged them to be gone. Before the king could do his worst, the gypsy and the princess hurriedly put their baby daughter into a hatbox. With the help of a fairy charm—the trick clock—the baby slept peacefully. Outside the hatbox, the terrifying chase was on. Her parents, quite out of breath, finally arrived at Stansted Airport. The king’s soldiers were waiting to snatch the princess. The gypsy put up a noble fight as they ran for the departure gate. But he was wounded in the arm, and the hatbox slipped from his grasp as they made their escape. The king’s soldiers didn’t know there was a baby inside and returned, empty-handed, to face the fury of the king.

  It was, thought Emily, a very sad story indeed.

  She was determined that one day she would run away and find her parents. She had begun to collect things she might need. So far she had one packet of cookies and a little cardboard suitcase with a lock on it that she’d found in the recycling bin.

  * * *

  It was a letter from Social Services that finally forced the Dashwoods to buy Emily her one and only book.

  The social worker, Ms. Rogers, was worried that Emily Vole-Dashwood hadn’t been enrolled at any of the local schools. She was extremely anxious to know why.

  “The blooming cheek of the nosy old batskin,” said Daisy. “What do we do, Ronald?”

  “Buy her a book?” said Ronald. “The kind of thing you need to show we are home educating her.”

  “Couldn’t we just show her doing the ironing?” said Daisy. “I mean, that’s an important lesson.”

  “I don’t think it would wash,” replied Ronald.

  A week later, Emily was given a book of fairy tales. Every night, she sat on her ironing-board bed, holding the garden flashlight and staring openmouthed at all the pictures. She couldn’t read the words, but there was enough to look at for Emily’s imagination to fill in the gaps.

  The world began to make more sense. Emily imagined herself to be in need of a gentle lady with wings and a pumpkin to help her escape, though one glass slipper wouldn’t do it. It would have to be two, otherwise she would never get away. The picture Emily liked best was of the big cat in a pair of boots that nearly drowned him. Whatever it was he said to the king when he stopped his carriage, everything turned out sunshine-dandy.

  “Mrs. Dashwood,” said Emily seriously. She no longer addressed her as Adoptive Mother.

  “What?” said Daisy, spread-eagled on the sofa. Her tummy appeared to have a life of its own. It moved in a wriggly-piggly fashion.

  “May I ask you a question?” said Emily.

  “Yes,” said Mrs. Dashwood. “But make it quick.”

  “Do cats talk?” asked Emily.

  “What kind of daft question is that? Don’t you know anything?”

  “It’s just a question,” said Emily.

  “Oh, my days. We have the stupidest housekeeper ever. Of course they don’t talk, just as cows don’t go over the moon. What is in that brain of yours? Sawdust?”

  The social worker came round only once to inquire after Emily and learn why she was not at school. By then, Daisy looked fit to burst with all those fingers and toes.

  “We are home educating the little sunflower,” she said to the social worker in a voice of which a screeching parrot would have been proud. “You see, Emily is not very bright. I am afraid she has special needs.”

  “What special needs?” asked the social worker.

  “Oh, you know, the kind that come from being abandoned in a hatbox.”

  The social worker, seeing the showroom wife in the glimmering show house, thought Emily was a very lucky little girl to live in such a fine home.

  Sadly, this is often the way. Through the windows of poorer houses, the need for help is easier to see. Money can hide almost anything, and the Dashwoods had enough to hide Emily completely from view.

  Chapter Four

  When the triplets were born, they were named Peach, Petal, and Plum. All had sticking-out red ears like their father’s; all had blue eyes and strawberry-blond hair just like their mother’s. The Dashwoods were the proudest parents ever. Every oochy-coochy-poo, every twinkle-winkle was recorded on camera. Every gurgly smile greeted with joy. There was no doubt in the Dashwoods’ minds they had produced the cleverest three babies in the world. In short, they were besotted in a way they had never been with Emily.

  The camera had never recorded Emily’s first sm
ile, steps, or words. Daisy had been bored stiff by Emily as a baby and hadn’t become any more interested as Emily grew older. As far as Daisy was concerned, Emily had been a tiresome, talkative toddler.

  “How can a child be so stuffed full of whys?” Daisy had moaned to Ronald.

  “I don’t know, Smoochikins.”

  Now, to the Dashwoods, Emily was as good as invisible.

  In the first year of the triplets’ lives, Emily spent nearly all her time rushing round filling babies’ bottles, changing diapers, loading and unloading the washing machine, and generally working her socks off.

  After the triplets’ second birthday, Emily found that at least she had a break in the days when Daisy put them in the car and went to spend the afternoon being Queen Bee at the local mothers’ meeting.

  On Very Wonderful Days, as Emily called them, Daisy and the triplets would leave in the morning and return home at five o’clock, having enjoyed the benefits of Macreedy’s Health, Wealth, and Beauty Club where there was day care.

  On one of these Very Wonderful Days, when the house was blissfully quiet, Emily decided she would hang the sheets and the diapers outside on the clothesline. She thought they would smell sweeter if they dried in the fresh air. Emily found a ladder tucked away in the garage. It was wooden and wobbly, and it was quite a juggling act on Emily’s part to carry it into the garden. With clothespins in one hand and the laundry in the other, she climbed to the top of the wobbly wooden ladder. She had rather hoped that once up there, she might at long last get a chance to see over the Dashwoods’ neat squirrel-shaped box hedges into the neighbor’s garden. But pinning all those wet clothes to the line while keeping her balance was far harder than she had imagined.

  Emily had always thought she would like to meet Miss String. Especially since she knew that her ex-adoptive-mother-slash-employer couldn’t stand the old bat. That in itself was enough to make Emily sure that Miss String couldn’t be at all bad.

  By teatime the laundry looked dry. Emily once more climbed the wobbly wooden ladder. This time, before tackling the troublesome matter of unpinning the laundry, she was determined to see properly into Miss String’s garden. It was full of flowers. There was even a vegetable patch with a scarecrow stuck in the middle. The house beamed a sunshine smile through its windows. Emily thought it looked not unlike a picture from her fairy tale book. She was so taken with the view that she forgot to be careful on top of the wobbly wooden ladder and lost her balance. Sheets, diapers, and Emily all crashed to the ground.