Archer’s Goon

Howard hastily nudged Awful and gave her the look which meant she could be as awful as she liked. It did not seem to him that Awful needed much encouraging just then. Nor did she. She grinned fiendishly and scampered after Miss Potter. He heard her following Miss Potter upstairs, saying, “I want to see your bedroom. I like seeing bedrooms.”

“Oh, Howard,” Fifi whispered. “She’ll never forgive me!”

Howard comforted his conscience by telling it that Miss Potter probably deserved it for stealing the words and telling lies about friends. “Quick,” he whispered back. “I bet the words are here somewhere.”

Quietly and hastily he and Fifi tiptoed about, searching the neat little room. They opened drawers and cupboards, looked in the empty wastepaper basket, and ended lifting up clocks and shaking out empty vases. There was nothing. Miss Potter did not seem to keep even old letters.

They tiptoed to the only other room, which proved to be Miss Potter’s kitchen, and searched cupboards there, too. Fifi looked in the oven and the fridge, while Howard sorted through the two plastic bags and the cabbage stalk, which was all that was in Miss Potter’s waste bin. Again nothing. All the while, they could hear footsteps moving about upstairs and Awful’s voice loudly saying things like, “Why do you have so many kinds of make-up? They don’t make you any prettier.” Or, “Why do you keep your nightie in this silly teddy bear?” It made Fifi giggle.

Howard thought Miss Potter must have the words upstairs, probably in the teddy with her nightdress, and he was just hoping that Awful would have the sense to look when he heard Awful saying, in a very loud, warning way, “You did change quickly! Don’t you like little girls watching you?” Fifi was giggling helplessly. Howard took her arm and towed her back to the living room just in time.

Miss Potter came bouncing tightly down the stairs in a neat pleated skirt, with a neat scarf over her head, and her lips were tightly pressed together. She looked furious. “Fifi, you should teach that child some manners!” she said. “Do you think you could wait outside while I find my keys?”

Awful stuck her head over the banisters, grinning wider than the Goon. She whispered, in a great loud gust, “Miss Potter wants to telephone. She’s got a telephone upstairs, too.”

Miss Potter shot Awful a venomous look and followed that up with an artificial-looking jump. “Oh, silly me! I have my keys here all the time! Shall we go?”

They went out of the house. While Miss Potter was locking it with much fussy jangling of keys, Howard tried to decide whether there really was a friend or Miss Potter had just decided on this way to get rid of them. Either way there was nothing they could do but follow Miss Potter uphill and into Pleasant Hill Road itself.

“My friend is such an admirer of your father’s books,” Miss Potter explained to Howard as they climbed. “She’s been asking me for months now if I couldn’t get her just a peep at some of his newest writing. She says she simply must read every word he’s ever written. She says it’s his style that’s so marvellous, but I think the important thing is that he’s so sympathetic to the woman’s point of view. Don’t you agree?”

“I don’t know,” Howard panted. Miss Potter set quite a fast pace. “I’ve never read any of Dad’s books.”

“He says we mustn’t till we’re old enough,” Awful explained.

Miss Potter struck back smartly at this. “You poor child! Can’t you read yet? How sad!”

“You do make catty remarks,” Awful said. “Is it because you’re an old maid?”

Miss Potter pressed her lips together and walked on up the hill in seething silence. Howard gave Awful the look that was meant to call her off, but he was not sure it worked. They came in silence to the very top of the hill, to the driveway of the largest and reddest house yet. The brick gatepost said 28. Number 28 was like several castles melted together, with brick battlements and towers sprouting off its many corners. The way into it seemed to be through a big glass porch in front. Miss Potter went through the porch door and then undid the mighty studded front door beyond enough to put her head around it.

“Cooee!” she called. “Anyone at home? Dillian, dear, it’s me!”

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Dillian! thought Howard. It had never occurred to him that it might be a lady’s name. Perhaps there was more than one Dillian, he thought, and it was a name like Hilary or Vivian that did for both men and women. As he thought it, he looked round to see the glass door of the porch swing and click shut.

A voice spoke. It was a sweet, laughing lady’s voice, and none of them could see where it was coming from. “Why, it’s Maisie!” it said. “Who are your friends, Maisie?”

Miss Potter, still with her head round the great front door, called back, “I’ve brought Quentin Sykes’s dear little children, Dillian, and the student who babysits them. May we come in?”

“With pleasure, dear,” said the sweet voice, almost chuckling. “Come on in.”

Miss Potter pushed open the massive door and they all trooped through it. They stood blinking. The castle was a palace inside. They were in a vast room, where light blazed from crystal chandeliers on to an acre of shiny floor made of different woods put together in patterns. The light gleamed off the gilding of elegant little armchairs and winked in the drops of a small fountain near the stairs. There were banks of flowers around the fountain, and here and there in the rest of the space, as if there were going to be a concert there or a visit from the queen. Golden statues held more lights at the foot of the stairs, which swept around the far side of the room in a grand curve. Everyone tiptoed forward into the gleaming, scented space, quite awed. There was a proud, smug look to Miss Potter as she whispered, “Dillian’s home is charming, isn’t it?”

Fifi pulled herself together enough to say, “Cosy little place—” and stopped as she saw Dillian coming down the stairs.

Dillian was wearing a shiny white ball gown, which she held up gracefully as she came, to show her little high-heeled silver shoes. Fifi and Howard stared, thinking of fairytale princesses, and Awful thought of Miss Great Britain. Dillian had long golden hair, and her face was beautiful. When she reached the bottom of the stairs and came gracefully towards them, they saw she was even more beautiful than they had thought. She gave them a wonderful smile.

“Maisie! How kind of you to bring them!” she said.

Miss Potter turned a dull red. It was very clear she adored Dillian and would have done a great deal more for her than steal two thousand words. “I – er – I was afraid you might be annoyed, dear,” she said.

“Not in the least,” said Dillian. “Come and sit down, all of you, and we’ll have some tea.” She turned and led the way gracefully to the gilded chairs near the fountain, where she sat down in a billow of lovely skirt. She bent and rang a little golden bell that stood on the curb of the fountain. As they followed her, slithering a little on the shiny floor and quite astonished, a footman came from behind the stairs somewhere and bowed to Dillian. Their heads all turned to him. He wore a red velvet coat and a white wig and stockings.

“Tea, please, Joseph,” Dillian said to him. “Or would you prefer a milkshake?” she asked Awful.

Awful turned her stare from the footman back to Dillian. “No, thanks.”

“Bring one in case anyway, Joseph,” Dillian said to the footman. “Do sit down, everyone.”

Miss Potter fussily pulled gilded chairs about to make a group around Dillian, and they all rather gingerly sat in them. Once they were sitting, they found that the banks of flowers around the fountain hid most of the huge room. They seemed to be in a small space full of scents and gentle drip-drip-dripping from the fountain. It all was so elegant that Fifi tried to hide her striped leg warmers under her chair. Howard could not think what to do with his slashed bag of books. Finally, he hid it and its tape under his chair, and then there seemed nowhere to put his feet. He felt as if he had more leg than the Goon.

“You must bring your father with you next time you come,” Dillian said to Howard. “I do so admire his books. But it’s just as great an honour having his children here – or do you get very tired of having such a famous father?”

As far as Howard knew, having Quentin for a father was just ordinary life. “I – um – get used to it,” he said.

“Of course,” Dillian said with great sympathy. “You don’t want to be known just for being the son of Quentin Sykes, do you? You want to be yourself.”

Howard felt his ears turning red. He hated people talking to him like this. “I… suppose so,” he said.

“So what are you going to do when you grow up?” Dillian persisted.

Howard began to feel the way you do when someone tickles the bottom of your feet. He had to change the subject or scream. “Design spaceships,” he said. “But we really came to ask for my father’s two thousand words back.” At this, Miss Potter turned and gave him a shocked look. He felt rude. “Er – please,” he said.

“Of course, dear,” said Dillian. “Spaceships! How interesting! But I suppose you do come under Venturus.”

“It’s urgent,” Howard pressed on. His ears seemed to get hotter with every word. “You see, Archer got angry when he didn’t get the words and sent the Goon round. And my father’s refused to do another lot. So we need the ones you’ve got.”

He stopped. Dillian’s face had gone blank, as if she had not understood a word he was saying. It looked as if there had been a mistake. Perhaps she was not the Dillian Mr Mountjoy had talked about. Howard’s stomach, and even his ears, went quite cold at the thought. Meanwhile, the footman was coming back, gently wheeling a little golden trolley with a tall silver teapot on its top shelf and silver plates of sandwiches on its lower one. Dillian turned to him. “Put it in the middle, Joseph, where people can help themselves.”

“You are the Dillian who farms law and order, aren’t you?” Howard said.

A slight, proud smile flitted across Dillian’s lovely mouth. She gave a very small nod.

“Not in front of the servants, dear,” she murmured. “Maisie, pass the sandwiches round.”

The footman picked up the teapot and poured cups of tea like a high priest performing a ceremony. He carried a cup to each of them as if the cup were the Holy Grail and then followed the grail up with two more grails, one with sugar and one with cream. Miss Potter, at the same time, held a plate of sandwiches towards each of them, in an offhand sort of way, to show she was used to it, and made conversation. “Quentin Sykes’s books are so sympathetic to women,” she said, thrusting the silver plate at Fifi.

The footman presented Fifi with a grail of tea at the same moment. Fifi got utterly confused and tried to pick a sandwich up with the sugar tongs. She went as red as Howard’s ears and could not speak for the next twenty minutes. Awful, however, was quite composed. When Miss Potter waved the sandwiches at her, Awful waved them grandly away. And when the footman bent solemnly down and held out a tall pink grail of milkshake to her, Awful waved that away, too. This puzzled Howard. Awful had been the one who wanted tea at Miss Potter’s house, and she loved milkshakes. And the sandwiches were delicious, small and tasty and without crusts, the kind that Awful usually thought the height of luxury.

It puzzled Dillian as well. As the footman reverently put the milkshake back on the trolley, she said to Howard, “Doesn’t your little brother want anything to eat or drink at all?”

Howard’s ears went hot again. Awful looked smug. She loved being mistaken for a boy. “No, I don’t,” she said firmly, before Howard could explain. Dillian nodded to the footman and he went away. “Good,” said Awful. “Can Howard talk to you now?”

Dillian turned to Howard. “Yes. Perhaps he should. So it’s Archer who’s getting two thousand words every three months from your father?”

Howard nodded. “Didn’t he tell you? He’s your brother, isn’t he?”