Jasper and the Green Marvel (2 page)
Read Jasper and the Green Marvel Online
Authors: Deirdre Madden
The hay cart seemed to Jasper to be going slowly, but when he got to his destination and tried to get down from it, it appeared to be going very fast indeed. Just as he had jumped on to it, there now seemed nothing for it but to jump off. ‘One, two three …’
Crump!
And he landed on his back in the dusty road, with his suitcase beside him and the two rats sitting on his head. They at least had made sure of a soft landing. He struggled to his feet and limped through the gates of Haverford-Snuffley Hall, which were marked by two big pillars with a stone dragon sitting on top of each one. He
walked up the driveway but as he came within sight of the house something rather strange happened.
He could see Haverford-Snuffley Hall there before him but it was green. The door was green and the windows were green, even the walls and the roof appeared green to him. This was because Jasper was seeing the place through a haze of envy. The house might well have been called ‘Thisreallyshouldbemyplace Hall’ or ‘Snotfairthatitisntmine Court’ as far as Jasper was concerned. Once he had had a house every bit as special as this and it filled him with rage to think that he had lost it. But then he told himself he would have to try to hide his feelings. He would have to try to be charming and friendly. He blinked hard twice and the house now looked to him as it really was.
Haverford-Snuffley Hall was a big, square, peach-coloured house with white window frames and a flowering plant growing up a trellis beside the front door. It sat in the
middle of spectacular gardens – immense, as the waitress had remarked, with every kind of tree and flower you could imagine. As Jasper approached, he noticed an elderly lady sitting on a wooden chair by the front step, reading a book. She had grey hair and a sweet-natured face. Her clothes were quite unremarkable but for one detail. She was wearing a straw hat with a long brown feather in it and from the end of this feather dangled a tiny bat. Stranger still, the bat was also wearing a hat: a little pale bonnet tied firmly under its chin with a green ribbon so that it wouldn’t fall off, for the bat was hanging upside down, as bats do.
Jasper knew that this was Mrs
Haverford-Snuffley
because he had met her in the past. She, however, did not recognise Jasper, because of the big black beard he had grown in prison, and he was happy about this.
‘Good morning, young man,’ she said politely. ‘How may I help you?’
‘Why no, madam,’ said Jasper gallantly,
flashing a brilliant smile at her. ‘The question is this: how may
I
help
you
? A little bird told me that you were looking for a gardener, and I believe myself to be just the man for the job.’
‘Don’t tell me!’ she cried, clapping her hands and closing her eyes. ‘You’re an expert! You’ve studied plants and flowers for years! You have a degree in horticulture! You have years of experience both here and abroad in some of the most remarkable gardens in the world! I knew it! Don’t tell me! I knew it!’
Jasper was glad that he didn’t have to tell her. It was what he wanted her to believe, and yet nothing could have been further from the truth. He knew absolutely nothing about gardens and flowers. He was aware of the little bat staring coldly at him. Jasper stared back. ‘Do please tell me, sir, what is your name?’
Now this was a tricky one. If he said ‘Jasper Jellit’ she would most likely scream and run into the house and perhaps send someone out to chase him away, because everyone in
Woodford knew that Jasper Jellit was a villain of the first order. He had given no thought to a new name before he came up to the house. ‘My name?’ he said. ‘My name, sweet lady? Might I humbly suggest …’ and he looked around at the flowers of the garden ‘… might I ask you to be good enough to call me … Professor Orchid?’
‘How wonderful!’ cried Mrs
Haverford-Snuffley
. ‘Professor! As soon as I saw you I knew that you were a learned man.’ Jasper smiled. Wasn’t that clever of me? he said to himself. Clever as well to borrow my new name from that flower growing right beside the door! Quick thinking or what? Of course, what Jasper took to be an orchid was nothing of the kind: it was actually a honeysuckle. You see, he really did know nothing whatsoever about gardening.
‘You do know that it’s a live-in position?’ Mrs Haverford-Snuffley said and Jasper sighed.
‘I do indeed, madam. I must tell you that
it will grieve me greatly not to be in my own dear home but one must make sacrifices for excellence, must one not?’
‘Well, given your remarkable qualifications, Professor Orchid,’ she said timidly, ‘perhaps in your case I must make an exception. It seems unreasonable to expect a man like you to be away from his own house – indeed, away from his own garden. So as a special favour to you, we can forget about the live-in bit.’
‘No!’ Jasper almost screamed at her, suddenly terrified that the chance he had would slip through his fingers. That was the whole point of the job: to live in. He had nowhere else to go. ‘No, madam, I insist! I will live under your roof. Such is my dedication that your garden will become the centre of my life and it would pain me to be far from your flowers. How could I sleep at night, knowing that I was miles from your hyacinths? I would toss and turn in my bed, worrying that your lobelia might need me and I was nowhere to be found. No, madam,’
he said again, this time quite sternly, ‘we will discuss it no further. I will live in
Haverford-Snuffley
Hall and that’s the end of it.’
‘Never did I think to find such dedication!’ she sighed. Suddenly the little bat began to bounce up and down on the end of the feather to get her attention. ‘Oh, how could I have forgotten!’ said Mrs Haverford-Snuffley. ‘There is one last question, Professor Orchid, and it is the most important of all: do you like bats?’
‘Like them?’ said Jasper. ‘Why I LOVE them! Of all the creatures on the earth they’re my number-one favourite.’
‘I’m so relieved to hear it. No matter how good a gardener you were, no matter how much of an expert, it simply wouldn’t do if you didn’t like bats. But then I can never understand how there could be anybody who wouldn’t like them.’ She rolled her eyes to look at the little dark animal that was bouncing gently just beside her head. ‘Isn’t that true, my poppet? Who wouldn’t love Mummy’s dear
little batty-watty? Who’s a cutie-pie little
fly-by-night
, eh? Who’s the best bat in the whole wide world?’ Suddenly she stopped. ‘What’s that strange noise, Professor Orchid? Can you hear it? A kind of squeaking sound. Do you know what it is?’
Jasper knew exactly what it was. It was the sound of the two rats in his inside pocket, laughing themselves silly at all the bat
baby-talk
. ‘Indigestion. Do please excuse me, madam,’ he murmured and he smacked his jacket hard with the flat of his hand. The squeaking stopped.
‘Perhaps you’re hungry,’ she said. ‘Let me show you to your room and then I’ll get the cook to send you up some tea and scones. Oh, I’m so glad you’re going to be working here! Welcome to Haverford-Snuffley Hall, Professor Orchid.’
‘The pleasure,’ Jasper said smoothly, picking up his suitcase to follow her, ‘the pleasure, madam, is all mine.’
The room to which Mrs Haverford-Snuffley showed Jasper had a nice brass bed and a little fireplace. The wallpaper was patterned with ivy and roses. ‘You’ll love this,’ Mrs
Haverford-Snuffley
cried, drawing back the curtains. ‘A view of the kitchen gardens!’
Jasper forced a smile. The room wasn’t anything like as grand as he had hoped or imagined. He would have liked to have a whole floor of the house all to himself, or at the very least a suite of rooms. He had expected a view of rolling lawns, of fountains and shrubberies and what did he get instead? A few measly
rows of leeks and cabbages. ‘Very nice,’ he said through gritted teeth. It wasn’t at all what he wanted but it would have to do.
‘Put your suitcase down and come with me,’ said Mrs Haverford-Snuffley. ‘There’s someone I want you to meet.’ She took Jasper downstairs again, not by the wide sweeping curved staircase by which they had come up, but by a narrow flight of wooden steps directly outside his bedroom door. This mean little staircase ended in a stone-flagged hallway, where there was a wooden door. ‘Coo-eee!’ she cried, pushing the door open. ‘It’s only me! Are you there, Mrs Knuttmegg?’
Jasper found himself in a kitchen where a woman was standing baking at a table, up to her elbows in flour. Unlike the waitress in the café, she wore a spotless crisp white apron.
‘Mrs Knuttmegg, meet Professor Orchid, our new gardener! Professor Orchid, this is Mrs Knuttmegg, my wonderful, wonderful cook.’
There were three types of people that Jasper
didn’t like and didn’t trust in life: baldy barbers, laughing policemen and skinny cooks. Mrs Knuttmegg was the thinnest cook you could imagine. She looked at Jasper closely.
‘So you’re the new gardener fellow, eh? Like your grub then, do you?’
‘I do indeed,’ he replied, flashing her a smile. ‘I’m something of a gourmet, if I may say so. I like my fish grilled rather than poached. I can only eat carrots if they’re cut into little sticks. I simply can’t touch them when they’ve been cut into circles. If I have parsnips they have to be cubed and if I have peas then I absolutely must have creamed potatoes as well. I can stick the peas together with the potato and then they don’t roll off the fork and when I have sausages …’
‘HA!’ Mrs Knuttmegg interrupted him with a loud hoot of mirthless laughter and then went on with her baking.
‘What are you making?’ Mrs
Haverford-Snuffley
asked. ‘Something scrumptious?’
‘Scones,’ said Mrs Knuttmegg. ‘Cherry ones.’ Jasper would have preferred to have sultanas but he thought it might not be a good idea to say so.
‘Ooh, yummy-wummy! My favourites!’
‘I’ll send some up to you in the drawing room, missus, as soon as they’re ready, with tea and some of that nice blackcurrant jam I have.’
‘Thank you so much, Mrs Knuttmegg. Would you be so kind as to send some up to Professor Orchid too?’
‘I will indeed,’ she replied. ‘There’ll be scones especially for you, mister.’
Jasper would have been happier about this had it not been for the sly smile she gave him as she said it.
‘Might I now meet the butler?’ Jasper asked. ‘The housemaids and the boot-boy?’ The two women looked at each other and then they both burst out laughing. ‘I’m afraid there are no such people,’ Mrs Haverford-Snuffley said.
‘You and Mrs Knuttmegg form my entire household.’
‘I’m the housekeeper as well as the cook. And I hope you’re good at odd jobs as well as gardening, cos there’ll be plenty of those to do.’
Jasper was furious to learn this, and he’d had enough of this nasty, skinny, spiteful woman. He turned away and said haughtily ‘You can bring my scones up to me when they’re ready, and I’ll have coffee rather than tea.’
‘In your dreams, mister! I’ve more to do than to run up and down stairs to wait on you. Didn’t you notice one of those things in your room?’ She nodded across the kitchen towards two small steel doors set in the wall.
‘It’s a dumb-waiter,’ Mrs Haverford-Snuffley said helpfully. She pressed a button and the doors opened. ‘It’s like a tiny lift, you see, Professor Orchid. Mrs Knuttmegg puts the food in it and then she can send it up to me or to you. It’s an awfully clever idea, isn’t it?’ Jasper didn’t reply. Mrs Knuttmegg tipped her scone dough out on
to the floury table. ‘We must leave you to your work,’ Mrs Haverford-Snuffley said.
‘Just one minute, missus.’ Mrs Knuttmegg picked up a cherry. ‘Here you are, possum,’ she said. Leaning over, she popped it into the bat’s mouth.
‘How kind! You like a fruity treat, don’t you, sweetie?’ Mrs Haverford-Snuffley cried. ‘A nice fat cherry-werry for the batty-watty!’
Jasper could hear the two rats in his pocket laughing again.
Back up in his room, Jasper locked the door and started to unpack. He took the two rats out of his pocket and let them scamper about the place. Rags and Bags had spent all of their lives in prison and they weren’t in the least bit disappointed with Haverford-Snuffley Hall. Jasper’s room, with its flowery wallpaper and brass bed, was the height of luxury as far as they were concerned.
Jasper was just hanging the last of his clothes in the wardrobe when
PING!
The steel doors of the dumb-waiter opened.
‘Oh no!’
Inside there was a pot of tea, a cup and a plate with four cherry scones. But the scones were tiny! Never in all his life had Jasper seen such teeny-tiny scones. ‘’Snot fair!’ he shouted. ‘And I said I didn’t want tea, I want coffee!’
Suddenly something outrageous happened. The two rats leapt into the dumb-waiter and scoffed the four scones as quick as a wink: two each! Jasper couldn’t believe what he was seeing and he screeched in rage. Then he reached into the dumb-waiter and hauled Rags and Bags out by the tails.
‘Now you listen to me!’ he roared holding them upside down. ‘What did I say outside the prison? What did I say about being good?’
The rats sniggered and licked the last sweet crumbs off their snouts. They didn’t care a hoot what Jasper said. A fry-up and sugar-cubes for breakfast and now a snack of perfectly rat-sized scones mid-morning: nothing, but nothing was going to spoil their day.
Jasper opened his empty suitcase and
dropped the two rats into it, slammed it closed and locked it. ‘I’ll show you who’s boss. You’ll stay there as a punishment until I let you out.’
Still Rags and Bags didn’t care. They were tired after their early start and all the excitement, and in no time at all they were both fast asleep with their tails curled around their back paws.
Jasper spent the rest of the morning wandering around Haverford-Snuffley Hall looking at all the portraits in gold frames, at the silver and the furniture. He thought how unfair it was that everything he saw belonged to a daft old coot with a bat hanging off her hat instead of belonging to him.
In the afternoon, Mrs Haverford-Snuffley took him round the garden to show him where he would be working. It took ages because it was extremely big, and before long Jasper was so bored he thought he would weep. It was hard work too, because he had to pretend to be an expert. Although she didn’t know it,
Mrs Haverford-Snuffley knew far more about flowers and plants than he did. Jasper couldn’t tell his begonias from his Busy Lizzies, much less his nasturtiums from his narcissi. She would stand in front of a flower bed and say, ‘Now my gladioli are doing exceptionally well this year,’ and Jasper would agree and nod his head, hoping that he was looking at the right thing.
Late that night, up in his room, he let the rats out of the suitcase. He opened the top drawer of the dressing table and popped Rags and Bags into it. Then he took off his socks and gave the rats one each. They wriggled into them as if the socks were sleeping bags, pulled them up around themselves until only their heads were sticking out. Jasper took off his vest and rolled it up as a pillow for them. The vest was sweaty and manky but it was nothing compared to the socks. The rats liked it that way; they liked their bedding smelly and vile.
‘Night-night, lads,’ Jasper said. ‘Sweet dreams. And remember what I said: be good.’ In no time
at all he was asleep and snoring, but Rags and Bags were wide awake and excited. Having slept all day in the suitcase they weren’t in the least bit tired.
‘Come on, Rags,’ Bags said, peeling off his sock sleeping-bag. ‘Let’s go and have some fun! Let’s explore our new home!’