Gulp.
“Hey, Ondi. Thanks for stringing up the fairy lights in the garden – they’ll look great in the dark,” Thomas said.
Ondine felt eternally grateful for Thomas’s interjection. She was really starting to like her future brother-in-law, and felt a little glow of extra love for her eldest sister. Margi had chosen well.
Melody piped up, “Fairy lights? But in the dream they were fireflies.”
Something staggered behind Ondine’s ribs and her throat turned to ash. Everything about her dream was coming true.
“Where is Shambles?” Mrs Howser asked.
“H-he’s around here somewhere. He’s fitting in really well,” Ondine said, making bland conversation while she tried to work out whether Melody and Mrs Howser appearing today and the fireflies, no, fairy lights in the garden meant everything else in the dream would happen. The moment she had some free time, she’d take down those horrible lights. Surely, if they weren’t there, the rest of the dream couldn’t come true?
At that point, Ma and Great-Auntie Col came in. Ondine took the initiative and made introductions, pulling up more chairs to accommodate them, all the while trying to find an excuse to leave. As soon as she could get out to the garden, she could sabotage her earlier work.
“We’ve already met,” Old Col said, giving Mrs Howser a stern look. “Been a while, Birgit. Still glomming round the camp, gazing at tea leaves?”
“Hello, Col. Still spitting acid, I see?” It was physically impossible for Ondine’s eyeballs to pop out of her head, but it felt like they were about to, such was her shock.
“Um, Melody, why don’t we go out to the beer garden and help with the decorations?” If these two old biddies wanted to trade insults down memory lane, she’d rather not be around to see it.
“Oh, it’s just like the dream!” Melody said with delight as she saw the lights strung up between the trees. In twilight, the effect wasn’t very good, but when the sun set in a hour or so, they would look just like fireflies.
A heavy sense of dread choked Ondine’s throat as she pulled up a chair and removed a strand of lights from the nearest tree branch. “No, it’s not going to be like the dream! Melody, what did you do? I woke up and nearly puked, I was so sick with fear. Why did you put that bit in about Shambles dying?”
Now it was Melody’s turn to pale, leaving nothing but contrasting brown freckles on her face. “But I didn’t. We were in a field of fireflies and I said we were coming to pay a visit. Shambles wasn’t even in it. He’s not sick, is he?”
Confusion time. “Are you sure?” Ondine rolled up the cables.
“Yes, absolutely positive, I promise,” Melody said.
Ondine took a few deep breaths to steady her nerves. There was no point even trying to think with all this adrenalin racing around her body. It made her tremble and want to cry and yet she felt strangely hungry all at the same time. She needed a clear head so she could think about a rational answer, not turn into an emotional wreck.
So Melody had not dreamt of Shambles? At last, a positive sign! Things were looking up. If all of Melody’s side of the dream came true, no dramas there. Just as long as Shambles’s part didn’t come true. That was the critical bit.
“It’s OK. I’ve got my wires crossed. Let’s get the rest of this set up. We should keep busy out here so we can stay well clear of the two witches inside, don’t you think?”
Melody giggled.
There were tablecloths and piles of plates and cutlery to set out for that night’s party, so they set to it. Ma had planned the evening to coincide with the full moon, so they’d have plenty of natural light to add to the mood.[45]
Work proved a welcome distraction, and before long they had the place looking inviting.
“Ondi, maybe . . . maybe I crashed the dream you were already having,” Melody suggested as she placed knives and forks at each setting.
“Yeah, that could work. I mean, hey, it was just a dream, right?”
“Well, of course. Sometimes a dream is just a dream. It doesn’t have to mean anything,” Melody said.
The object of their concern came bounding out into the beer garden in a streak of dark fur, his mouth full of food. “Ondi, ye’ve got to try Chef’s new meatballs, they’re to die for,” Shambles said.
Actually, what he really said was “O-fi, oof ot oo iy eff’s ew eetaaals, ere o ie or” because he had a mouth full of food.
“Weh hey!” In a blaze of black fur, he leapt on to the top of the last un-set table and skidded along the surface, the tablecloth bunching up at his feet.
The girls laughed at Shambles, even though Ondine should have been cross with him. But she couldn’t be, not when he might be leaving soon with Aunt Col. She wouldn’t let them end things on an argument.
“Aw, I messed up yer table,” Shambles said, surveying the damage. “I’ll fix it up for ye.” With that, he gripped the edge of the fabric in his teeth and walked backwards across the surface, dragging the cloth with him.
From the other end, Ondine held the edges in place, smoothing it out and making it ready. “Thanks, you’re a great help,” she said.
Suddenly, with a yelp of shock, the ferret dropped backwards off the edge of the table, dragging the tablecloth down with him.
“Shambles!” Ondine screamed, racing towards him.
He lay there, a lump underneath the fabric, moaning in pain.
“Oh, my darling, I’m so sorry!” Ondine cried. She didn’t need to look around to know Melody was standing behind her, probably just as freaked out as she was. Ondine pulled the tablecloth back to reveal Shambles’s head and give him some fresh air.
Shambles groaned even louder. “Oh, the pain!”
“He can talk! Great heavens! Shambles can talk!” Melody said, amazed.
“You heard that?” Ondine’s heart picked up speed at the revelation, yet there was little time to explain it all. If she thought Melody being able to understand Shambles was a shock, she had an even bigger one coming.
As he lay groaning and writhing on the ground, twisting and turning under the tablecloth, Shambles grew to twice his size and his face fur matted together, forming skin. The long whiskers retracted and his head began to bulge.
“I’m dying!” he cried out to Ondine. “Bring me whisky, I’m dying!”
The dream. That horrible dream!
“Mercury’s wings!” Ondine cried as great wet tears splashed down her face and on to Shambles’s writhing, deformed body. “You can’t die, Shambles! I won’t let you!”
“I’ll get Mrs Howser,” Melody said, and ran back inside.
“Oh God, oh God,” Shambles groaned, “I’m goin’ tae boak.”[46]
“No, Shambles, you’ll be OK. Melody’s getting help,” Ondine said, although what help anyone could be at this present moment escaped her. On the other hand, a witch had got him into this mess; maybe a witch could get him out of it?
Confusion scrambled her brain. She couldn’t think what to do – she’d never seen anything like this before and didn’t even know how to start helping him. All she could do was stand back as Shambles kept growing and expanding under the tablecloth. Moaning and groaning about the state of his gelatinous body. All the while his face pulsed and wobbled. A horrible thought made Ondine feel ashamed for even thinking it.
What if his face set like that?
“There’s the light,” he said. “It’s calling me, I have tae go tae the light.”
Fear making her tremble, Ondine looked in the same direction. Her horrible dream was about to become reality.
As she turned her head, she felt her stomach lurch as a white light shone on her face. A moment later, blessed relief coursed through her. “That’s not the light, Shambles. That’s just the full moon, you bampot.”
When she turned to check on Shambles, her breath hitched. He’d stopped thrashing about, stopped moaning and groaning. Now he was shivering.
And completely human.
The next surprise c
ame straight after the first, as Shambles looked up at Ondine. Far from looking like a bucket of twisted shoes, his face could have belonged to a movie star. He was even more handsome than Lord Vincent. With a shock of black hair and a dangerous gleam in his green eyes.
He was glorious!
Heat coursed through her body and her tongue turned to sandpaper as she tried to swallow. Something flip-flopped in her belly. Thank heavens for the tablecloth, because from the looks of things, he didn’t have a patch of clothing on. Ondine’s pulse hammered freshly in her ears.
I’m going to have a heart attack before I make sixteen.
“I’m nawt dead,” he said at last.
Despite her concern for some modicum of decorum, a smile broadened her face and happiness bubbled in her veins. Heavens above, her dream had been wrong. Way wrong.
Those devilish green eyes stayed fixed on hers, while a lopsided grin added a mischievous gleam. Suddenly she averted her gaze and dropped her lashes so she could study the ground.
“I’m nawt dead,” Shambles said again, louder this time as he turned his hands back and forth in the moonlight. Then he wrapped the tablecloth around his middle, stood up and shook his head in amazement. He took a step closer and cupped Ondine’s cheek in his palm. Heat seared her face. “The dream didn’t come true.”
“The . . . the . . .” The dream? He knew about it?
“You’re not dead by a long shot,” Old Aunt Col said from the doorway, making Ondine and Shambles-Hamish turn quickly to see they had company.
“But if you lay a finger on my grand-niece, you’ll wish you were.”
Indeed, they had an audience, including Ondine’s mother who, from the shocked look on her face, had seen quite a bit too.
Chapter Ten
It was Ma who came to her senses first, ordering Shambles-we-should-call-him-Hamish-now to go inside and get dressed. She gave him some of Josef’s old clothes so he could dress properly.[47]
Tablecloths are only fashionable for attending a toga party, and this was not such an occasion.
“I look like a waiter,” he said, as he came back to the beer garden.
At the sound of his voice, Ondine turned and looked to the ground because she’d become used to Shambles approaching from a low vector and racing up her leg. But of course he wasn’t a ferret any more, he was a real man.
A real man who made her heart do stupid things because she’d spent so much time fantasising about what he might look like, and now he was even better than she’d imagined.
Old black leather shoes, scuffed and somewhat curled up at the toes, came into view, then an expanse of black socks capped by the hems of his pants. Something made her stall over the hem, because she didn’t want to look up any further, knowing what a furious blusher she could be.
“Sure, the pants are too short, but they’re better than the tablecloth,” he said, taking a step closer to Ondine. “Ye can look up, lass, ye won’t turn to stone. Yer ma says she’s made me look nice.”
If she’d known the word “smitten”, Ondine would have used it to describe herself when she looked into Hamish’s face. Those green eyes glistened in the moonlight, giving him a dangerous look, while his shock of black hair lay flat on his head, smoothed down into submission with gel. Ondine’s palms itched to mess it all up again, as her face burned with fresh embarrassment.
What a man! If she’d thought Lord Vincent was attractive, Hamish was off the scale. To her deep, cringe-inducing embarrassment, nothing came out of Ondine’s mouth, because she found herself thinking, You look gorgeous. But she didn’t know if she’d said it out loud or not.
At that point, Cybelle walked past and made kissing noises as she headed back to the kitchen, shattering Ondine’s illusion that they were the only two people on the planet. Everyone else in the garden looked at the two of them as well: Mrs Howser, Old Col, Melody, Ma and Marguerite.
Then Ma spoke up, “It’s all hands on deck tonight, people will be arriving for dinner soon. Hamish, head to the kitchen and help Chef and Josef, they’re run off their feet. Ondi, it’s not your engagement party, it’s Margi’s. Roll your sleeves up and get to the sink.”
Just like her mother to double-book the night. She probably figured with all the extra guests at the engagement party, she could rope some of them into waiting tables.
“Yes, ma’am,” Hamish said, and gave Ondine a look she couldn’t read – although she felt something flip over in her belly – before he turned and left.
OF COURSE THEY WOULDN’T get a moment alone, Ondine privately fumed as she followed him to the kitchen and pulled on an apron and an enormous pair of gloves. Sure, they were standing near each other, but at the rate the dishes piled up, there wasn’t a chance to say any more than, “Pass me another tea towel, this one’s soaked.” And even though they had obviously been psychically linked in the dream she’d had, it didn’t seem to work when they were awake. A few times she tried to psychically ask him to pass a towel, but he didn’t.
Can you hear my thoughts? Ondine silently asked.
Hamish made no reaction, so she took that as a “no”. She felt frustrated at her lack of psychic progress, but at the same time a little bit glad he couldn’t read her mind right now.
Da kept looking askance at them, and shook his head a few times. Ondine could have sworn he chuckled too. Every now and then, Ondine caught her parents quickly discussing things in hushed tones, then they’d throw a glance her way. Probably just to make her feel paranoid.
Chef barely had time to acknowledge the new member of staff, because he was busy cooking a dozen steaks five different ways from rare to well done.[48]
Then another thought struck Ondine: with the new year of school starting at the end of summer, she would be away all day and writing assignments all night. They’d have to keep Hamish on to help out while she was busy studying. Surely her parents wouldn’t put her education at risk?
Perfect logic.
The thought sent a glimmer of excitement through her system as she plunged her hands into the scalding water to scrub one of Chef’s particularly nasty stockpots.
“Right you two, stop mooning at each other,” Ma said as she approached. They’d been washing dirty dishes for nearly an hour by this stage. “You’re both on front of house for the rest of the night, so do your best. Whoever gets the most tips earns a day off tomorrow.”
The thought of a day off – sleeping in, reading her favourite book, lounging about in her pyjamas until noon – held serious appeal. That and not being up to her armpits in greasy water.
Ondine turned to Hamish and pulled her hand from the glove with a noisy squelch. “May the best one win.”
“You’re on,” he said, giving her hand a friendly shake.
She should have been confident, but when his hand took Ondine’s, her bones turned to mush and the intensity of his gaze made her forget what they were supposed to be doing. Then another thought occurred to her: perhaps she should throw the competition and make sure Hamish won?
“Stop making eyes, go clean up and get out the front. Dinner won’t serve itself,” Ma said.
Ondine ducked out of the kitchen for a moment and returned wearing fresh, clean, dry clothes. It hadn’t taken her long, but she was already running behind. According to Ma, Hamish was out there charming everyone.
She took the plates of food to a family with four children and sighed. With a large family, there wouldn’t be much money left over for tips. On the other hand, it would help Hamish get ahead in the race, so that wouldn’t be such a bad thing.
Her competitive spirit kicked in when she saw the group of ladies at her next table. One look at their pastel blue hair told her they were retirees, most likely widows, possibly with a bit of cash to splash. She took their orders and they all said yes to dessert, plus tea and coffee. Turning back to the kitchen, she caught sight of Hamish as he fare welled an earlier group – all well-dressed and aged around thirty. They should have plenty of spare change. The resi
gned look on his face indicated otherwise.
“What’s wrong?”
“Teachers. Lousy tippers,” he said.
“Why don’t you take my table that just came in? Charm their socks off.”
Hamish cast a glance at the new group of women. From the look of their showy earrings and manicured hands, they had plenty of cash to spare. “You’d do that for me?”
“Sure, what are friends for?”
Hamish grinned, then stalled for a second as he gazed into Ondine’s eyes. “You’re letting me win?”
A wicked smile split Ondine’s face. “No, I’m giving you an even chance. You’ll make them feel young and pretty again; I’ll just remind them of their long-lost youth.” Then she pretended to blow on her nails and shine them on her shirt.
Game on. Gimme your best shot.
Great Pluto’s ghost, I’m reduced to thinking in clichés.
PICTURE THE FOLLOWING: two old glass jars that once held industrial amounts of artichoke hearts and pimento-stuffed olives (which were very tasty, thank you) sitting on a shelf. As Hamish accepted the tips from one table, he dropped the coins and the occasional note into his jar on the right with a satisfying tinkety-clunk.
As Ondine accepted tips from her tables, she returned to the kitchen and placed half her tips in her jar on the left (again, with a satisfying tinkety-clunk) and the other half in Hamish’s jar on the right. A person with nothing more to do than watch the tips jars all night would see the coins and notes clunketing and tinketing left and right, a few more for Hamish, then a few more for Ondine, who gave yet more to Hamish.
Anyone would think she was trying to throw the game.
In this case, absolutely true.
“Ondine, what are you doing?” Ma asked, arms crossed tightly over her ample bosom.
A large invisible rock formed in Ondine’s throat as she tried to swallow. When she opened her mouth, nothing came out.
The Ondine Collection Page 9
