The next morning was very bright and it was sure to be a sunny day. Zanna woke up early due to the sunlight pouring in through their windows. Not wanting to wake Emily, Zanna hastily washed at the sink in the bathroom and changed, wearing a fresh set of clothing for the new day and went to their writing desk and wrote two letters. One to her Mother and Father back home, telling them that she was ok and they had arrived safely. The other letter was to Eric and Carrie, hoping that they were ok and saying that she wished that they were staying together too.
Zanna heard Emily stirring and quickly finished the letters, addressing them and sealing the envelopes. She stuck a stamp on the front of each envelope and quickly ran downstairs and put them on the kitchen table, where Nanny was sure to find them. She left a quick note asking if Nanny could send these when she went into the town to pick up the groceries.
Checking that Nanny wasn’t on patrol, Zanna was about to hare back upstairs, when she heard someone coming in through the kitchen door. She turned to see a middle-aged man with graying hair walking in through the open door. In his arms he held a large, metal milk urn.
“Good morning,” Zanna said, smiling at the man with the kind, wizened face.
“Good morning,” he replied as he deposited the milk urn on the floor next to the table. “I presume that you are one of Mr. Meredith’s evacuees, am I right?”
“Yes. I’m Zanna.” She said, holding out her hand to the man.
“Well, hello mistress Zanna, I am Tim, one of Mr. Meredith’s groundskeepers. I also have a farm down the road. I was just bringing down some milk for the household. If ye see Aggie, please tell her that Tim sends his greetings and that he has delivered yer milk.”
For a moment, Zanna was puzzled. She didn’t know anyone by the name of Aggie. Then she realized that Tim must be talking about Nanny.
“Of course, Mister Tim. I’ll tell her that. I hope to see you soon,” Zanna said as Tim turned and left the Kitchen, off to do his rounds.
Making sure to go very quietly, Zanna hared through the house, on her way back to the evacuees’ floor, taking care to be extra quiet on Mr. Meredith’s floor and then zooming once more until she reached the girls’ bedroom. Emily was now awake and washed and dressed and was chatting with James in the bedroom.
She saw the two and remembered something that she had forgotten to do downstairs. She pulled the empty tobacco tin that her father had given her from her pocket and raced back downstairs to the living room where she had seen a big fireplace. She saw a pile of old newspapers by the fireplace for burning and she grabbed one and started ripping it up into pieces. She then scooped ash and soot from the fire into the pieces of paper, making them into little soot bombs and storing them in her tin, ready for some mischief later.
When she reached the other two again in the girls’ room, they were wondering where she had been and she just told them that she had needed to do something.
“Oh, Zanna, I’m sure you’re going to like this,” James said, addressing Zanna. “The lake is down at the bottom of the garden, and I know how keen you are on swimming and I asked Nanny this morning if we could have a swim, and she said yes! So, grab a towel and some bathers and we can go swimming.”
“How wonderful!” Zanna said, clapping her hands happily. “We can go swimming immediately!” she said as she grabbed her bathers and a towel. “Race you to the bottom floor!” she yelled to the others who quickly followed after her.
They ran down the stairs and were just about to hare out of the door when they heard thunder booming somewhere nearby. Zanna opened the door and saw that clouds had quickly rolled in and rain was pouring down in torrents.
“Oh no!” Zanna groaned. “That’s not fair at all! I was so intent on swimming, as well!” she said as the small group trudged back up the stairs to their floor, where they congregated in Zanna and Emily’s room once more. The girls dumped their bathers and their towels on their beds and flumped onto the bed dejectedly.
“That’s rotten luck,” James said as he flumped down, landing on Zanna who pushed him off her, laughing. “This place is an absolute bore without anything to do. I guess we could play hide and seek, but Nanny wouldn’t like it too much, well, not now, at least. I guess we can always go down to the living room and read…”
The girls agreed half-heartedly and grabbed their books from their bedside tables and went downstairs. The whole atmosphere had changed now that they had nothing to do.
James and Emily had taken the comfy armchairs and were talking quietly to each other. Emily’s eyes were red and she was crying from homesickness again. James did his best to comfort her, but it was difficult, because he didn’t really know what to say. His Father, the General, had never been good at comforting and had found it easier to ignore James altogether. James put an arm reassuringly around Emily’s shoulder, patting her head and trying to calm her down. He knew he would be in trouble if The General found out, but his friend mattered to him.
Zanna was looking around. She didn’t like getting involved with things that would only make her sad. She wasn’t particularly good at comforting people, but she found it easier just to lighten the mood by causing some mischief or doing something funny.
She found a nice Chaise Long by the fireplace, which hid anything she did. Smiling mischievously, Zanna ducked down behind her chosen hiding place and grabbed a newspaper then fashioned it into an Admiral’s hat, which she plonked onto her head. Zanna then thought of the missiles she had made earlier and realized that there was plenty more ammo here than in her tin. She scrunched up a couple dozen pages into balls filled with soot and popped her head and her hands over the top of the Chaise Long. James was now stoking the fire, warming the room up a bit, giving Zanna the perfect target to shoot her missile at. Pulling the elastic on her catapult taut, Zanna took aim and fired the missile at James, the shot hitting him square in the back with a satisfying poof as the soot exploded out of it, leaving a big black mark.
James turned around, wondering what had happened and Zanna ducked back down behind the chaise long. Unfortunately, her admiral’s hat showed her position.
James burst out laughing. “Good shot, Blackett, now it‘s my turn!” he said as he quickly ducked behind his armchair, folding up a couple newspaper pages and making several, smaller soot bombs to throw at Zanna. He then felt as though something were wrong and he realized that he didn’t have a hat. He hastily made a hat too and stood up, ready to throw a missile at Zanna, only to receive another blow to his chest.
“Good shot!” James cried as he chucked a soot bomb at Zanna “That’s what you get for messing with James Anderson!” he said, sticking his tongue out at Zanna, then turning on Emily. He brandished a soot bomb at her. “Ready?” he asked her, laughing. He threw the soot bomb at Emily, getting her black as well. Secretly, James was very thankful to Zanna for coming along and brightening the moment, for he wasn’t doing well with Emily at all. As he threw soot bombs at the others, he noticed that Emily was significantly more cheerful now that she had something else to focus on.
“Stop it!” Emily said, laughing as soot got into her hair. She grabbed some of Zanna’s soot bombs and chucked them at James and Zanna, falling back into a chair. She laughed heartily as she was ambushed by two very sooty soldiers.
Soon the air was filled with the giggling of the contented children and little could be seen for all the parcels of soot flying through the air in volleys from Zanna’s catapult or from the combined forces of James and Emily from behind their defensive wall of an upturned coffee table.
The group fell around in fits of laughter and carried on throwing the soot bombs at each other. Eventually they managed to calm down and were able to look around at what they had done. There was some soot here and there on the floor and there were patches on the arm chairs where they had missed shots, but most of the soot was on them.
“Ooh-er,” Zanna said, looking around. “We better get this place cleaned up…” she said, looking at the other two.
“Crikey,” James said as he looked around. “Nanny ain’t going to be too happy when she finds out about this…”
“I don't think we want that happening now, do we? Would you like some help cleaning up?” said a voice from behind the group.
James turned around and saw whom it was talking to them. A wizened old face was smiling down at James, laughter playing over his lips and a twinkle in his eye. It was Mr. Meredith, the owner of the manor.
“Thank you sir,” James said, smiling to the man he knew better than his Father.
With Mr. Meredith’s help, the group were able to clean up all of the soot before Nanny returned to the manor. It was quite an amusing sight, really. An old-ish man in his early sixties and three very blackened children cleaning up the patches of soot that had been scattered around the parlour room. The children were exceedingly grateful to Mr. Meredith for his not getting angry at their soot-fight.
Once finished, the children hared upstairs, ready to quickly wash and get out of their sooty clothes when they saw that the rain had stopped and the sky had cleared up.
No comments:
Post a Comment