Jennifer's Diary - Anne Fine [3]
“Who is it?”
She peered at me blindly. Then:
“Is it –? Can it be – ? Yes!” she cried in her cracked and quavering old voice. “It’s lolanthe Jones! Come in, my dear! How lovely to see you! You were always my favourite pupil.”
I smiled my usual modest smile as Miss Hardie’s lined face suddenly became even more wrinkled.
“Now, who was that little girl who used to sit next to you, lolanthe? That poor, pathetic creature who could never think of any –
Sensing danger, I looked up. Jennifer was watching me very closely indeed.
— names for her pet kittens, I wrote hastily.
I thought I’d be safe with that.
(Jennifer’s allergic to fur.) But, no. She went straight into a giant sulk.
“You’re horrible, lolanthe,” she said. “You’re so mean that I’m phoning my mum to tell her not to bother to come and pick me up at lunchtime. Because I won’t need to go shopping for a new frock, because I’m not coming to your party.”
“You can’t phone her. The phone’s broken. And I wasn’t being mean. I wasn’t writing about you. I was writing about a person I haven’t even sat by yet. That’s what Time Travel’s all about.”
I don’t know if she believed me. I know she didn’t try to phone. But, then again, I didn’t really expect her to, because if there’s one thing that Jennifer absolutely loves, it’s a party.
Even one of mine.
Chapter Five
IT WAS HER own fault for getting back so late. If she’d been here, I’d have been able to do the same as everyone else, and work in a pair. But since I was a leftover, Miss Hardie said firmly, “Do something useful while you’re waiting, Iolanthe.”
So I wrote in the diary. I wrote in the diary because no one else was using it. All Jennifer had written was: Jan 13th. The sky’s a bit pink today.
I started on January 14th.
“No! Not pink! Never pink!”
“Please, Mother,” I begged. “Oh, let me buy a pink frock to go to lolanthe’s party.”
My mother shrieked in horror.
“No! Never pink! Not after what happened to your Great Aunt Lucy.”
“What happened to Great Aunt Lucy?”
“It’s too terrible to tell.”
I begged. I pleaded. I even wept. And, finally, my mother told me.
“Your Great Aunt Lucy knew that we had a ghost. Dozens of people had seen The Child In Pink. She floated in and out of walls, and groaned at midnight, and on the stormiest nights her sobs were heard in the nursery. Everyone knew her story. She was a disobedient child. Her mother had told her a hundred times: ‘Stay away from the nasty dark cellars.’ But would she listen? No! She wandered in and out, and one day, she got lost and disappeared.”
“What did they do?”
“They searched, of course. High and low, calling her name. But by the time they found her, she was dead. Quite dead!”
“Quite dead?”
“Well, not quite dead, because from that day on, she haunted them. In and out of walls. Groaning and sobbing. Until the day your Great Aunt Lucy wore pink to go to a party. Lucy put on her frock, and then, with half an hour to spare, she wandered off, down to the cellars.”
“No!”
“Yes! And just like The Child In Pink, she wandered in and out of cold dark places. Some say she saw a child her own age, beckoning. And others say she heard a sweet little voice. “Don’t go to that party. Come to mine!”All that we know is that your Great Aunt Lucy was never seen alive again. And now, on stormy nights, instead of sobbing, we hear peals of laughter. At midnight, instead of groans, we hear two sweet voices singing. And instead of seeing one child in pink float through the walls, people see two, hand in hand. And people say –
Jennifer came rushing back in then, all red-faced, holding a great big carrier bag.
“You’re terribly late,” Miss Hardie scolded her. “The bell rang a long time ago.”
“Mum says she’s sorry and it will never happen again,” Jennifer panted. “It’s just that I had to get a frock for Iolanthe’s party. The traffic both ways was frightful. And it took us forever to find something the right colour.”
She fell in her seat, still panting.
“Which colour’s that, then?” I asked.
“Pink,” Jennifer said proudly.