Cindy Jones (3 page)

 

Cindy handed her father his jacket and briefcase. This morning he wore a bright yellow tie with a pale pink patterned shirt. He hummed to himself as he picked up his car keys.

“Don't forget you're having lunch with Dr. Zelna.”

“I'll remember.” He ruffled her hair and turned to leave. “See you tonight, Cindy.”

Cindy looked at the time. Horace was still missing. She hadn't seen him since he followed Miss Hopkins out of the house. She shrugged and gave Pearl her saucer of milk. It was odd, but not worrying. Horace often went missing for a day or so. He would return when he was hungry.

Gretta's car was parked at the surgery, so Cindy turned her bike into the driveway. Gretta, wearing a stained old shirt over her jeans, was taking the temperatures of her overnight patients. Cindy sighed at the dropped ears and tails of the unhappy animals. She picked up a pen and filled in their cards as Gretta read out the temperatures.

“All normal this morning, thank goodness,” Gretta said as she put the last animal back into its cage. “I've got to check on a mare in foal as soon as my assistant arrives.”

She scrubbed her hands clean, pulled off the dirty shirt, and shrugged into her white jacket. She pushed her untidy dark hair out of her eyes and reached for the appointment book and her notes.

Cindy plunged into her request for recipes.

“Recipes?” Gretta queried. “You make a wonderful pavlova and cheesecake, and none of my sponges are as fluffy as yours.”

“I want to learn proper cooking. Like roast meat and vegetables, and casseroles and things.”

“I don't eat much of that sort of food,” Gretta admitted. “I've got recipes for cucumber and prawn gelatin, avocado soup, crabmeat puffs, oyster rissoles, spaghetti and lobster, Swiss fondue, onion casserole and stuffed chokos?”

Cindy kept shaking her head. Gretta looked at her watch. “What about Irish stew, chops, onions, celery, and carrots? The most basic revolting meal you can put in front of anyone!”

“Sounds great.” Cindy grabbed for the prescription pad and a pen. “Keep talking. I can buy the ingredients on the way home.”

At school, Miss Hopkins detained Cindy after her class. “Your cat followed me home and refuses to leave. Would you drop by and collect him this afternoon?”

Cindy nodded obediently. She had wanted to see Jennifer Morgan, but Horace was more important. However, after school at the shopping center, she spotted Jennifer in front of the local fitness center.

“Hi, Jennifer.”

Jennifer Morgan spun around at her name. Cindy waved and pushed her bike through the crowded street to reach her.

“What luck seeing you!”

“It's Cindy Jones, isn't it?”

“I had to shop because I'm making an Irish stew for tea,” Cindy explained. “What are you doing here?”

“I teach Brio beat classes.”

“What's a Brio beat?”

“Come and have a look,” Jennifer invited, as she opened a door.

Cindy wheeled her bike inside and down a long passage and propped it against the wall. She followed Jennifer into a large room with a polished floor, smelling of dust and disinfectant. A group of boys and girls waited around dressed in leotard or shorts.

Jennifer vanished into a small cubicle and came out wearing a black leotard. She switched on a tape with a loud, catchy rhythm to it. The class formed into lines. Jennifer waited a few seconds and then nodded.

They started dancing exercises to the catchy beat of the music and Jennifer's yelled directions. Cindy felt conspicuous standing watching, but everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. When Jennifer signaled a break, everyone flopped down on the floor, laughing and talking. Jennifer reached for a towel and wiped the sweat from her face.

“That looks fun!” Cindy burst out. “No wonder you have such a terrific figure.”

“Like to try it?”

“Love to.”

“I teach Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Classes between four-thirty and seven o'clock.”

“I'll be along on Monday afternoon.” What luck bumping into Jennifer, Cindy gloated. She would never have caught her at the Plumstead's place. “You must have a late dinner those nights.”

“No problems,” Jennifer explained cheerfully. “I grab something take-away.”

“What about coming home tonight to my place and trying my Irish stew?”

“Do you think the Professor would mind an extra person?”

“Half the time he isn't home for dinner.”

“In that case,” Jennifer said with a smile. “I accept your kind invitation with pleasure. I get sick of take-aways.”

“We live at Six Turkscap Drive,” Cindy said. “See you some time after seven.”

She wheeled her bike back into the street and rode towards Miss Hopkins's prim little flat, whistling to herself. Everything was turning out nicely.

She would cook a nourishing Irish stew for her father and Jennifer. Her father would enjoy her cooking and Jennifer's company, realize it was nice to eat home, and fall in love.

Miss Hopkins answered her door carrying a large towel-wrapped bundle with a long dripping tail hanging out the bottom end.

“Come in Cindy. Horace fell into my washing, which was soaking in the trough. I'm trying to dry him.”

“He wouldn't have fallen in, Miss Hopkins,” Cindy explained. “He just likes taking baths.”

Miss Hopkins watched Cindy scrub Horace dry. He lay across her arms, heavy and content, purring loudly.

“I'm cooking Irish stew for dinner tonight.”

“Good.” Miss Hopkins was wearing her glasses, and the light caught them so the expression in her eyes was hidden.

“And I invited Jennifer Morgan for tea.”

“A very nice girl. I'm sure you will find her helpful.”

The silence lengthened. Cindy wondered what Miss Hopkins meant by “helpful,” but she wasn't game to ask. This afternoon Miss Hopkins had little to say. Cindy felt embarrassed when she remembered how she had chattered the night before and confided all sorts of things.

Cindy swapped her shopping into her school bag, carried Horace outside, and dropped him into the basket on the handlebars. Miss Hopkins gave a brief nod goodbye and shut her door.

Horace crouched down so only his ears showed over the top of the basket. He was used to travelling in the bike basket and often came for a ride with Cindy. She cut across the park towards her home. Some boys kicked a ball around on the oval, and a group of girls watched by the railings.

“Here comes little Miss Dirty Face herself,” someone sneered as she approached.

Constance and Prunella were among the group of girls. Constance still had her phone to her ear. Cindy wondered if she took it to bed as well. The others moved over to block the path.

“Teacher's pet, too,” sneered another girl.

She was a heavily built girl with frizzy hair wearing purple eye makeup. Cindy recognized her as a classmate, usually the butt of Miss Hopkins's dry remarks about idlers and loafers.

“What a funny looking cat.”

“It would look even funnier with a can on its tail.”

An empty soft drink can was immediately tossed to the girl barring Cindy's way. It came from Prunella's direction.

“Don't you dare touch Horace.”

“Horace! Horace! Horace!” jeered the group.

The girls closed in a tighter circle. Cindy tried to ride away, but someone grabbed her arm in a vice-like grip. Apart from the boys at the other end of the oval, the park was deserted. There was no one around to help her.

The frizzy-haired girl had already tied a shoelace around the can. She smirked as she reached for Horace, cowering in the basket, his ears flat to his head.

“I'll tie the can on his tail. This is going to be really funny,” she gloated.

 

Cindy struggled to pull free as Horace was dragged from the bike basket, his body limp and dangling.

She stamped hard on a foot with her heavy lace-up shoe. One of the girls shrieked and slackened her grip. Cindy pushed hard on her pedals and rode straight at the girl holding Horace, who dodged. Constance yelled and went sprawling as the bike rammed into her.

Cindy swung the bike around to ride at the other girl again, and Horace finally galvanized into action. His back legs swung up and raked the bare arms and legs around him, and he sunk his teeth into the hands holding him. The frizzy-haired girl swore and dropped him.

He did a running leap into the basket of the bike, wailing his displeasure. Cindy pedaled hard through the gap that had opened between the girls. She had escaped! The boys stopped their aimless kicking of the ball to head towards the noisy group of girls.

Cindy breathed hard as she rode home. She wished she had rammed Constance harder! She wished Horace had bitten and scratched more of them! That would teach them to try and tie cans to an animal's tail.

She latched the gate behind her and rode into the garage. Horace's eyes glared a wild baleful yellow. His ears were flat against his head, his fur bristled, and his tail lashed his outrage.

“We're home, so there's no need to carry on,” Cindy soothed as she lifted him out of the basket, and opened the side door of the garage that led into the back yard.

She blinked and clutched Horace more tightly, hoping the view would go away. For a few bewildered seconds, she wondered if she had ridden into the wrong place. Horace began a low threatening grumble that rose into his high-pitched wail. Cindy put him down.

All the wisteria and ivy had been cut away from the pergola and the long back veranda. The veranda was shabby and unsheltered in the slanting rays of the hot afternoon sun. The house looked square and ugly without the softening creeper and wisteria that had clung around the walls and windows for so many years.

The back yard was equally bare and naked. The trees were lopped back from the swimming pool, the big shrubs uprooted. Drying dirt was leveled between the pruned-back trees. Already the hot sun was withering and drying the thick carpet of moss that covered the flagstones around the pool.

Without the shrubs and the old apple, pear, and apricot trees, the back fence was visible for the first time ever. Only the lemon tree flourished to throw its shade over the pen where Amanda and Hooper were imprisoned.

Cindy blinked tears away. Somehow she was going to make the Barrys pay for all the dreadful things they had done! She went inside.

The house was unchanged. The sun glared through the kitchen window, no longer sheltered by the ivy. Horace flung himself upstairs and sloshed up and down in the bath. Cindy washed and cut her meat and vegetables for the Irish stew and left them simmering. Gradually, the misery that had caused her eyes to smart and her throat to choke faded.

She inspected the dining room carefully. She wanted it to look very special. She looked at the four jars of tadpoles. The narrow-necked jars on the dining table were the safest for tadpoles because the cats couldn't reach, but the jars looked untidy.

She found the elegant glass water jug covered in a diamond pattern in the top cupboard. With its narrow neck and lip, it was just the right shape, so she poured all the tadpoles into it. The jug held the contents of the four jars comfortably and gave a finishing touch to the table.

When she lit the candles in the branched silver candlestick holder and turned off the light, the room looked softened and restful. The dust over everything and the stained wallpaper were unnoticeable. Dinner by candlelight was an elegant idea.

The aroma from the Irish stew wafted around the room. Cindy sniffed happily as she fed the animals, cleaned out cages, dried Horace and mopped up the mess he had left in the bathroom.

Cindy looked at the clock. She made chocolate crackles for dessert and put them in the refrigerator to set. Right on seven o'clock, Jennifer arrived.

“Something smells nice.”

“It's my Irish stew,” Cindy explained. “I'll give Dad another ten minutes before I dish up without him.”

“The table looks lovely.” Jennifer looked more closely at the water jug. “They are decent sized tadpoles. Are you collecting them?”

Cindy told her about the carp in the swimming pool and the family of terrapins in the downstairs bathroom. Jennifer admitted to liking pets, so Cindy introduced her to the terrapins, and took her outside to meet Amanda and Hooper.

Jim Plumstead whistled at the gate. Hooper lost interest in them to obey his summons. Cindy explained that Jennifer was having dinner with her. Jim grinned and suggested that Jennifer wait until he returned so they could walk home together, and jogged off with Hooper panting after him.

It was Jennifer who discovered the fishpond behind the pen. Its outlines were under the loose dirt, leaves, and rubbish that were left when the big shrub had been taken out. There was also a tap and pipes that led to the cairn of rocks along one side.

“It looks as if there was once a rockery and a fountain.”

“How beaut!” Cindy gloated. “Didn't know that was there before. I can clean it out and use it for the tadpoles.”

A car turned into the driveway.

“That's Dad,” Cindy said.

“You're sure he won't mind me here for dinner?”

Professor Jones didn't seem to mind. Cindy was able to serve dinner to the pleasant sound of he and Jennifer discussing books.

There was a plentiful helping of steaming, tasty Irish stew and afterwards chocolate crackles washed down with sarsaparilla. Cindy apologized for running out of tea and coffee, but Jennifer assured her that her dinner was a lot more interesting than Mrs. Plumstead's cooking.

Cindy flushed with pleasure at this compliment. For the first time in a long time, her father was so relaxed he was chuckling.

They all helped with the dishes and afterwards settled in the dining room and drank more sarsaparilla and talked of tropical fish, music, and travelling. Cindy couldn't remember the last time she had enjoyed an evening so much.

When the knock came at the front door, Cindy offered to answer it.

“That will be Jim Plumstead. Is there enough sarsaparilla left to offer him a drink?”

“I think there's a bottle left in the secret hoard,” the Professor said. “Invite him in, Cindy.”

Cindy danced up to the front door and opened it. The smile on her face died.

Mrs. Barry waited on the porch, with Prunella and Constance beside her.