Selections from the Vault

This page features two short stories first posted on 31 August, 2022 and 5 September, 2023.

Please note that none of these have been edited and they will probably not be expanded or continued.

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Sevens

Notes: A complete short story, told from Trixie’s point of view.

Sometimes, when you look back, you see things in your life that weren’t all that obvious at the time, but which now stand out. The number seven is like that for me. I mean, I know there were seven Bob-Whites, and that was a really big thing for me when I was growing up, but the other sevens weren’t as obvious.

When I was seven years old, I thought I had a pretty good life with my parents and my two brothers. Yes: two brothers. And that was when Moms explained, in words that a seven-year-old could understand, that there was going to be another little Belden coming along soon. Little did I know what that would mean for our family!

At fourteen, I thought I had it all figured out. I was going to be a detective. My best friend and I were going to marry each other’s brothers and be double sisters-in-law. We’d have a detective agency together and we’d only take cases that made the world a better place. And I never even thought of how unrealistic that last part was. But that was all before that case; the one none of us ever speak of, even to this day. That case nearly ruined everything. And it definitely ruined the detective dream, both for Honey and for me. That was the very last case and we never wanted another one again.

If the mysteries ended, at least the friendships didn’t. Even though we scattered all across the country, we still stayed pretty close all through our college years. Which made it so much more of a shock when I was twenty-one and realised that Honey and I would probably never be single sisters-in-law, let alone double ones. Because Honey was getting married, and not to either of my older brothers. And Jim was dating someone and it wasn’t me. Maybe I reacted badly to that. Okay, definitely, I reacted badly. But it did lead me to some interesting places I otherwise wouldn’t have gone.

Which brings me to what happened when I was twenty-eight. See, after the thing when I was twenty-one, I decided that if none of my expectations were going to be met, I might as well do something really unexpected, which is why I moved to Romania. I know; it wasn’t really a great idea. I didn’t speak the language – any of the languages of the region – and I didn’t know what I was getting myself into. Which is also why I didn’t stay there long, but wandered all over the place until, when I was twenty-eight and working in a bar in a little town in Portugal, I got a message asking me to come home because Moms was really sick. And, of course, I dropped everything and rushed home because I was so scared that she would die before I got there. She didn’t. In fact, she got better, eventually. But that was the end of my world adventure. I settled back close to home and got an ordinary job and lived in an ordinary apartment and did ordinary things. But I kind of wished that I could have been somewhere else.

By that time, most of my group of friends were getting married and having babies. I had the consolation of getting Diana as a sister-in-law when she and Brian, of all people, got married. And I got to be the cool aunt – honorary, in some cases – but my own life kind of stayed sort of, well, ordinary.

So, now I’m thirty-five and I’ve just got back from my first trip out of the country since my big adventure. It was wonderful: nearly a year of travel, all around the globe, most of it by myself. And, really, I should have known better than to just blurt out my news, but you’d think my family would know me better by now than to think I would break it to them gently. And since I figured out that the biggest changes in my life have all happened on a multiple of seven before I went and did this, I should have known that I needed to be more gentle with them. I knew something was going to happen; they didn’t.

But it’s too late now – either to change my mind, or to do better at telling my family.

“Here she is! Come in, come in. Oh, it’s so good to see you!” Helen gushed as her only daughter entered the house. “It’s so good to have you home.”

She folded Trixie into a tight hug, broken only so that Peter could have a turn. So many other people stood in line behind him; almost everyone she could think of had turned up for her home-coming. In fact, it reminded Trixie distinctly of the Thanksgiving Open Houses of her teens, except that Thanksgiving wasn’t for another six weeks or so.

Actually, no, she corrected herself a few moments later. It’s more like Christmas. She looked around at the smiling faces of close friends and family, all of them happy to see her and each other. This gathering had none of the casual acquaintances present. Everyone here was close.

“How long will you be home for this time?” Honey asked, with a teasing note in her voice, as she took her turn for a hug. “I suppose you’ve got your next destination all planned already.”

Trixie shook her head and threw caution to the wind. She glanced from her best friend to her parents and brothers, who were all listening.

“I’m not planning on going anywhere. I’m having a baby.”

In that moment, Trixie knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that her announcement should have been handled in a different way. The entire laughing, chattering crowd stilled – with the exception of some kids, who still wove in and out among the suddenly frozen adults – and at least one person audibly gasped.

Her mother found her voice first. “What do you mean, Trixie? You’re considering having a child?”

Again, Trixie shook her head. “No, I’m about four months pregnant already. Sorry I didn’t tell you earlier; I wanted to wait until I could say it in person. And, to be perfectly honest, it’s only just starting to seem real.”

“Of all the reckless things you’ve done in your life, this one just about has to take the cake,” her eldest brother noted, with a slight tremor in his voice. “The risks involved in an accidental pregnancy with some random stranger, and the conditions in some of the countries you’ve been in…”

“Wait! That’s not what I said.”

Brian stared at her. “Which part? Do you mean, you did this deliberately? You went to some country where the laws around reproductive technologies are lax – or non-existent – and you had some sort of procedure?”

For the third time, she shook her head. “No. You’ve got it all wrong.”

“How about if you explain it to us, then, sweetheart,” her father urged. “We just want to understand.”

She looked around the room at the circle of confused and slightly anxious faces and took a calming breath. “Well, it’s like this: I was sitting on a hillside, thinking about my life and the fact that I was turning thirty-five and thinking about the things I’d done and the things I hadn’t and I just knew that if I didn’t have a child pretty soon then it probably wouldn’t happen at all. And the thought of never being a mother kind of hurt. So, when an opportunity arose that same day, I kind of… jumped right in.”

Brian covered his eyes with one hand. “Please tell me you’ve had all the tests and you’re continuing with the testing regime.”

This time, she scowled. “You’ve still got it all wrong. Why do you keep assuming that I got busy with some disease-ridden stranger?”

“I think it might be because you don’t do relationships,” Mart put in, while Brian paused to gather his arguments. “At least, not ones that you let us know about.”

“I haven’t wanted relationships,” she answered, in a small voice. “I didn’t keep secrets from you.”

“Until now,” Honey corrected.

Trixie looked up and met her best friend’s eyes. She saw acceptance. She saw thinly-veiled excitement. And she saw that Honey knew. Without having to explain what had happened, Honey had leapt across the chasm and was standing with her on the other side.

“I didn’t think this was supposed to be an interrogation,” Honey went on. “And I think, maybe, it would be better to leave the discussion of exactly how this happened for a time when there are less children present.”

“I wasn’t intending–” Brian began, then broke off suddenly. “Sorry. It’s just that this is completely out of the blue.”

Trixie nodded. “It was for me, too.”

“Okay, kids!” Honey called, gathering the attention of those who had gotten bored with the adult talk and wandered off. “Come and say hello to Aunt Trixie and then we’re going outside for some games!”

Kids of various sizes sped through the crowd to follow these instructions and the adults all took a couple of steps back to allow them. Brian, meanwhile, turned to Honey with a confused expression.

“What are you doing?” he asked her.

A smile played on her lips. “I just told you: this conversation needs to be done without the kids. Because I don’t know about you, Brian, but I don’t want to explain some of this stuff to mine. And I don’t think anyone is willing to postpone it until they all go to sleep or something.”

“And you’re willing to miss out on the conversation?” he persisted.

Her smile widened. “Oh, I’ve got a pretty good idea of what happened already. And I’m willing to wait until Trixie and I are alone to get the rest of the story.”

Trixie, who had been watching this exchange, even as she hugged her nieces and nephews and handed out small gifts, smiled her approval of the plan.

Within a few minutes, Honey had hustled all of the kids outside and shut the door behind them. Brian wasted no time in turning on his sister again with more questions.

“Am I to understand that it wasn’t a stranger? Is that what you were suggesting?”

She nodded. “That’s exactly what I was trying to tell you.”

His brow furrowed. “You were somewhere off the beaten path, in an unknown country and you just happened to meet someone you know and that person just happened to be willing to be part of this scheme? That’s some coincidence.”

Trixie rolled her eyes. “It would be, if it was.”

Brian continued, as if he hadn’t heard her, which most likely he hadn’t. “And this person, who you say you already knew, was just willing to let you be a single mother, without taking any responsibility for what he’s done?”

She shook her head. “I didn’t say anything like that at all and you very well know it!”

“She’s not going to be a single mother,” Di deduced. “That’s what you’re trying to tell us, isn’t it Trixie?”

Trixie pulled her into a hug. “Thank you! Oh, I’m so glad that someone else is finally starting to understand.”

“I’m so happy for you and Jim,” Di told her, squeezing her again. “It’s about time you two got together.”

“Now, hold on,” Brian urged. “Isn’t that jumping to conclusions?”

Di let go of Trixie and rounded on Brian. “If you’d let her talk, instead of having to deal with all of your questions, she would have told us everything by now. And if you’d been paying attention to what was going on around you, you’d have seen that Jim was the only adult in the room who already knew before Trixie just blurted it out and that he’s spent practically the whole time since she first said it trying to fade into the background.”

Brian turned a bewildered expression on Jim, who indeed had sunk back to the furthest corner and now looked more than a little alarmed at the turn of events.

“Is this true?” Brian asked.

“It’s not what you’re thinking,” Jim answered, trying to back up a little further.

“Really?” Brian answered. “Because what I’m thinking is that this whole scenario is inexplicable.”

Di laid a calming hand on his arm. “I don’t think you need to be quite so upset about this as you are. It’s not like she’s sixteen. She’s a grown woman and capable of making her own decisions.”

“Like moving to Romania when she only spoke English?” Brian shook his head. “Yes, I’ve seen Trixie’s sudden decisions before.”

“That was fourteen years ago,” Trixie pointed out. “And I did just fine in Romania for the three or four months I was there. I really felt like I grew during that time.”

“You’ll grow a lot more because of this decision!” he spat back.

For a moment, Trixie stared at him, open-mouthed. Then, both she and Diana broke out into uncontrollable laughter. After another moment, others joined in.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that,” Brian told her, more than a minute later, when he could finally make himself heard.

“Probably not,” she agreed, pulling him into a hug. “But I’m glad you did, anyway. And it’s all going to make sense when you know the whole story, I promise.”

“I’m not feeling very hopeful about that,” he admitted. “I still don’t understand the Romania thing.”

She shrugged. “That wasn’t one of my brightest moments. But this decision is completely different to that. This time, I thought things through first and made an actual plan.”

“The problem that I have with that statement is that it contradicts what you said earlier.” He glanced from her to Jim, his expression taking on just a hint of hostility as it travelled. “You just told us that you were sitting and thinking and then just took the first opportunity that turned up. And that doesn’t suggest to me that you planned anything in advance.”

Trixie clutched at her hair. “This isn’t going at all like I thought it was going to.”

“Maybe you should have followed the plan we agreed on,” Jim called to her from his corner, with just a hint of a smile.

“But it was such a good opening in the conversation,” she answered, holding a hand out to him. “And since Di’s already let the cat out of the bag, you might as well come over here.”

“I’m not so sure that’s a good idea,” he replied, even as he moved to stand behind her.

“Well, we’re in this together now.”

“How about if you start at the beginning, Trixie?” her mother suggested. “And Brian, please just let her talk. Everyone can ask questions at the end.”

Trixie glanced around to see that everyone was listening.

“Like I said before,” she began, “I was sitting and thinking about my past and my future and I decided that it was about time that I thought about children, if I was going to have any, and I knew that I was going to see Jim in a few hours, so when we met, I told him what I’d been thinking about and, well, maybe it’s more accurate to say that Jim made the plan, but I did agree to it, and we kind of got married–”

“Just hold it there a second,” Brian interrupted. “You can’t ‘kind of’ be married. Either you are, or you aren’t.”

“No, we really are only kind of married,” his sister argued. “We don’t think it would be recognised in this country – and we’re not even totally certain that it was legal where we were, but there was a church and a minister and vows and everything. And we planned all along that once I got home, there would be another wedding so we could be legally married. And I don’t think we actually planned that I would get pregnant before the second wedding, but you know what our family’s like that way. Does that clear things up?”

Brian nodded, but did not otherwise answer.

“So, anyway, we kind of got married and our baby was conceived sometime after that. And Jim went home to prepare some stuff and to get back to work, but we met up another time later. And, of course, you’ll all be invited to our next wedding, which will be in a few weeks’ time; we’ll let you know the exact date when we have it.”

“See, wasn’t that easier?” Di commented to Brian, eyes dancing with laughter. “All you had to do was listen and everything became clear.”

But Brian wasn’t finished. He turned to Jim. “You actually agreed to this scheme? On the spur of the moment?”

Jim rubbed a hand across his face. “In a choice between this and going back to how things were before? Yes. Yes, I agreed to it. Without hesitation. And I don’t regret agreeing to it either, though I would have preferred a different way of sharing the news.”

Trixie pulled a face. “Yes, I’ll admit that wasn’t my best idea.”

“Not your best idea is rather an understatement,” Brian commented, still looking less than pleased. “But, method of delivery aside, I do accept that it’s good news. Very good news.”

“Thanks.” Trixie stretched up to kiss her brother’s cheek, then stepped back to let him shake hands with Jim.

The tension flowed out of the room.

And that was how I stunned some of the most talkative of my friends and relatives into silence with my unexpected announcement. You’ll be relieved to know, of course, that Mart had plenty to say to me later. He just wanted to keep his mouth shut while Brian was processing the information. Because Mart just about jumped for joy at my news and Brian… well, he had a big problem with it.

He was the only one, really. And he’s come around, now. He was Jim’s best man at our real wedding and he’s been nothing but supportive ever since.

But I’ve given him notice. Something else big will happen to me in another seven years. I can’t wait to find out what it will be.

Nightmare

Notes: A complete short story, featuring Mart and a classic piece of literature.

Eyes wide, Mart stared at the final sentence of the short story he had been reading, before snapping the book shut. With deliberation, he laid it on the bedside table. For the next few minutes, he stared up at the ceiling, processing the things he had read, to the accompaniment of Brian’s steady breathing on the other side of the room.

A stray thought caused him to glance at the clock. The red digits indicated the time to be 1:43am. And tomorrow was a school day. Turning the light back on to read for a little bit had seemed like a good idea two hours ago when he couldn’t sleep. On reflection, Edgar Allan Poe might not have been the best choice for night-time reading material, but the book had been close at hand and the stories intrigued him so that he just kept turning the pages to read the next one.

Until, that is, he reached his most recently-read tale, The Fall of the House of Usher. Mart shivered, in spite of the comfortable temperature of the bedroom. He had guessed in advance the main twist to the story – Poe repeated the device often enough for it to be obvious – but it still touched a nerve for some reason.

With a sigh, Mart reached over and switched off the light. Creepy feeling or no, he needed to get to sleep right away if he wanted to be on time for school in the morning.

For several minutes, he struggled with the urge to turn the light back on and read something, anything else, just to get those images out of his mind. In the dark, he shook his head.

Get to sleep! he ordered himself. And stop imagining things.

The admonishments did no real good. But after a time a wave of sleepiness carried his thoughts away and he slept… where his subconscious helpfully turned the nightmare story into a dream.

The horse’s hooves made a mournful sound as it wandered along the desolate path. Mart controlled the urge to turn the animal around and gallop back in the other direction. The faded blue of the sky above, punctuated with heavy clouds; the bare, craggy hills around and the dead tree trunks caused his spirits to sink. The whole landscape reeked of gloom and decay. Why was he even here?

“This is for Dan,” he reminded himself, aloud. “He sent for me, and I can’t let him down.”

Suddenly, ahead, he saw a dilapidated house, almost like a castle. Its turrets poked at the ominous sky; its many windows stared like blank eyes. Between it and him, the dark waters of a pond carried a perfect reflection of the ancient building and its unkempt surrounds. Without ever having been here before, Mart knew that this was his destination: the House of Mangan. He urged the horse on.

Reaching the front of the building, Mart noticed a fine crack that wove back and forth between the bricks. He tried to make a mental note to raise the matter with Dan when he saw him, as it might be dangerous, but the idea fled away at once.

This being a dream, the horse had disappeared without a trace. He carried his suitcase up the front stairs and pounded on the door. Tiny crumbs of masonry tumbled down around him as he did so.

The door opened and there stood Dan. Years must have passed since they saw each other. Mart remembered how they had been such good friends, right up until the time that Dan had inherited this place and come to live here. The man standing in front of him now bore a resemblance to his old friend, but only a passing one. Dan appeared sick and pale, his face lined with age and pain; his dark hair threaded with silver. He leaned on a walking stick with a snake head for a handle. And, for no reason that Mart could discern, he was dressed like he had stepped out of a period drama of some kind.

“You’re here. I didn’t think you’d come,” Dan greeted, waving Mart inside. “Come and meet my sister.”

“You don’t have a sister,” Mart objected, as he followed Dan up what seemed to be at least seven flights of stairs, and considerably more than the house should reasonably hold.

“Sure, I do.” Dan opened a door and led the way into a sitting room filled with many books and musical instruments. He picked up a violin and began to play it. “She’ll come when she hears this.”

Another door opened and Honey entered.

“Oh, good. You’re here,” she greeted Mart, then turned to Dan. “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?”

“When I’m finished,” Dan answered, furiously sawing at the violin. At length, he put the instrument down. “Mart, I want you to meet my twin sister, Madeleine. We were separated at birth, you know, and didn’t know each other at all until I came back here, to the house of my ancestors. They’ve been keeping her here, in the cellar, but I’ve let her out, now.”

“Along with the curse,” Honey added, then slapped her hand over her mouth.

“What curse?” asked Mart.

Dan ignored the question. “We’re the last of the family. And this house is all we have left in the world.”

“It’s just a teeny bit run down,” Honey commented, “but we’re working on doing it up. What do you think of this room?”

Mart stared around at the worn-out furniture, haphazardly arranged, the profusion of random objects and the peeling wallpaper. Before he had thought of something to say, Honey turned abruptly and left the room.

“We won’t see her again until the end,” Dan told him, while slumping into a chair.

All the energy seemed to have drained out of Dan. His eyes drooped shut. Mart leaned over a shook him.

“What was that about a curse?” he demanded.

Dan’s eyes opened and he glared up at his friend. “Don’t shake me like that.”

“I wouldn’t have to if you just answered the question.”

“It’s nothing. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Then, why did you send for me?” Mart asked, giving up on the topic for the moment. “Your letter didn’t say.”

“You’re going to witness the end,” Dan explained. “The House of Mangan is going to be destroyed and you’re going to be the one who survives to say what happened.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Dan cast him a condescending look. “What I just said. Madeleine and I are the House of Mangan, in one sense, because we are all that remains of the family. And this house is the ancient House of Mangan, which has been in our family for over three-hundred years. And it’s all going to end. Tomorrow. While you watch.”

“What!”

“The House of Mangan will fall,” Dan repeated, with an expression that clearly indicated that Mart was being particularly obtuse.

“Yes, I got that,” Mart snapped. “What I’m questioning is, how do you know?”

“How could I not know?” Dan asked, while sinking further into his chair and seeming to go to sleep in it. “I’ve already read the ending.”

Shaking his head at the logic, Mart picked up the violin and strolled over to the window to play it. He was doing rather a good job, in his own opinion, despite never having played before. He attempted a particularly difficult passage involving a lot of finger-wiggling, then stopped short as he took in the view from the window. The landscape outside had changed, the dead trees with their reaching limbs had marched closer.

Turning back to Dan, Mart found that the room had changed, too. Large cracks showed in every wall. Dan’s hair now looked more silver than dark, and cobwebs had formed around him. Dream logic told him that it must be the next day, the day that Dan had been talking about.

He strode over to his friend and shook him awake.

“Get up!” Mart urged. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

Dan opened a lazy eye, shrugged and settled back down. “It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine. The house is going to collapse.” With a start, Mart remembered the crack he had seen yesterday. “We should have had a builder in to fix the place up, but now it’s too late and we need to get out. Where is Honey?”

“Who?”

Mart stared for a moment, then remembered. “Your sister. Madeleine.”

“Dunno. In the cellar, maybe.”

But from outside the room’s closed door came a thumping sound and Mart knew it was Madeleine, dragging some dread object up from the subterranean vault. Dan’s face twisted into an expression of alarm and he sprang from his seat. The door swung open before them and Honey staggered inside, under the weight of a huge marble statue of Dan. She swooned into his arms.

“I’ve brought it, like you asked,” she told her brother.

“The floor!” Mart cried, pointing to the growing cracks. “It’s too heavy!”

“But it’s taken me all morning to get it up all those stairs,” Honey whispered, eyes still closed. “Do you have any idea how heavy that thing is?”

“We need to get out,” Mart urged the siblings. “Can’t you see how dangerous this is?”

“Oh, but I’ve read the ending, too,” Honey answered. “There isn’t any point. Dan and I are both supposed to die here and now. And you’re supposed to run out of the house, just in time.”

Mart stared around for some way to avert the disaster. He pushed the statue with all of his might – how had Honey carried it? – and managed to move it to a more sturdy-looking piece of floor. Something clicked into place and the whole room began to revolve and contort. Outside the window, the dead trees retreated and the heavy clouds rolled away.

From far below came a pounding on the front door.

“I’ll get it,” Honey offered, springing out of Dan’s arms and running lightly out of the room and down the stairs.

She returned moments later with a red-haired girl of about the same age.

“I’m your real sister,” the girl explained to Dan. “Madeleine and I were switched at birth and I’ve just come to find you.”

“You’re just in time for the curse,” Dan told her, with a wave to the statue, which stood, incongruously, in the middle of what was now a completely different room.

The newcomer shook her head. “That’s all over now. He has broken it.”

“Me?” Mart asked. “What did I do?”

The other three ignored the question.

“I think I’ll be going now,” Honey announced. “I need to go and find my real family.”

“You can go now, too,” Dan told Mart. “Thanks for coming. You can see yourself out.”

Mart frowned and stomped out of the room, finding himself only a few steps from the front door. The decrepit house had been replaced entirely with something much more comfortable and modern. Outside, the house had been transformed, too. It stood proudly amongst its neat garden. And the dark and murky pond now looked clear and blue.

At the last moment, he turned back to look at the house he had just left, half-expecting a bolt of lightning to come down and destroy it. Instead, he looked into a future where the House of Mangan flourished. Getting back on his horse, he rode away.

Mart’s eyes opened and he blinked once or twice. Turning his head, he saw that the alarm would go off in about two minutes. Across the room, Brian’s bed had already been neatly made.

He lay and contemplated the dream for a few moments. As a rewrite of a classic story, it left a lot to be desired. His mind had removed all of the horror of the original and replaced it with nonsense. But why had he felt that to be necessary?

Mart knew the answer as soon as he framed the question. While reading, he had been picturing Dan in the place of the title character. That his sister in the story was named Madeline only added to the problem. And thus his version had been born.

Heaving himself out of bed, Mart tried to put the dream aside. The alarm went off and he swatted it into silence. The book of Poe stories slid onto the floor.

Mart picked it up and was about to put it back on the bedside table. In mid-motion, he stopped and shook his head. No. This was not good bedtime reading. He would not make that mistake again.

The Interview

Notes: A snippet of conversation.

“Trixie!” Honey greeted her friend over the phone. “You will never believe what’s happened; not in a million years.”

“What is it?” Trixie demanded, dropping onto the sofa to better enjoy whatever news she was about to hear. “Is everyone okay? Is it–”

“Everyone’s fine,” Honey interrupted. “It’s about my nanny interviews.”

Trixie screwed up her nose. “I’m not entirely sure why you even want a nanny, but anyway…”

“I need a nanny so that I can do all of the things I have to do and not go completely crazy,” Honey informed her, not for the first time. “Anyway, I think I told you that they were sending me a few to interview, right?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“You will never guess who they sent me!”

For a moment, Trixie tried to conjure up the most unlikely candidates. “Dot Murray. Mr. Lytell. That girl from your senior home room, who always looked like she wanted to hit someone.”

“No! No one like any of those.” Honey giggled. “You’ll never guess.”

“Then tell me,” Trixie answered, losing patience with guessing.

“Miss Lefferts!”

“Who–” Trixie suddenly remembered. “Oh! But you’d never hire her!”

“I know, but I couldn’t exactly say that to her face.”

“How did this even happen?” Trixie wondered. “She wasn’t even a nanny, back then. And anyway, didn’t you read the applications or something, before you agreed to interview them?”

“I did. But she’d changed her name since then – she’s now Mrs. Edwards – and apparently she’s branched out a bit in terms of work, and she hadn’t listed working for my parents in her work history, so I had no idea until I saw her, and even then, for a moment, I just couldn’t figure out who she was, but she knew me immediately and wasn’t she mad!”

“Was she?”

“Oh, yes. She was furiously angry,” Honey added. “She stopped where she was, all of a sudden, and her nostrils got wider somehow, without any of the rest of her face moving, but she stayed so, so still. Then she just said my name and made one of those remarks she used to make, which sound polite and respectful, but underneath there’s another meaning. And I should have felt bad about the whole situation, I really should, because obviously, if she’s going for interviews she must need a job, but I just couldn’t help feeling that it was funny.”

“But you kept a straight face, didn’t you?” Trixie accused. “If I was in a situation like that, I’d make a complete fool of myself, but I bet you didn’t.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” Honey answered. “You would be fine. And I didn’t want to laugh. I was just amused. So, anyway, she told me about what she’d been doing all these years, and I told her a little of what I’ve done, and we agreed that we could never, ever work together and then she left. And then I had to call you right away, because who else would understand?”

“I’ve never met her,” Trixie pointed out.

“Yes, but you know how I felt about her,” Honey answered. “I had to make conversation with her for ten minutes. Ten minutes. It was excruciating. The whole time, I could see her silently criticising me.”

“And you still don’t have a nanny.”

“Luckily, Miss Lefferts was the last interviewee and I’d already decided that I almost certainly want one of the other candidates. I mean, a specific candidate. Because almost anyone would be better than Miss Lefferts, even Dot Murray.” She stopped for a moment. “But not that girl from my home room, or Mr. Lytell; I’m not going to hire them, either.”

“I’m glad,” Trixie answered, with a laugh. “I don’t want to have to extricate you from a mess of your own making, when you hire the wrong nanny.”

“I really don’t want to do that,” Honey replied. “When I think of how unhappy I was, there’s no way that I would want that for my own daughter, or my next child, either.”

Trixie’s mouth dropped open. “Honey, did you just say what I think you said?”

Honey giggled. “See? You haven’t lost your touch, even after all these years.”

“Are you…?”

“Expecting again?” Honey finished for her. “Yes, I am. Which is why the nanny is so important right now. I need all the help I can get.”

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