by Tina Nolan
Talking of cars, Eva thought it would be a good idea to check the garage. “If Jake and Marietta are away, their cars won’t be here,” she said out loud, skirting down the side of the house to peer through the small windows of an old stable block. To her surprise there were two cars parked inside. Maybe they’re back! she thought.
She walked up to the front of the house and found the doorbell. What now? Eva wondered. Should she press it, or was it way too early to disturb Jake? Her finger hovered over the buzzer.
Then her gaze was drawn to a soggy piece of paper on the rain-spattered step. Eva stooped to pick it up. It was a smudged, hastily written message.
Eva’s eyes opened wide. She smoothed the note and read it again.
So Jake and Marietta hadn’t dumped Charlie after all. They’d made a plan to have him looked after by someone called Bobbie. But it had all gone wrong.
Bobbie hadn’t turned up when he should have done, and now Charlie was back at the rescue centre. Which left two big questions in Eva’s mind. Who was the woman in the blue sports car? And why was she in such a hurry to get away?
Chapter Eight
By nine o’clock, the yard at Animal Magic was buzzing with activity.
Eva watched people come and go. She had said nothing about her early morning visit to the Hall or the mysterious blue car that had shot out of the drive. She was still thinking about it when she saw a Land Rover splash through the puddles and enter the yard. She waved and ran to greet her grandad.
“Have you come to help?” she asked, as Jim Harrison climbed out of the car. Eva grabbed him by the hand, steering him past the biggest puddles.
“You bet!” he grinned.
“What about Gro-well?”
Eva and Karl’s grandad ran a small garden centre on the outskirts of the village. You never saw him without his green gardening waistcoat and a pair of sharp secateurs stuffed in his pocket.
“I left Thomas in charge. He’s been working for me long enough. I reckon he can manage by himself for one day.” Still smiling, he waved at Mark and Karl. “When does the great man arrive?” he yelled. “Jake Adams is a real crowd-puller. Are you ready for the rush?”
Eva bit her lip. “Grandad, didn’t Dad tell you?”
“Tell me what?” Jimmy Harrison put on his flat cap and zipped up his waistcoat.
Eva broke the news bluntly. “Jake Adams isn’t coming. He backed out at the last minute.”
“Wow!” a voice from next door gasped. Annie’s fair head appeared over the hedge. “Are you serious?”
Eva’s shoulders sagged. “Jake can’t come,” she admitted. “Anyway, what are you doing, Annie? You’re not supposed to listen to other people’s conversations!”
“I can’t help it if I happen to be in my garden!” Annie protested weakly.
“I’ll leave you two to argue it out,” Jimmy said, shaking his head and looking disappointed as he went off to find a job to do.
“You’re never in your garden!” Eva tutted at Annie. “Especially when it’s raining. You hate getting your hair wet!”
Annie ignored her. “What happened to Jake?”
“Don’t ask me.” Wiping the rain from her face, Eva realized it was no use being mad with Annie. “Sorry,” she mumbled. “I know it’s not your fault.”
“No worries,” Annie replied.
“Don’t tell your dad,” Eva pleaded. “He’ll think we made it up – the stuff about Jake coming – just to stop your mum from complaining about us.”
Annie nodded. “OK, I won’t say anything. But he’s going to find out soon any—”
At that moment there was a blast from a car horn in next door’s drive, and the sound of a car’s tyres squealing to a halt.
“Oops!” Annie turned in time to see her mum stop sharply at the exit from their drive.
Out of the corner of her eye, Eva saw a second car on Main Street. The driver jammed on the brakes. “That was close!” she breathed.
The second car swerved, then crunched into the lamp-post outside Annie’s house.
“Ouch!” Eva grimaced. She saw Karl sprint across the yard towards the road and she quickly followed. By the time they reached the gate, Linda Brooks was already out of her car and standing on the pavement, while a dark-haired woman stepped shakily out of her small blue car.
“What do you think you’re doing?!” Linda shrieked. “This is a thirty miles per hour zone! You must have been doing at least fifty!”
“Are you OK?” Karl asked the woman, noting her front bumper bent around the lamp-post and a hiss of steam emerging from under the bonnet.
Soon other people came running, including Mark Harrison, who quickly took control. “Karl, can you go down the street and try to warn drivers that there’s been an accident. Get them to slow down.”
Karl nodded and hurried off. Eva stayed at her dad’s side. She’d recognized the crashed car – it was the same one that she’d seen at Okeham Hall.
“Linda, are you OK?” Mark checked quickly, and then turned back to the other driver. “You’ve probably had a bit of a shock. Would you like to come inside while we try to sort your car out for you?”
“Don’t touch the car!” Linda insisted. “I’m going to call the police. They’ll have to measure braking distances before it gets towed away.”
Sighing, Mark led the woman towards the house.
“I wasn’t breaking the speed limit.” The young woman spoke for the first time. “Your neighbour shot out from her driveway without looking. I had to swerve to avoid her.”
Hearing this, Eva frowned. She’d seen how fast the woman had come out of the drive at Okeham Hall a few hours earlier. But she didn’t say anything.
“I’m so sorry to bother you,” the woman went on, sitting down in the kitchen and accepting a cup of tea. “It looks as if I’m interrupting you on a busy day.”
“No problem,” Mark assured her. “Stay here. Eva will keep you company. I’ll go outside and wait for the police.”
Nodding, the woman took a deep breath and sipped her tea.
“Did you come to Okeham for a reason?” Eva asked carefully, her curiosity bubbling over in spite of the shock of the accident.
The woman looked pale and worried. She was young, with long, glossy brown hair. “I went to my sister’s house, but she wasn’t in.”
“Whereabouts?”
The woman glanced cautiously at Eva. “It doesn’t matter. Never mind.”
She’s hiding something! Eva thought. But there was no time to ask more questions, because her dad reappeared with a police officer who immediately asked to see the woman’s driving licence.
“Roberta Jarvis,” the policeman said, reading the name on the licence and writing it down. “Now, Miss Jarvis, how fast were you driving at the time of the accident?”
“Mum’s gone mental!” Annie reported to Eva an hour after the policeman had left. “She’s denying coming out of the drive without looking and she’s saying that Roberta Jarvis was doing fifty!”
“Well, I heard Roberta tell the police that she was under the speed limit,” Eva replied.
“Eva, can you check the hay in Rosie and Apache’s nets?” Heidi called from the surgery door.
Eva started towards the stables. “See you later,” she told Annie. As she crossed the yard, her dad appeared at the back door with Roberta. He hurried over to Jimmy Harrison, who was helping Karl put up some bunting.
“Dad, could you give Roberta a lift?” he asked. “Her car’s not driveable and she needs to get home.”
“Of course.” Jimmy smiled kindly at the pale young woman. “Where’s home?”
“In Hareton,” she explained with a hesitant smile. “I’m sorry to put you to all this trouble.”
“No problem,” he assured her. “It’s only a couple of miles.”
Hearing this, Eva dashed on into the stable to check on the pony’s feed, and then hurried back out. “I’ll go with Grandad,” she told her dad.
No soo
ner said than Eva climbed into the backseat of the Land Rover with Roberta. Jimmy pulled out from the yard and switched on the radio.
“Sorry!” Roberta said again, seemingly on the verge of tears.
Jimmy drove on past her smashed car without replying.
“He didn’t hear you. He’s a bit deaf,” Eva explained. “I saw you earlier,” she said quietly.
Roberta shot her a worried look. “Where?”
Eva looked her in the eye. “At Jake Adams’s place.”
Roberta frowned. “Why were you snooping around there?”
“I was going to ask you that,” Eva retorted. “Come on, you tell me first.”
“I was looking for a cat,” Roberta sighed. “A kitten actually. It belongs to my sister.”
It was Eva’s turn to frown. “Marietta?”
Roberta nodded. “She and Jake had to go away all of a sudden.”
“Marietta’s your sister?”
“Yes. She asked me to look after her kitten. But it escaped from the house and ran off.”
Hang on a second! Eva tried to fit the pieces together. True, Marietta and Jake had had a sudden change of plan. But hadn’t she found the note addressed to a man called Bobbie, asking him to take care of Charlie? That didn’t make sense!
“I came to the Hall at midday yesterday,” Roberta went on. “I only opened the back door a little way, but Charlie shot out between my legs and vanished!”
“Charlie!” Eva echoed. Roberta – Bobbie. Bobbie’s not a man – she’s a woman!
“I came back twice in the afternoon to look for him, but he never showed up,” Bobbie explained. “And I got up early this morning and came over first thing. And again just after nine. Still no luck. Poor little Charlie has vanished into thin air. I’ve no idea what I’m going to tell Marietta when she gets back!”
Chapter Nine
“Grandad, turn round!” Eva cried. She leaned forward and tapped his shoulder. “Take us back to Animal Magic, please!”
“Make up your mind,” her grandad grumbled.
Bobbie turned to Eva with a puzzled look. “What’s up? Why are we going back?”
Eva took a deep breath. Suddenly everything looked different. “There’s been a big mistake!” she gasped. “Karl and I … we thought … well, anyway, you’ll soon see!”
Jimmy Harrison turned the car around and set off back to the rescue centre.
“My brother and I wanted to find out why Jake had changed his mind about coming to our Open Day,” Eva told Bobbie. “He promised to be here, but then he backed out. That’s why we went to Okeham Hall yesterday afternoon.”
“Uh-oh, Eva, what have you been up to this time?” her grandad asked.
“The house was empty … and, well … we thought poor little Charlie had been left without anyone to look after him.”
Bobbie nodded. “OK, I get it. But actually I was the one who messed up in the first place by letting Charlie escape. He ran off and I couldn’t get him to come back. I didn’t know what to do!”
“Here we are, girls!” Jimmy announced, pulling into the yard at Animal Magic.
“Come on!” Eva urged Marietta’s confused sister. She led her towards the cattery and headed straight for the unit containing Charlie and his brothers and sister. “Excuse me,” she murmured to a couple of visitors who were gazing at the adorable litter. Then she leaned over and picked up the snuggly, fluffy ginger kitten.
“Charlie!” Bobbie gasped in total amazement. “Oh Charlie, there you are! Thank heavens!”
“Am I in trouble?” Eva asked her mum as Bobbie cuddled Charlie.
Straightaway, Bobbie stood up for Eva. “Oh, please don’t tell her off! She did what she thought was best. And she saved Charlie from drowning, remember!”
“Actually, that was Karl,” Eva admitted. Her brother hovered in the background, ready to do a runner if things turned nasty.
“You’re right, Bobbie.” Heidi nodded. She reached out and stroked Charlie. “All’s well that ends well.”
Phew! Eva relaxed and Karl sidled up, smiling, hands in his pockets.
“Thank you so much!” Bobbie said to him. “You saved Charlie’s life!”
“Do you happen to know why Jake had to cancel our Open Day?” Karl asked. “We’re going to look really stupid when Mum has to make the announcement that he won’t be here after all.”
“I’m sorry, I really don’t know.” Bobbie held tight to Charlie and walked with Heidi, Eva and Karl out into the yard. There was a distant roll of thunder and heavy splashes of rain. Wet visitors scuttled from the kennels to the cattery, and on into the converted barn that held the rabbits and guinea pigs. “I can’t help you. I wish I could.”
“Didn’t Marietta tell you?” Eva persisted.
Bobbie shook her head. “Listen, can I call a taxi? I have to get Charlie back to Okeham Hall. And this time, I’ll make dead sure he doesn’t get out of the house!”
Eva’s grandad overheard and stepped forward. “No need for a taxi. I’ll run you there. As long as you don’t change your mind again halfway!”
No sooner said than Eva, Bobbie and Charlie were back in the Land Rover and heading for the Hall.
“So Marietta didn’t explain where she and Jake were going?” Eva prompted again.
“I thought it was a bit weird at the time,” Bobbie confessed. “Marietta seemed upset when she phoned me and told me they had to go away. She wouldn’t explain – just asked me to look after Charlie.”
There was a short silence, and then Bobbie went on. “If you ask me, it was to do with the Angela Nixon fiasco.”
“Who’s she?” Eva asked.
“She is – no, she was until recently – Jake’s Personal Assistant. She lived at the Hall with Jake and Marietta. But my sister found out on Thursday that Angela had been fiddling her expenses and Jake fired her on the spot.”
“But what’s that got to do with Jake having to leave unexpectedly?” Eva didn’t see it, and Bobbie had no real answers for her.
“I don’t know – just a feeling,” she murmured.
They lapsed into silence again as Jimmy turned into the drive of Okeham Hall and drove slowly through the still-open gates towards the big old house.
“Home again!” Bobbie said to Charlie as she unlocked the front door.
The ginger kitten sniffed and wriggled. Bobbie put him down gently and watched him stick his pointy tail straight up in the air and pad carefully across the polished floor.
Miaow! Charlie said, heading for the kitchen.
“Maybe he’s hungry,” Bobbie wondered, inviting Eva and Jimmy into the house.
“Thirsty, more like.” Eva knew that the kittens had already been fed. She smiled to see Charlie lap greedily at the saucer of water that Bobbie put down.
Bobbie’s phone went and she hurried to answer it.
“Marietta!” she said, walking quickly out of the kitchen, back into the hallway.
Eva couldn’t hear what was being said, but she could tell that Bobbie sounded surprised. “Maybe now we’ll find out what happened to Jake,” she said glumly to her grandad. They waited for Bobbie to return.
“I knew it!” Bobbie frowned, pacing up and down the big kitchen. “It is Angela Nixon! I knew she was bad news. Not only does she deliberately crash Jake’s computer when she finds out she’s been sacked, she sends him off for a big meeting with United’s boss which hasn’t even been arranged!”
Eva’s grandad whistled gently. “Not Mark Moorcroft himself!”
Bobbie took a deep breath. “Yes, the big boss. Apparently Angela said Moorcroft needed to talk to Jake about renewing his contract. She made it seem like his future at the club was in doubt and got him to drive all the way to United’s ground, only to find there was no meeting after all. Moorcroft didn’t show up, and it turns out he’s on holiday with his family in Florida.”
“Wow! That’s mean!” said Eva. Suddenly a new thought flashed into her head. “Where are Jake and Marietta right now?”
“On their way home.”
“On their way home!” Eva echoed. “Wow, Bobbie, that’s cool! Did they say…? I mean, can you call them back? Find out if…”
Jimmy stepped in with a smile to help Eva out. “I think what my excited granddaughter is trying to say is, will you ask Jake if he’ll be back in time to put in an appearance at our Open Day?”
Chapter Ten
It was after one o’clock when Eva and her grandfather arrived back at Animal Magic.
“Remember, say nothing to your mum and dad about Jake,” Jimmy said, holding the car door open for Eva to jump out.
Back at the Hall, Bobbie had promised Eva that she would call Marietta back, but she had warned them not to place too much hope on the celebrity couple being back in time. “I wouldn’t want you to be disappointed all over again,” she’d told Eva.
Even so, Eva’s brown eyes were sparkling with excitement, and it was almost more than she could bear. Jake, be here! she begged silently. Please be here! Everyone’s still expecting you. Don’t let us down!
Meanwhile, visitors crowded into the yard. There was a buzz of conversation as people went from kennels to cattery to stables, and all the talk was about the soccer superstar.
“Where’s Jake Adams…? He’s not due until two… It’s good of him to support an animal rescue centre… I reckon he’s a really nice bloke!”
Eva followed a family of two parents and two kids into the stables where Rosie and Apache munched hay.
“Look at the little brown pony, Mum!” the girl cried. “It says on the label that her name’s Rosie. How sweet is she!”
