Alice-Miranda on Vacation

by Jacqueline Harvey

  Also by Jacqueline Harvey

  Alice-Miranda at School

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2010 by Jacqueline Harvey

  Illustrations copyright © 2010 by J. Yi

  Jacket art copyright © 2010 by J. Yi

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  Originally published in paperback by Random House Australia, a division of the Random House Group, Sydney, in 2010.

  Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

  Visit us on the Web! randomhouse.com/kids

  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at randomhouse.com/teachers

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

  eISBN: 978-0-375-89859-4

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

  v3.1

  For Ian, who makes me laugh

  For Sandy, who loved Alice-Miranda

  For Poppy, Nana, Grandad, Joan, Aunty

  Joan, Mum, Dad, Sarah, Nat, Trent,

  Olivia, Flynn and Eden, just because

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  And just in case you’re wondering…

  Cast of Characters

  About the Author

  “Oh, my dear man, you’re too kind.” Granny Bert blushed, her cheeks matching the color of her rose-pink teacup.

  “No, Mrs. Rumble, it is you who are too kind. I’ve so much to do and so little time—your help is humbly appreciated.” The visitor loaded his cake fork with a mouthful of passion-fruit sponge.

  “Please, call me Albertine,” Granny insisted as she admired the cut of his pin-striped suit.

  The small sitting room, already bulging with antique furniture, seemed to overflow with the man’s presence.

  “Albertine it is, then,” he began. He studied the set of faded plans in front of them. “Now, what can you tell me? I want to know all the secrets.”

  As Granny began to reveal the mysteries of Highton Hall, she failed to notice the sickly smile that had spread across her guest’s handsome face.

  Alice-Miranda Highton-Smith-Kennington-Jones said goodbye to her friends on the steps of Winchesterfield Manor.

  “Please try to be brave, Mrs. Smith.” She wrapped her arms around the cook’s waist.

  “Dear girl.” Mrs. Smith sniffled into her tissue, then fished around in her apron pocket to retrieve a small parcel wrapped in greaseproof paper. “Some brownies for the drive.”

  “Oh, Mrs. Smith, my favorites! You really are the best brownie cook in the whole world. I’ll share them with Mummy and Jacinta. You know, I was thinking you should make them for Kennington’s. I’m sure we’d sell kazillions. Imagine: ‘Mrs. Smith’s Scrumptious Melt-in-Your-Mouth Chocolate Brownies.’ ” Alice-Miranda underlined the invisible words in the air. “Wouldn’t that be amazing—you’d be famous!”

  Mrs. Smith turned the color of beetroot. “Off you go,” she said with a smile. “And please tell Mrs. Oliver I’m looking forward to seeing her later in the week.”

  Alice-Miranda stepped back and moved along the line.

  “Now, you look after those flowers while I’m gone, Mr. Charles,” she said, smiling up at her weathered friend. His eyes, the color of cornflowers, sparkled in the morning sunlight and he brushed a work-worn hand across his face.

  “Ah, lass, I’ll have those blooms perfect by the time you get back,” he nodded.

  Alice-Miranda stepped closer, wrapping her arms around his middle.

  “Off with you now,” he said, and patted her shoulder.

  Mr. Plumpton and Miss Reedy stood side by side. His nose glowed red, while she maintained her usual dignified stance.

  “Thank you, Miss Reedy.” Alice-Miranda offered her tiny hand, which the English teacher shook most vigorously. “I’ve had a wonderful term.”

  “You have a lovely break, Alice-Miranda. It’s hard to believe you’ve been here only three months.” Livinia Reedy looked down at her youngest student. The girl was a constant source of amazement.

  “And Mr. Plumpton, your science lessons have been truly fantastic. I will never in my life forget that volcano experiment. All that frothing and fizzing and then—boom!” Alice-Miranda laughed.

  Mr. Plumpton’s forehead wrinkled. “That wasn’t my best work, Alice-Miranda. Not quite the outcome I was expecting.”

  “But Mr. Plumpton, it was magnificent—even if it did make a lasting impression on the ceiling and spew that icky liquid all over the lab.”

  “Yes, well, I can only imagine how the volcano’s vent ended up with a cork wedged in it.” He tried not to, but couldn’t help showing an embarrassed smirk.

  Next in line stood Mrs. Derby. Alice-Miranda was only just getting used to Miss Higgins’s new name.

  “You have a lovely holiday, sweetheart.” The young woman beamed.

  “Thank you, Miss Higgins—I mean, Mrs. Derby,” Alice-Miranda corrected herself.

  Mrs. Derby knelt down and brushed a stray curl behind Alice-Miranda’s ear. The child leaned forward and threw her arms around Mrs. Derby’s neck.

  “Now, what was that for?” Mrs. Derby asked, as surprised as she had been the first time Alice-Miranda offered such affection.

  “Just because,” the tiny girl whispered.

  At the end of the line loomed the headmistress, Miss Ophelia Grimm, in a striking magenta suit. Her hair, now swept up loosely, no longer pinned her face into a scowl. Today she was elegant and quite beautiful.

  “Alice-Miranda,” she barked sternly, and then, as if remembering she was no longer that person, she cleared her throat and began again.

  “Alice-Miranda.” This time her tone was soft. “Thank you for your hard work this term. It has been a pleasure.” Her dark eyes smiled and her mouth curved upward.

  “No, thank you, Miss Grimm. Winchesterfield-Downsfordvale Academy for Proper Young Ladies really is the most beautiful school in the whole wide world, and you are the best headmistress in the world too. Even when you were, well, upset and angry, pretty much all of the time, I knew that wasn’t really you. You were f
ar too stylish and lovely to be as mean as all that.” Alice-Miranda stopped suddenly.

  Miss Grimm’s eyes narrowed.

  “What I meant to say, Miss Grimm, is that I knew it wasn’t the real you; the one who spied on us and never came out to see the girls and the staff and wouldn’t let Mrs. Smith take holidays or Mr. Charles plant flowers, or Jacinta go to the gymnastics championships—”

  “Stop!” Miss Grimm held up her hand.

  “But Miss Grimm, what I really meant to say—”

  “Enough!” Miss Grimm cut her off again, her steely eyes threatening. “No more. Do not say another word, Alice-Miranda.”

  Suddenly Ophelia’s face crumpled and she found herself smiling at this infernal child with her cascading chocolate curls. She bent down to meet Alice-Miranda’s brown-eyed gaze.

  “Now, Miss Highton-Smith-Kennington-Jones, as your headmistress I am commanding that during this term break you will under no circumstances spend time studying for ridiculous academic tests, nor will you set off on any wilderness walks on your own and you most definitely will not train for onerous physical challenges. After what I put you through at the beginning of the term, I expect nothing less than two weeks of purely childish pursuits befitting that of a girl aged seven and one-quarter.”

  “Oh dear, I am sorry, Miss Grimm, but I can’t guarantee any of those things,” Alice-Miranda whispered.

  “And why ever not, young lady?” Miss Grimm snapped.

  “Because, Miss Grimm, I’m actually now seven and a half.” Alice-Miranda beamed.

  Before she knew what she was doing, Ophelia Grimm leaned forward and hugged Alice-Miranda tightly.

  “Thank you, Miss Grimm.” Alice-Miranda hugged her right back. “And you and Mr. Grump enjoy your honeymoon too. Goodness knows you’ve waited long enough for it.”

  Now it was Ophelia’s turn to blush.

  Alice-Miranda ran toward her mother’s shiny car parked at the bottom of the steps.

  “Come on, darling, time to go home,” Cecelia Highton-Smith called, dabbing a tissue to her eyes.

  “Hurry up, Alice-Miranda,” griped Jacinta from the backseat. Then she leaned forward and waved furiously out the window. “Bye, everyone!”

  The staff could hardly believe just how much things had changed in the eleven and a half weeks Alice-Miranda had been at Winchesterfield-Downsfordvale. And who would have thought that Jacinta Headlington-Bear—the school’s former second-best tantrum thrower—would ever be invited home for term break?

  “So, Mummy, you survived my first term.” Alice-Miranda turned to her mother sitting beside her in the front seat.

  “Yes, I suppose I did,” Cecelia Highton-Smith said, sniffling, as she turned the key in the ignition. The car lurched forward and they were on their way.

  “I’m so glad you finally stopped crying.” There was a stern tinge to Alice-Miranda’s voice. “I mean, you have stopped crying, haven’t you, Mummy?”

  “I’m sorry, darling. It’s just that your father and I missed you so much. It wasn’t the same without you romping around the house.”

  “Of course it wasn’t,” Alice-Miranda replied. “But you were terribly busy. Daddy told me you were both off all over the place every other day, taking care of the business. So it was much better that you didn’t have to worry about me at all. And besides, I saw you and Daddy three times during the term anyway. I can’t imagine you had a minute to miss me.”

  Alice-Miranda’s parents had been caught off guard when their only daughter decided to start boarding school early. Although they had expected her to go at some stage, it had come as quite a shock when she telephoned the school and organized to commence at the beginning of the new school year. But they knew that once she had made up her mind there was no point trying to stop her. And if truth be known, Alice-Miranda was quite right about her parents’ being busy. Her mother, Cecelia Highton-Smith, had recently become chairman of the board of her late father’s retail empire. Highton’s, the most stylish department stores in the world, sold ladieswear and lingerie, Labradors and llamas and everything in between. When Cecelia married Hugh Kennington-Jones, newspapers had heralded their match as the most magnificent retailing merger the world had ever known. With Hugh at the helm of Kennington’s, the largest supermarket chain in history, busy was something of an understatement.

  “Do you really love it at school?” asked Cecelia as she glanced at her little daughter.

  “Oh, Mummy, it was everything I could have hoped for and so much more.” Alice-Miranda was practically bursting with enthusiasm as she spoke. “Wasn’t Miss Grimm’s wedding the most beautiful ever? Well, except for Miss Higgins’s. I suppose they were equally lovely in their own way. Who would have thought I would be a flower girl twice in one term, especially when I didn’t even know either of the brides until just a little while ago. And then Jacinta won the championships, which of course she would because she’s the best gymnast ever, and Mr. Charles won the garden competition—you should have seen his face, Mummy, he didn’t stop smiling for a week. And our lessons were so wonderful. I hadn’t realized my brain could take in so many things all at once. Then we had our swimming carnival—I didn’t do very well, but I did try, and Millie won seven ribbons. She’s incredible! I think she could go to the Olympics. She’s pretty amazing at tennis too—maybe she will win Wimbledon as well. Oh, I wish she were coming home with us too.…”

  “Darling, please take a breath,” her mother laughed.

  “Ahh,” Alice-Miranda sighed. “I suppose I do have two weeks to tell you everything.”

  “Two weeks, only two weeks! Darling, please don’t remind me.” Moisture glistened in the corner of her mother’s eye. “I don’t know how I’ll be able to take you back again in just—”

  Alice-Miranda cut her off. “Mummy, please don’t start. We have two whole weeks, so let’s just enjoy them.” She passed her mother a clean tissue. “Promise?” she asked, raising her eyebrows.

  “All right, but only if I have to,” her mother reluctantly agreed.

  “Yes, you have to. Otherwise I’ll phone Miss Grimm right this minute and ask if I can stay at school for the holidays,” Alice-Miranda teased, her brown eyes sparkling. “I’m sure Mr. Charles would love some company, and Mrs. Derby would look after me.”

  Her mother immediately changed the subject. “What about you, Jacinta? Have you had a good term?” Cecelia glanced at her in the rearview mirror.

  “Yes, Mrs. Highton-Smith.”

  “Please call me Cecelia, or Cee. Mrs. Highton-Smith sounds like my mother.”

  “Sorry, Cecelia,” said Jacinta, smiling to herself. “It has been a good term, although it started very badly. I’d been so sick and I was cross with everyone, but then Alice-Miranda came, and in the end it really was the best term ever. Who would have thought that she would be able to bring Miss Grimm out of her study after all those years? School is like a different place altogether now. I just wish my parents had been able to get back for the gymnastics championships, but as usual Mummy was tied up somewhere with her friends and Daddy was away on business.”

  “Never mind, darling. I’m sure they are very proud of you.” Cecelia fixed her stare on the road ahead.

  The silver Range Rover sped along the country lanes, through the village of Winchesterfield and then on to the tiny hamlet of Downsfordvale with its quaint row of whitewashed cottages. The countryside tumbled past and the girls chattered about the term and what they were planning to do at home.

  Alice-Miranda swiveled around to look at Jacinta in the backseat. “I can’t wait for you to meet Bonaparte.” She turned back to her mother. “Did Max bring him in last week, Mummy?”

  “Yes, darling. Max has been very busy working Bony. I think he’s been lunging him every day—he told me that he feared the saddle girth would need to be let out a few notches.”

  “I don’t think Daddy will be able to call him Bony Pony anymore by the sounds of that.” Alice-Miranda giggled.

  �
�I hate horses,” Jacinta declared.

  “Really? Why? I can’t imagine it,” Alice-Miranda replied. “Bonaparte is a big softie. He wouldn’t hurt anyone—and you don’t have to ride if you don’t want to. There are lots of other things we can do.”

  “Well, I won’t be going near any horses, that’s for sure,” Jacinta stated.

  Cecelia glanced in the rearview mirror. “I’m not very good with horses either, Jacinta.”

  “It’s not that.” Jacinta frowned. “I’m actually an excellent rider. It’s just that I don’t like them. They smell.”

  Cecelia suppressed a giggle. “So, what about you and I do something together when Alice-Miranda heads out riding with her father? We could go swimming, or perhaps you’d like to do some cooking or read a book? We could even take some rods down to the river and try to catch some of those trout Mr. Greening tells me have grown rather large.”

  “I’m fantastic at fishing. But I won’t be able to touch them at all. I’m allergic,” Jacinta announced.

  Cecelia laughed. “Well, I can’t guarantee we’ll catch anything, but I’m sure we can have some fun trying.” She made a right turn into a sun-dappled lane hemmed on both sides by rough-hewn stone walls. “Nearly home, girls.”

  As the car continued along the lane, Alice-Miranda’s attention was diverted by a face peering over the wall. It belonged to a dark-haired boy. He was staring at the road, and as the car went past, his tongue shot out at her like a lizard.

  “Mummy, did you see that?” Alice-Miranda asked.

  “See what?” her mother replied.

  “Just back there, a boy looking over the wall. He stuck out his tongue when we drove past,” Alice-Miranda explained.

  “Really?” Cecelia glanced at her daughter. “I wonder who that would be.”

  “I’ve never seen him before,” Alice-Miranda continued.

  “How rude!” Jacinta exclaimed.

  Alice-Miranda shrugged. “Perhaps we might find him later when we go for a walk.”

  Jacinta scowled. “I hope not.”

  The chimneys of Highton Hall stood tall in the distance behind a thick stand of poplar trees. The car crunched over the loose gravel and halted at a T-intersection.