Black Maria

Black Maria
Diana Wynne Jones

On the surface, Aunt Maria seems like a cuddly old lady, all chit-chat and lace doilies and unadulterated NICEness!When Mig and her family go for a short visit, they soon learn that Aunt Maria rules the place with a rod of sweetness that’s tougher than iron and deadlier than poison. Life revolves around tea parties, while the men are all grey-suited zombies who fade into the background, and the other children seem like clones.The short visit becomes a long stay, and when all talk of going home ceases, Mig despairs! Things go from bad to worse when Mig’s brother Chris tries to rebel, but is changed into a wolf .Mig is convinced that Aunt Maria must be a witch – but who will believe her? It’s up to Mig to figure out what’s going on. Maybe the ghost who haunts the downstairs bedroom holds the key?

Black Maria

Diana Wynne Jones

Illustrated by Paul Hess

Dedication (#uc2e193d5-a9d3-5540-a43f-5b992719f840)

This book is for Elly

Contents

Cover (#u50a1b094-2597-55b2-be3a-2d535c160a4f)

Title Page (#u29effc83-7467-57cf-a572-aef602713285)

Dedication (#uc9e75c0a-3dc3-5695-8690-ca34d779c3dc)

Chapter One (#ulink_8c16b7ae-31a8-5b18-bc31-10289cde6a48)

Chapter Two (#ulink_8d5c9509-b106-52a0-8944-de625cf8cf7e)

Chapter Three (#ulink_1cf6afb1-e0a6-5574-a6c1-0f005ae60e0e)

Chapter Four (#ulink_90d342e4-9d25-5491-83e3-e3f6a0040153)

Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Other Works (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_aec36875-b2cd-501a-a46f-56e3f3fa7115)

We have had Aunt Maria ever since Dad died. If that sounds as if we have the plague, that is what I mean. Chris says it is more like that card game, where the one who wins the Queen of Spades loses the game. Black Maria, it is called. Maybe he is right.

That is the first thing I wrote in the locked journal Dad gave me that awful Christmas, but I think it needs an explanation, so I will squeeze some in. Dad left early in December and took the car. He rang up suddenly from France, saying he had gone away with a lady called Verena Bland and wouldn’t be coming back.

“Verena Bland!” Mum said. “What an awful name!” But she said it in a way which meant that wasn’t the only awful thing. Chris doesn’t get on with Dad. He said, “Good riddance!” and then got very annoyed with me because all I seemed to be able to think of was that Dad had gone off with the story I was writing hidden in our car in the space on top of the radio. I mean I was upset about Dad, but that was the way it took me. At that time I thought the story was going to be a masterpiece and I wanted it back.

Of course Dad had to come back. That was rather typical. He had left a whole lot of stuff he needed. He came and fetched it at Christmas. I think Verena Bland had disappeared by then, because he came with a necklace for Mum and a new calculator for Chris. And he gave me this lovely fat notebook that locks with a little key. I was so pleased about it that I forgot to ask for my story from the car, and then I forgot it completely because Mum and Dad had a whole series of hard, snarling rows and Mum ended up saying she wanted a divorce. I still can’t get over it being Mum who did! Nor could Dad, I think. He got very angry and stormed out of the house and into our car and drove away without all the stuff he had come to fetch. But my story went with him.

He must have driven off to see Aunt Maria in Cranbury-on-Sea. He was always very dutiful about Aunt Maria, even though she is only his aunt by marriage. But he never got there, because the car skidded on some ice going over Cranbury Head and went over the cliff into the sea. The tide was up, so he could have been all right even so. But there was something wrong with the door on the driver’s side. It had been like that for six months and you had to crawl in through the other door. The police think the passenger door burst open and the sea came in and swept him away while he was stunned. The seatbelt was undone, but he may have forgotten to fasten it. He often did forget. Anyway, they still haven’t found him.

Inquest adjourned. That is the next thing I wrote. Mum doesn’t know if she’s a widow or a divorcee or a married lady. Chris says “Widow”. He feels bad about saying “Good riddance!” the way he did before, and he got very annoyed with me when I said Dad could have been picked up by a submarine that didn’t speak English or swum to France or something. “There goes Mig with her happy endings again,” Chris said. But I don’t care. I like happy endings. And I asked Chris why something should be truer just because it’s unhappy. He couldn’t answer.

Mum had gone all guilty and agonising. She sent Neil Holstrom packing, and I thought Neil was going to be her boyfriend. Actually, even when I wrote that I wasn’t sure Mum liked Neil Holstrom, but I wanted to be fair. Neil reminded me of an earwig. All Mum did was buy Neil’s nasty little car off him, which was hard on Neil, even though I was glad to see the back of him. But it was true about Mum going all guilty. Chris and I went rather strange too – sort of nervy and soggy at the same time – and couldn’t settle down to do anything. There are huge gaps in the notebook when I couldn’t be bothered to write things in it.

Mum’s worst guilt was about Aunt Maria. She said it was her fault Dad had gone driving off on icy roads to see Aunt Maria. Aunt Maria took to making Lavinia, the lady who looks after her, ring up twice a day to make sure we were all right. Mum said Aunt Maria had had quite as much of a shock as we had, and we were to be nice to her. So we were all far too nice to Aunt Maria. And suddenly we had gone too far to start being nasty. Aunt Maria kept ringing up. If we weren’t in, or if it was only Chris at home and he didn’t answer the phone, Aunt Maria telephoned all our friends, even Neil Holstrom, and anyone else she could get hold of, and told them that we’d disappeared now and she was ill with worry. She rang our doctor and our dentist and found out how to ring Mum’s boss when he was at home. It got so embarrassing that we had to make sure one of us was always in the house from four o’clock onwards to answer the phone.

It was usually me who answered. Mum worked late a lot around then, so that she could get off work and spend Easter with us. The next thing in my notebook is about Aunt Maria phoning.

Chris has a real instinct for when it’s going to be Aunt Maria. He says the phone rings in a special, gently persistent way, with a clang of steel under the gentleness. He gathers up his books the moment it starts and makes for the door, shouting, “You answer it, Mig. I’m working.”

Even if Chris isn’t there to warn me, I know it’s going to be Aunt Maria because the first person I hear is the Operator, sounding annoyed and harassed. Aunt Maria always grandly forgets that you can look up numbers and then dial them. She makes Lavinia go through the Operator every time. Lavinia never speaks. You just hear Aunt Maria’s voice distantly shouting, “Have you got through, Lavinia?” and then a clatter as Aunt Maria seizes the phone. “Is that you, Naomi dear?” she says urgently. “Where’s Chris?”

I never learn. I always hold the phone too near my ear. She knows London is a long way away from Cranbury, so she shouts. And you have to shout back or she yells that you are muttering. “This is Mig, Auntie,” I shout back. “I prefer to be called Mig.” I say that every time, but Aunt Maria never will call me anything but Naomi, because I was called Naomi Margaret after her daughter that died. Then I transfer the receiver to my other ear and rub the first one. I know that she’s shouting to know where Chris is again. “Chris is working!” I shriek. “Maths!”

She respects that. Chris has somehow managed to fix it in her mind that he is a mathematical genius and His Work Is Sacred. I wish I knew how he did. I would like to fix it in her mind that I am going to be a Great Writer and my time is precious, but she seems to think only boys have the right to have ambitions.

Aunt Maria’s voice takes on a boomingly reproachful note. “I’m very worried about Chris,” she says, as if that is my fault. “I don’t think he gets enough fresh air.”

That starts the tricky bit. I have to convince her that Chris gets plenty of fresh air without telling her how he gets it. If I say he goes to see his friends, then either she says Chris is neglecting his work or she rings his friends to check. I nearly died the time she rang Andy. I want Andy to think well of me. But if I leave it too vague, Aunt Maria becomes convinced that Chris is in Bad Company. She will ring Chris’s form master then. I nearly died when she did that too. Mr Norris asked me about Aunt Maria every time he passed me in the corridor. She obviously scarred his soul.

But I’ve learnt how to do it now. Chris will be surprised to know that he plays tennis every day with a friend who isn’t on the phone. Then I have to do the same for Mum. Mum plays tennis, too, with the phoneless friend’s mum – who is a widow, in case Aunt Maria gets worried about that. Then we get on to me. For some reason, I am not supposed to do anything, even get fresh air. Aunt Maria says, “And what a good little girl you are, Naomi, working away, keeping house for your mother!”

I agree with this, for the sake of peace, though it always makes me want to say, “Well, really, I’m just off to burn the church down on my way to the nudist colony.”

After that she goes on to her latest theories about what really happened to Dad, and then to how upset she is. All I can do there is shout a soothing “Ye-es!” every so often. That part makes me feel awful. But I have to keep listening, because that part always leads to us being the only family she’s got now, and then, “So when are you all coming to Cranbury to visit me?”

This is where I get truly artful. Aunt Maria gets enticing. She says, “Chris can have the sofa, and if Lavinia moves down to the little room, you and Betty can share Lavinia’s room.”

“How kind!” I say. “But I’m afraid Chris has this exam.” You wouldn’t believe how often Chris has exams. Chris doesn’t mind. He gives me suggestions. One thing Chris and I were really determined on was that we were not ever going to visit Aunt Maria in Cranbury-on-Sea. We both have dreadful memories of going there as small children.