Dear Ruby,

I’m so sorry to leave you and your sisters waiting- you must think that I’m the rudest man alive. Something came up at work, and there was no getting around it. Please find the front door key sellotaped to the back of the envelope. I’ve paid for your taxi to the house (complete with tip, so you don’t have to worry about that), and I hope to see you later this evening.

I know the circumstances aren’t the best, but, still, I’m very excited to have the three of you up at the house for the summer. There are a lot of people I’d like you to meet.

Yours sincerely,

Colwyn Ballantine

 

In the back of the taxi, Rube felt Jeanette nudge her arm. “I’m pretty sure that at this point, the Always logo is permanently stamped on my arse,” she whispered.

Rube made a face, and shushed her. She had a point, though- between the train and the café, they’d been sitting down most of the day even before the taxi had got stuck in traffic. It wasn’t comfortable for anyone, and Jeanette probably had it worst.

“Apologies for the delay, ladies,” said the taxi driver (who, thankfully, didn’t seem to have heard what Jeanette had said), “I think there must have been an accident up ahead.”

“That’s OK,” said Rube. Jeanette and Sally’s faces said different, but she ignored them.

“We shouldn’t be much longer. We just need to take the next left, and then it’s a straight line to Dovecote Gardens.”

Dovecote Gardens was the official name of Uncle Colwyn’s house, but apparently the gardens themselves were the really interesting part. There were statues, topiaries, plants from all over the world, all spread out over the hill and the surrounding fields. That was what Uncle Colwyn spent his life maintaining, and that was why Rube was a bit more sympathetic about his being held up than Jeanette was. ‘Working from home’ probably meant something a lot different when ‘home’ stretched out for half a mile.

Technically, Colwyn was Mum’s cousin rather than her brother, but she’d spent most of her childhood living with her aunt and uncle, so it more-or-less amounted to the same thing. They’d all moved to Dovecote Gardens when Mum was a teenager. Colwyn’s mother had inherited it from her father. Or, wait, maybe it was the other way round? Rube didn’t remember. Somebody had inherited it from somebody, that was the point. It had been in their family for over a hundred years.

Sally was leaning against the car window, her ear pressed against the glass as if she was trying to hear the sea. “I’ve worked it out,” she said gloomily, “Five weeks is thirty-five days. We’re going to have to wake up in Dovecote Gardens thirty-five times before we can go home.”

“Thirty-four,” said Jeanette, “Today’s Saturday. We’re going back on the Friday.”

“OK,” said Sally, “What’s twenty-four times thirty-four?”

“Er… Well, twenty times thirty is six hundred…”

Rube wanted to tell Sally to stop thinking about their holiday as if it was a prison sentence, but frankly, she didn’t think it was either. It felt more like they were being sent into hiding. She didn’t know exactly what Colwyn meant by, “I know the circumstances aren’t the best,” but she could make an educated guess that it had something to do with Dad.

Not long after the taxi driver turned left, they saw the hill in the distance. “That’s the house, right there,” said the driver, nodding towards the little blur of black and cream at the top, “You’ll have a good view of the sea.”

They drove up to a ten-foot hedge with an arch carved into it to allow the road to go through. Once they’d passed it, Rube glanced behind, half-convinced that the arch would have closed up behind them. It was a lot neater than the thorn bushes in ‘Sleeping Beauty,’ but Rube didn’t know if that meant they could trust it. A lot of things were neat.

At first, all they passed were tall, conical trees that made Rube think of the spade symbol you got on cards, spaced out along the side of the road at two-yard intervals. As they went on, though, there was more.

(To Be Continued)

(“Maybe even over Christmas, if things go really well.”  I’m hilarious.)

This is the first in a series of illustrated posts about the Warbeck sisters and their eventful summer.  “The Warbeck sisters” is actually “las hermanas Warbeck” in Spanish, so don’t ask me where I got “los sors Warbeck” from when I drew the picture.  Well, actually you can ask me- I got it from being bad at Spanish.

Anyway.  Onward!

*

Sally and her sisters were marooned, cut off from any human contact and stranded in the icy expanses of deep space. Sure, to anyone watching from the outside, it would have looked like they were sitting on a sunny terrace in front of a nice café, but Sally knew how she felt.

“I still don’t know why he couldn’t have met us at the station,” said Jeanette, shielding her eyes from the sun. They’d got to that stage in waiting where Jeanette suddenly forgot how to keep still. She’d been shifting about on her seat, playing with her empty drink bottle, and examining her nail varnish for any chips that might have appeared in the last thirty seconds. Sally didn’t know how long they’d been there exactly. All she knew was that it had been enough time for her to drink four bottles of Pepsi. If Mum had been there, she’d have made her stop at two, but she wasn’t, so Sally was going to make her own fun.

“I’m sure he would have if he could have,” said Rube, who was meant to be in charge and looked like she really, really wished she wasn’t.

“But he works from home, right? How hard can it be to get away?”

“I don’t know,” admitted Rube. She’d had her hair cut short a few weeks ago, and her face looked really lonely without it. “I’m sure he’ll be here soon.”
“How soon is now?” muttered Jeanette, which didn’t make any sense, but at least she wasn’t moaning anymore.

Sally stayed quiet and looked at the trees on the other side of the road. Strange, alien-looking trees, too thin and too light a shade of green. Not like the trees at home.

She’d never been to Uncle Colwyn’s place. None of them had. He’d been round theirs for Christmas a couple of times, but they’d never actually seen the house.

Until today.

If he ever actually showed up to take them there.

Mum had said it was a wonderful old house with a lot of personality. That probably meant it was full of spiders. They’d probably burst out of your mattress if you wriggled too much in your sleep.

“What does Uncle Colwyn do for a living, anyway?” asked Jeanette.

“He maintains the grounds and things around the house,” said Rube, “I think Mum said some of it was owned by the National Trust.”

“Oh yeah, sounds really demanding. Obviously he wouldn’t be able to spare fifteen minutes to drive down and pick us up. I completely understand now.”

“Look, I’m just telling you what Mum told me.”

“I know, but you’d think she’d have told us more, right?” Jeanette wrapped a strand of long blonde hair around two of her fingers, and gently touched them to her lips. “Like why we had to go off to the other side of the country for the whole summer. And would it have killed her to tell us about it before the last week of term?

Rube shrugged unhappily.

They’d had three days to get ready. Three days to pack their worldly belongings before leaving their hometown behind and going into outer space. And Uncle Colwyn hadn’t even been here to meet them. The least he could have done was be here. At least he’d have been familiar.

Jeanette let out a short burst of air, and smiled a little sheepishly. “Ugh. I don’t even know why I’m complaining. A whole summer away from that jackass Monessa is a whole summer away from that jackass Monessa.” She rolled her eyes. “And who names their daughter Monessa anyway?”

“It’s a saint’s name,” said Rube.

“Why do you hang out with her if you hate her so much?” asked Sally, who’d had to listen to Jeanette whingeing about Monessa for the last six months.

Jeanette waved her arms. “It wasn’t my decision! Soraya had clarinet lessons with her, they hit it off, and now suddenly she’s part of our group and we all have to listen to her repeating jokes from KFC adverts all day.”

A taxi parked on the corner nearest the terrace, and a man got out and looked around. He checked a piece of paper in his hand, and walked over to them. “Excuse me- is one of you Ruby Warbeck?”

Rube raised her hand as if they were still in school. “Yes?”

“I’ve got a letter from your uncle.” He handed her the piece of paper, which turned out to be a little white envelope. Rube opened it daintily with one fingernail (a trick that Sally had always envied), and took out the letter inside.

“Colwyn says he’s been held up at work,” she told Sally and Jeanette, after skimming it for a couple of seconds, “He’s paid for a taxi to take us to his, and he promises to be there by this evening.”

Jeanette let out an exasperated snarl. “Goddammit, I thought he worked from home!”

The taxi driver shrugged.

Jeanette might have been disappointed, but Sally wasn’t surprised in the least. This was exactly what she’d come to expect from deep space. She reached down, picked up her suitcase, and headed for the next galaxy.