Saving Miss Mirabelle Read online

  ‘Lance? Haven’t you forgotten something?’

  Dutifully, he raised himself on tiptoes, to be kissed.

  ‘No, not that,’ Granny said impatiently. ‘You’ve forgotten to give me my lolly sticks for the raffle.’

  Lance stared.

  ‘But I thought that you were totally disgusted!’

  Now it was Lance’s Granny’s turn to blush.

  ‘And so I am. But I’m not going to miss a good raffle.’

  A little shyly, Lance dug in his pockets and drew out the five lolly sticks he had so carefully saved for her all week.

  Shyly, Granny dug in her purse and gave him the money.

  ‘There,’ she said. ‘Wish me luck.’

  ‘Good luck.’

  Granny kissed him again, properly this time.

  ‘You, too,’ she laughed. ‘You may need all the luck that you can get. What will you do if Flossie lets you down?’

  Lance grinned.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he teased. ‘Run a mile? Jump a stile?’

  Before she could reach out to put her hand over his mouth and stop him finishing the rhyme, he was safely up the path.

  6

  In which we all watch dear Flossie save the day

  The farmer led Flossie out of the barn. Around her neck was a silken red cord with a tassel at each end.

  ‘It’s my dressing-gown belt,’ said the farmer. ‘I thought you’d like Flossie to look nice for the occasion.’

  ‘She looks beautiful,’ Lance said. ‘She always does.’

  Flossie tossed her head proudly.

  ‘Off we go, then,’ said the farmer. She slapped Flossie’s rump hard. Not a speck of dust flew up.

  ‘You’ve groomed her!’ cried Lance.

  The farmer shrugged.

  ‘Flossie’s big day,’ she said, lifting the gate latch. ‘And I must say I shall be glad when it’s over. An awful lot of people seem to have chosen this week to stroll up my lane and have a good peer in my meadow.’

  ‘What on earth for?’

  ‘Search me. But I bet you have quite a few dung-pat experts watching this raffle.’

  She watched as Lance led Flossie carefully into the lane. She followed a few yards behind, ready to warn any traffic to slow down, but no cars came along before Lance reached the fork in the lane and turned down the narrow path that led to the football pitch.

  So many people! Milling everywhere! It seemed as if everyone in the village had come along to the Summer Fair, and brought all their friends. Even as he watched, more people spilled out of the school hall, after the end of the show. The Bring and Buy stall was practically sold out already. The Sponsored Runners were just running back. Even the Infants had stopped collecting in their Spaceman Snoopy boxes, for fear the weight of cash inside would damage them.

  Suddenly Lance and Flossie were spotted.

  ‘There’s the cow!’

  ‘Raffle time!’

  Everyone gathered around the edge of the football pitch, some frantically searching their pockets for lolly sticks, some brandishing lucky mascots, some loudly admiring Flossie’s fancy leading rein.

  ‘Just what I need for my dressing-gown,’ said Old Mr Hogg as soon as he saw it. ‘Do you suppose I could get one from an agricultural supplier?’

  Lance looked around. Had everyone bought a lolly stick? There was Mrs Spicer, clutching a handful and looking a little bemused. There beside her was Miss Mirabelle, holding a few more and looking striking in a slinky black dress. There was the janitor, and the school governors. And Granny in the corner, waving excitedly. And his parents behind her.

  Lance took a few steps forward. Tugging a little on the silken cord, Flossie followed.

  The whispers ran around the football pitch –

  ‘Keep your voices down!’

  ‘Hush, now!’

  ‘Mustn’t worry the cow!’

  – until there was absolute quiet.

  Lance’s big moment. He mustn’t muff it now. This was the stuff of his daydreams – the time when, with grace and skill and dignity, he would lead Flossie out on to the football pitch to launch his extraordinary raffle. It was everything he dreamed about. It was exotic. It was different. It was –

  Why was Deborah running up to him, while everyone watched?

  ‘Here,’ she said, her clear voice carrying easily the entire length of the pitch. ‘Miss Mirabelle said I was to give you this.’

  It was a shovel. A great big rusty-edged shovel. Not different. Not exotic. Not at all the stuff of daydreams.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Lance. (His voice was frosty cold.)

  ‘Go on, then,’ said Deborah. ‘Take it. It’s heavy.’

  Lance had no choice. He had to take it. And he could not walk Flossie back to the edge of the pitch, to dump it neatly out of sight between the bystanders’ legs. He was just stuck with it.

  And that’s how it came about that the famous photograph of Lancelot Higgins that everyone saw in their newspapers the next morning showed him leading his cow so proudly into the middle of the football pitch waving a shovel to the cheering crowds.

  ‘Let her go!’

  ‘Take off the leading rein!’

  ‘Leave her to wander!’

  Lance tugged at the knot in the dressing-gown cord. It slid undone. He pulled the cord over Flossie’s huge head.

  Flossie mooed softly and butted Lance gently in the belly with her head.

  Lance leaned forward and tickled her behind both ears.

  ‘Off you go, Flossie,’ he whispered. ‘Sunday lunch one day early. Eat up. Feel free to go anywhere you want, do whatever you feel like doing. Make yourself at home.’

  He added one last little plea.

  ‘And don’t let me down!’

  Then he took off for the edge of the pitch, for fear that the crowd would accuse him of cheating.

  Flossie looked round. People. She wasn’t interested in people. She looked down. Grass. Oh, she was interested in grass. It had a few funny little wooden sticks poking up out of it, but they didn’t bother her. It was fine grass, and ripe for chewing.

  Keeping her eyes forever on the move for the next good patch, Flossie set off across the football pitch.

  Around the edge a hundred conversations took up again softly.

  ‘How much is the prize?’

  ‘Fifty pounds!’

  ‘One thousand squares, though. At fifty pence a square. Why, that’s –’

  The crowd struggled with the sum.

  Mrs Spicer was first.

  ‘Why!’ she declared to Miss Mirabelle. ‘That’s five hundred pounds!’

  Miss Mirabelle was busy struggling with her high heels which kept sinking deeply into the soft ground, making her look rather unbalanced and peculiar.

  ‘What?’ she said. ‘Oh yes. That’s right. Fifty pounds for the winner, and the rest for the school.’

  Mrs Spicer was thrilled.

  ‘Four hundred and fifty pounds!’ she repeated. ‘I could buy all those new maths books!’

  Miss Mirabelle made a little face.

  Mrs Spicer was quite excited now.

  ‘And what exactly is the cow going to do, to choose the winning square?’

  Perhaps Miss Mirabelle, struggling with her disappearing heels, did not take quite the care she ought to have done to choose her words.

  ‘Flossie? Oh, she’s just supposed to drop a giant pancake.’

  ‘Drop a giant pancake?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  Mrs Spicer was appalled. Truly appalled. People who eavesdropped offered the opinion quite freely afterwards that, had she suffered from a weak heart, she might have died on the spot.

  But Miss Mirabelle, still hauling her heels out of the mud, was paying no attention to the look on Mrs Spicer’s face.

  ‘Let’s just hope the whole lot plops straight on one square,’ she was saying. ‘I can’t imagine the trouble we’ll have if it spreads over several. People will want us to weigh it, I shouldn’
t wonder, to get their fair share of the prize money.’

  As one heel shot out of the mud without warning, the other sank deeply in again.

  ‘I’ve done my best,’ Miss Mirabelle went on irritably. ‘Brushed up on proportion in the maths books, and given Lance a shovel.’

  ‘A shovel . . .’

  Mrs Spicer felt faint. Could all these people – even the governors! – be standing here waiting to see where a cow –

  Oh, it didn’t bear thinking about! Mrs Spicer’s voice was thick with danger as she asked Miss Mirabelle:

  ‘And may I ask, dear, whose idea this is?’

  There! Both heels out at last! Miss Mirabelle looked up. Mrs Spicer was staring at her with hostile, beady eyes. Her face was quite ashen. Was the old dragon annoyed? Really, some people were impossible to please. Four hundred and fifty pounds in the school’s pocket, and she was fussing about a little cowpat!

  Better not get poor little Lancelot Higgins in trouble, though. He’d been a poppet, and worked so hard. The very last thing Miss Mirabelle wanted was to reward him with a great row from Mrs Spicer.

  She’d better take the blame herself.

  ‘Oh, this whole raffle was all my idea.’

  Behind her she thought she heard a little gasp of shock. She spun around. Lance Higgins was staring at her, open-mouthed. She was about to give him a little nudge and a wink, to try to explain to him why she had taken it upon herself to claim his brilliant idea for her own, when, all round the pitch, there was a sudden ripple of excitement.

  Forgetting Lance, Miss Mirabelle turned back to see what was happening.

  Oh, good old Flossie! She was coming up trumps! Head in the wind, tail raised triumphant, she was picking a winner!

  ‘Hurrah!’

  ‘Yippee!’

  ‘Well done, Flossie! Well done!’

  The crowd roared its approval. A dozen people ran across the pitch to check the lolly stick that marked the square.

  ‘Four hundred and twelve!’

  Waves of excitement ran around the pitch, as everyone checked their own lolly sticks, and those of their neighbours, to see if their numbers matched.

  ‘Old Mr Hogg!’

  ‘The winner!’

  ‘No need to go searching for a new cord now, eh, Hogg? Get yourself a brand-new dressing-gown!’

  Old Mr Hogg stumbled forward. Before Mrs Spicer realised what was happening, Miss Mirabelle had thrust a fifty pound note into her hand.

  ‘The presentation!’

  ‘Speech! Speech!’

  ‘Vote of thanks!’

  Lance didn’t stay to hear any speeches. Or any votes of thanks. Or any more hurrahs. He didn’t stay to clear up after Flossie with the shovel, either. If this whole raffle was all her idea, then let Miss Mirabelle shovel up the cowpat!

  He was finished with Miss Mirabelle anyway. She might still be better than the terrifying Mr Rushman, or the boring Mrs Maloney, or the dreadful Mr Hubert; but she was a bit too amazing for Lancelot Higgins.

  Stealing his idea! What an exotic cheek!

  Lance crept away, past Granny telling the governors how shocked she was by modern teaching methods. (She’d have been singing a very different tune, he knew, if she’d won the raffle.) He went past the janitor, and threaded his way between other people’s parents, until he found himself beside the farmer, who was tethering Flossie.

  ‘Can I walk her home?’

  ‘Oh please, Lance. I should get back to work.’

  This time she went ahead, to warn the traffic. Lance strolled behind, with Flossie. He didn’t want to be a wet blanket and spoil her big day, but he couldn’t help telling her what he was thinking.

  ‘I’m finished with Miss Mirabelle. She’s on her own now. She can look after herself. She can right her own wrongs, and kill her own dragons, and get her own damselly self out of her own distress.’

  Flossie mooed sympathy and agreement as she clopped along.

  ‘Cheek!’ Lance was muttering, patting her neck for comfort. ‘What is so special about Miss Mirabelle anyway? That’s what I’d like to know. She isn’t all that amazing. Anyone can wear fancy clothes and peel a silly apple. Anyone can start up a Sing Song. No one can stand sniffers. And it’s just plain stupid to try walking in high heels around a football pitch!’

  He stopped at the gate and looked deep into Flossie’s beautiful velvet eyes.

  ‘You’re not exotic,’ he confessed. ‘You’re not different. You don’t promise adventure. Let’s face it, Flossie, you’re not even very bright. But I can tell all my troubles to you. And I love you dearly. You’re more amazing than Miss Mirabelle any day. And you make really good country pancakes!’

  Pleased to be back with the herd, Flossie trotted off into the meadow, tossing her head.

  Pleased to be nearly home, Lancelot followed her.

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