Secret Meeting (17 page)
Authors: Jean Ure
“Next question!”
I consulted my list. “Were you ever like any of your characters when you were young, and if so, which ones?”
“Oh, dear! That’s asking.”
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want,” I said. “It’s just that you always seem to know how people feel. Like Victoria Plum and her hair. And Sugar Mouse and—”
“Sugar Mouse! That was me. That was my nickname, when I was at school … Mouse. Because I was so mouse-like! Wouldn’t say boo to a goose. You probably wouldn’t think it now,” said Harriet, “but I was just so shy! Always scuttling off into the corner.” She made little scuttling motions with her hands. “So, yes, you’re right! I know all about being mouse-like.”
There was a bit of a silence.
“Well, aren’t you going to write it down?” said Annie.
I swallowed, and started writing. Perhaps
Sugar Mouse
was one that Annie hadn’t read. Or perhaps she’d forgotten it. It seemed like Harriet had forgotten it, too. Sugar Mouse doesn’t get her nickname because she’s
mouse-like, she gets it because she dances the
part
of a sugar mouse in the end-of-term show at her ballet school. She’s chosen because she’s very tiny and dainty. But she’s also very perky and up-front! She has people in stitches doing really wicked imitations of her ballet teacher. She’s not mouse-like at all.
It was worrying how Harriet didn’t seem able to remember things. It reminded me of Gran, and her Alzheimer’s. But Harriet was too young to have Alzheimer’s! And she didn’t behave like Gran used to behave. She didn’t suddenly stop speaking, and look lost, or go out of the room to fetch one thing and come back with another. She seemed absolutely totally normal, except for not being able to remember the characters in her own books.
Maybe that was what happened when you wrote a lot of books? Maybe you forgot what you’d written in them? It was a bit disappointing, as I’d been looking forward to asking lots of questions about my favourite characters; but I reminded myself that I was really lucky to be here at all.
“So how are we doing?” said Harriet. “Got any more?”
“J-just t-two,” I said. I decided I wouldn’t bother asking her the one I’d added, about getting books
published while you were at school. I didn’t want to wear her out.
“Right, then! Let’s be having them.”
I seemed to have a ping-pong ball in my throat. I swallowed, and forced it back down.
“Have you ever written a book using an idea that’s been given to you by someone else?”
I expected her to say a very firm no, because of what I’d read. If she’d have said no, I was going to ask her
why
she had resistance. But she didn’t say no. She said yes! She said, “Yes, yes, absolutely! People are always giving me ideas. It’s very important to listen when people tell you things. They have such extraordinary stories! Things you couldn’t possibly make up. They give you all sorts of wonderful ideas!”
“Like
Spooky Cottage
,” said Annie.
“Exactly! Yes!”
Maybe, I thought, the person who had interviewed her before had got it wrong. It was the only explanation.
“So which books,” I said, “have come from ideas that other people have given you?”
“Oh … loads of them! That one.” She pointed at the battered copy of
Victoria Plum.
“I had a friend with limp hair. She was always having bad hair days. So I put her in a book!”
I was sure I’d read that it was Harriet herself who had bad hair days and limp hair, and
that
was why she wrote the book. But she didn’t have limp hair, she had lovely thick curly hair, even though it was going grey. It was really difficult, knowing what to think. Maybe she had just pretended it was based on herself. Authors probably did that sort of thing.
Now I had only one question left.
“What made you decide to become a vegetarian?”
I had blurted it out before I could stop myself. I went red as soon as I’d said it. Harriet went a bit red, too.
“Oh, dear!” she said. “You’ve properly caught me out, haven’t you?”
I hadn’t meant to. I didn’t want to embarrass her! “It’s just that I r-read somewhere that you were a v-vegetarian—”
“And now I’ve been caught red-handed, eating ham sandwiches! Well, that’s my credibility gone. You’ll never trust me again, will you?”
“Sometimes people who are vegetarians eat meat,” said Annie.
“Only if they give way to a moment of weakness,” said Harriet. “I’m sorry, Megan! Ham sandwiches are my weakness.”
I didn’t point out that she had said in the interview it was something she felt quite passionately about. It seemed that you couldn’t rely on interviews. Either the people that did the interviewing made things up, or … or the people that were being interviewed didn’t always tell the truth. I just didn’t know what to believe!
“Is that the lot?” said Harriet. “Have you finished grilling me? Good! In that case—” she reached out for her bag, which was on the floor beside her. “I have a birthday present for you. Here!”
She handed me a book-shaped package. Just for a moment my heart leapt, as I thought perhaps it might be a copy of
Scarlet Feather;
but I knew at once it wasn’t
heavy enough for a hardback. I tore off the wrapping, and there inside was an old dog-eared copy of …
Patsy Puffball
! Harriet Chance’s very first book. The one she was ashamed of, and would like all copies of it destroyed. In spite of that, I was quite pleased to have it, because it was one I’d never been able to find.
“I’m afraid it’s only second-hand,” said Harriet. “I wish I could have found a good copy for you, but after all this time I don’t have any left. If you look at the publication date, you’ll see that it’s very old.”
Obediently, I looked. Inside were the words, “For Jan on her birthday, with love from Mummy xxx.” And then, inside the front cover: “Janis Patmore: her book.”
“You don’t already have it, do you?”
“N-no.” I shook my head “No, I don’t. Thank you very much!”
“You’re welcome. It may be an early work,” said Harriet, “but it’s one I’m still proud of! That’s why I just
couldn’t resist, when I saw it going second-hand. I had to rescue it!”
“So you – you wouldn’t want it to be destroyed?” I said.
“Destroyed? Good heavens, no! Why should I want it to be destroyed?”
“Like if, perhaps, you thought it wasn’t very good?”
Annie said, “Megannnnn!”
“Like maybe if you thought your later books were better?”
“Well, I’m sure they are,” said Harriet. “In fact, I should hope they are! This must be one of the very first books I ever wrote.”
“It was,” I said; and I could hear my voice, all small and tight. “It was the
very
first.”
There was a pause.
“The first to be published,” I said.
“Oh, goodness! Was it really?” said Harriet. “My memory!” She banged her fist against her forehead. “It’s getting to be like a leaking bucket! What must you think of me?”
Gravely I said, “That’s all right.”
“It’s not all right! You know more about me than I do!”
Harriet laughed, and so did Annie, but I felt this strange little shiver go prickling down my spine.
“I’ll read the book,” said Annie, snatching it from me, “if she thinks it’s beneath her.”
“I didn’t
say
that,” I said. “I just … I thought … it was a book you didn’t like any more!”
“Whatever gave you that idea?” wondered Harriet.
“It was … s-something I read.”
“Oh! You don’t want to take any notice of things you read. You’ve probably read all sorts of things. Haven’t you?”
“Y-yes.” I swallowed, rather desperately. “Actually,” I said, “thank you very much for the tea but I think perhaps we ought to go now.”
“Go?” Annie glared at me. “What for? We’re not in a rush!”
“No, and surely you’d like your photos taken?” said Harriet. “For your project?”
“Yessss!” Annie punched the air, exultantly. She just loves having her photo taken.
“Let me have your address,” said Harriet, “and I’ll send them on to you.”
Annie opened her mouth to blurt out where she lived. I got in, just in time.
“Really,” I said, “it doesn’t matter.” I knew enough to know that you never give your address to strangers. And Harriet
was
a stranger, even if I did love her books.
If they were her books. I was beginning to have the most horrible doubts.
“We do honestly have to go,” I said.
“No, we don’t!” said Annie. “We can stay till—” she looked at her watch – “at least five o’clock.”
“Oh, that will give us plenty of time for photographs! You must have your photographs. After all, it’s probably the only opportunity you’ll ever get.”
By now I was in a bit of a panic. I just knew that something wasn’t right.
“Please could I ring my mum?” I said.
“Of course you can ring your mum!” said Harriet. “Where’s your phone? Did I leave it in the car? I must have left it in the car!”
“I’ll go and get it,” I said.
I made a run for the door, but Harriet got there first.
“No, no! You wait here.” She smiled. “I’ll go!”
There wasn’t anything I could do.
I am getting worried. I don’t know what to do! I think I’m going to have to ring Mum.
It’s just gone four o’clock and Jem has left.
There isn’t any sign of Annie or Megan. While Jem was here I looked on the computer and found the email addresses of people that I think are in their class at school. People I’ve heard them talk about. I was hoping there’d be someone called Harriet, but there wasn’t. Jem said, “Well, she must be a friend or they wouldn’t have gone to tea with her. Haven’t they ever mentioned anyone called Harriet?”
I thought about it, and I said maybe they had. It did sound sort of familiar.
“In that case, it’s obviously a friend that doesn’t have email,” said Jem. She suggested I try ringing up
some of the other people and seeing if they knew who she was, which I thought was a good idea. I took a couple of people off the computer, ones with unusual surnames, Ravjani and Caldecott, that I thought there couldn’t be too many of, and looked them up in the local directory. I got through to both of them. They were both in Annie’s class but they said they didn’t know anyone called Harriet. There wasn’t any Harriet in Year Seven.
There aren’t any in our year, either. There aren’t any in the netball teams, or the hockey teams, or the gym squad. There aren’t any prefects called Harriet. There isn’t ANYONE called Harriet, that I can think of.
Jem could see that I was starting to grow a bit agitated. She knows I’ll be in trouble if Mum finds out about me going off and leaving them every day.
“Clues,” said Jem. “She might have had a letter, or something.”
“She doesn’t get letters,” I said.
Jem said well, it wouldn’t hurt to look, so between us we ransacked Annie’s bedroom. I know bedrooms are private, but it’s her own stupid fault! It was Jem who went through the waste paper basket and found
the note: HAVE GONE TO HAVE TEA WITH HARRIET CHANCE. Exactly the same as the one she left for me to read, except that my one just says “Harriet”. I immediately rushed back downstairs to look up Harriet Chance in the directory. She wasn’t there!
“She must be local,” I wailed, “if they’ve gone to have tea with her!”
I’m the one who wants to go into the CID, but it was Jem – AGAIN – who came up with a clue. Well, it seemed like a clue. She suddenly remembered who Harriet Chance was.
“She’s a writer!”
Of course, as soon as she said it I realised why the name sounded familiar. I think I read one of her books once. And Megan is like, this really big bookworm. It was all starting to come together! They’d gone to have tea with one of their favourite writers. Now all we had to do was find out where.
“Ring the publisher,” said Jem. “Ask where she lives!”
I’d have thought of it myself if I hadn’t been in such a frazzle. If I was in the CID they wouldn’t let me work on a case that I was personally involved in.
We raced back upstairs and into Annie’s bedroom. Please, PLEASE, I was thinking, let her have one of the woman’s books! She’s got this one called Candytuft – Candyfloss. Something like that. Inside it says the name of the publisher, so I at once got the number from Directory Enquiries and rang and asked to speak to “someone who knows about Harriet Chance”. I was actually, almost, beginning to feel a bit pleased with myself. I mean I was being really efficient. Really probing. CID, here I come!
All I wanted was an address and telephone number, but they wouldn’t give them to me. Not even when I told them how my little sister had gone off to have tea.
“I need to talk to her! It’s urgent!”
In the end they put me through to this person called Caroline Something who said she was Harriet Chance’s editor. She said she was very sorry, but they didn’t give out the addresses of their authors. Or their telephone numbers. Or their email
addresses. But I think I rattled her a bit, because after I’d told the story all over again, about Annie going off to have tea, she said that she would get in touch with Harriet Chance herself and ring me back.
I’m still waiting! It’s been nearly half an hour. Jem has had to go, and I’m all by myself. I don’t know what to do! I ought to ring Mum, but I really don’t want to. It’s still only four o’clock. They could come back any minute. And when they do, I won’t half give them what for! Going off like that, w –
I stopped there, because the telephone rang. I grabbed at it, hoping it would be Annie, but it wasn’t. It was the Caroline person. She says she’s spoken to Harriet Chance, and Harriet Chance is at home in London doing her writing and doesn’t know anything about having tea with my sister. She made me go right through the story for the third time. She kept asking me these questions, like was I sure it was THE Harriet Chance, and had Annie ever had a letter from Harriet Chance, and did she read Harriet Chance’s books, and did she
ever go into chatrooms. It was only when I said yes about the chatrooms that she kind of went into overdrive and said she thought she’d better get in touch with the police.
Now I wish I’d never rung her! Dad will have a fit if the police suddenly turn up. And anyway, what’s the point? They’re not MISSING. The little tubby beast has just gone off somewhere on purpose to annoy me and get me into trouble and pay me back for telling her to turn her music down. I know her!
I bet she’s gone up to London. I bet she was going to go and have tea with Harriet Chance, and then at the last minute changed her mind. I bet that’s what happened.
But why would Harriet Chance say she didn’t know anything about it?
Because maybe she didn’t know anything about it! Maybe somehow Annie got hold of her address and talked Megan into going with her, and it was going to be a surprise visit. Turn up on the doorstep and get themselves invited in for tea. That would be JUST like Annie. Just the stupid, thoughtless, inconsiderate sort of thing she’d do. And then she’d suddenly have got cold feet, or
most likely Megan would. She’s more timid than Annie, and she’s got a bit more sense. They’re probably on their way back right now.
I just hope they turn up before Mum comes home!
