8
OF COURSE LOTTIE hadn’t been invited to Mrs. Spencer’s traditional Twelfth Night tea party, and just as well. First, the Boker had picked today to try getting Charles together with her friend’s just-divorced granddaughter, so Lottie would only have been in the way. And second, she’d have been anything but proud of us, because we did no credit at all to the good manners she’d tried to teach us.
It all started well. Dressed perfectly for the occasion, we rang Mrs. Spencer’s doorbell on the dot.
I felt well rested, and therefore ready for another fencing match with the Boker. Mom hadn’t woken me until midday, when Henry called to tell me that he had not been assassinated by Senator Tod in his dream. In fact, his little sister, Amy, had roused him, just as I rescued us by going into Grayson’s dream. And after that there was no chance of dropping off to sleep again, because Amy had thrown up on Henry’s bedside rug. She had a tummy bug and was well on the way to recovery now, but Henry thought he’d caught the same thing.
All the same, we made a date for the coming night—the advantage of these dreams was that you could meet people even if you were sick in bed and not feeling too good. Even better, you couldn’t infect another person however much you kissed. Although first, of course, there’d be things to discuss that we hadn’t gotten around to last night.
However, before all that I had to survive this tea party.
The Boker’s house was much closer than I’d thought, at the end of a quiet road up near Golders Hill Park. It was a very pretty, old house, redbrick like most of the others here, the doors and window frames painted white. Although it wasn’t enormous, it had a very upmarket sort of atmosphere, and seemed to me much too big for an elderly lady living on her own. But maybe she had a household help. Or two household helps. And a butler. Anyway, she must employ a gardener. In the front garden alone, there were countless box trees and yews with the snow knocked off them, trimmed into globes and pillars, and as accurately clipped as if someone had gone over them with a pair of nail scissors first thing this morning. There was a bird in the middle: from the front it looked like a giant running duck or a fat stork, from behind it was something like a peacock, and although it was only topiary, made of clipped box bushes, it seemed to me to be giving us a definitely nasty look.
“The gardener here must have his hands full,” said Mom.
“Yes.” Ernest’s smile was slightly forced. “Yes, the gardener here changes quite often—it’s tough living up to Mother’s expectations.” He pointed to the duck, stork, and peacock creature. “That’s why no one but Mother herself is allowed to touch Mr. Snuggles here.”
Honestly, the British! They even give their plants pet names.
“It’s really a very artistically clipped … er, vulture,” said Mom.
For a moment Ernest’s smile was genuine, not forced. “It’s a peacock,” he said, kissing Mom on the cheek. “Look, that’s its tail.”
“Oh. Of course. If that’s part of it, then yes, it’s obviously a peacock.” Mom nervously straightened her hair. It was clear that she was scared stiff of Mrs. Spencer and her girlfriends, but she’d never have admitted it. She acted as if she were having a lovely time. Mia and I were a little bit scared, too, but only because as we left the house, Grayson had asked, kind of casually, whether we knew all the verses of the national anthem by heart. It seemed another of his Granny’s old Twelfth Night customs was for everyone to salute the portrait of the Queen, put their hands on their hearts, and belt out the entire anthem with all its verses.
“But don’t worry—that’s right at the end when everyone’s tanked up on orange punch,” Grayson had added. That didn’t really reassure us. If I’d known about singing the national anthem earlier, I could at least have looked up the text on the Internet. In our haste, however, all that came to mind was the opening of the Dutch national anthem, “Wilhelmus van Nassouwe ben ik, van Duitsen bloed. William of Nassau am I, and of Dutch blood.” But I wouldn’t score with that unless the Boker had invited a Dutch guest.
I’d wasted an hour finding an outfit that satisfied Lottie, and another hour trying to fend off her attack on my hair—no use. In the end I gave in and let Lottie construct a complicated set of braids on my head. Although she claimed that Scarlett Johansson had worn her hair just like that at the Oscars ceremony, I thought my head looked like a fruit basket minus the fruit. No wonder the peacock was giving me such a funny look.
“Oh, say can you see, by the dawn’s early light…,” sang Mia beside me. “That’s not right, is it?”