Jasper and the Green Marvel Read online

  ‘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, spi
teful 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!’

  Rags and Bags climbed on to the table that stood conveniently near to the dumb-waiter, and Bags pushed the button on the wall. They were afraid that the loud PING! it made might wake Jasper but he went on snoring as the metal doors opened. Rags hopped in and then Bags pushed the button again. He just about managed to jump nimbly into the dumb-waiter beside Rags before the doors closed, almost nipping his tail.

  Down, down, down went the dumb-waiter. ‘Hang on,’ Rags said suddenly. ‘What if we need someone on the outside to push the button to let us out? What if we get stuck in here?’ It was a terrible thought. They imagined having to stay there all night until Mrs Knuttmegg opened the dumb-waiter in the morning to send Jasper up his breakfast. Then they would really be in trouble – big trouble.

  It was an enormous relief therefore when the dumb-waiter came to a stop and the doors opened immediately. The two rats scampered out into a silent and deserted kitchen, where a single small lamp burned. What a delightful place it was! The heat of the stove made it cosy and snug and the air was full of delicious smells which the rats couldn’t recognise, but which made their mouths water.

  On the kitchen table there was a pile of cherry scones on a plate left over from that morning, but unfortunately for Rags and Bags they were covered with a heavy glass dome. Try as the two rats might, they couldn’t get it shifted. They pushed hard and then they pulled even harder. They wound their tails around the knob on top of the dome and tried to drag the thing over but it wouldn’t budge. It was really irritating because they so wanted to get at the scones. When they finally gave up they felt foolish to realise that sitting beside them, uncovered and there for the taking, was a bowl of stewed apples that they hadn’t even noticed.

  It took no time at all to eat every last little scrap of the apples, which were exceptionally tasty. Mrs Knuttmegg, who was an excellent cook, had added cinnamon and cloves and even a handful of raisins. Never could the rats have imagined that anything could be so delicious. It more than made up for not being able to get at the scones. When the bowl was empty they looked around, but there was nothing else to eat. No matter: their bellies were full and they were happy. ‘Come on!’ Bags said. ‘Let’s go and see what the rest of this house is like.’

  There were two doors, one at each end of the kitchen. They knew that one opened on to the wooden staircase that led back up to Jasper’s room and they didn’t want that, and so they slipped through the other door. There was a long corridor, a flight of steps going up and then another door and then behind that …

  What wonders met their eyes! Haverford-Snuffley Hall dazzled the two rats. They tiptoed down corridors where their feet sank deep into soft carpet, right up to their tummies. They crossed wooden floors so highly polished that they could see their own faces reflected back to them. High above them on the walls were beautiful paintings in golden frames, and the walls themselves were covered in silk, yellow and green and pale blue. In prison everything had been ugly and grey; here even the least little thing was special and bright.

  They must have spent hours going from room to room, until at last they ended up in the front hall of the house, where there was a huge mirror and a curved, sweeping staircase made of white wood. They were just beginning to think that perhaps they should make their way ba
ck to Jasper’s room and climb into their socks again when suddenly, just above their heads, someone spoke.

  ‘Who are you?’ asked a little voice.

  It was the tiny bat that usually hung from the feather on Mrs Haverford-Snuffley’s hat, but tonight it was hanging from the edge of a small table. It was upside down and was still wearing its own little bonnet, tied under its chin with a green ribbon.

  ‘Hello!’ Bags cried. ‘What’s your name then?’

  ‘Nelly,’ said the bat, and then it said again, ‘Who are you?’

  ‘That’s for us to know and for you to wonder,’ Rags said. ‘Snooky-ookums! Mummy’s little batty-watty! What are you doing here anyway?’

  ‘I’m going home,’ the bat said in a sulky voice.

  ‘What d’you mean, home? Don’t you live here?’ But before the bat could explain to Rags, Bags had jumped up and pulled Nelly’s bonnet off.

  ‘Stop that! That’s not fair!’ she cried, as the rat put the bonnet on its own head, letting the ribbons dangle. ‘I’m telling! Give it back to me!’

  ‘Diddy-widdy-snooky-wooky! Mummy’s baby-waby! I’m telling! Give it back to me!’ And Bags teased the bat, imitating it in a high, silly voice while Rags cackled with nasty laughter.

  ‘Give me my bonnet! I am going to tell on you!’ Nelly was struggling hard not to cry, as the rats took it in turn to try on her hat. They minced up and down the tiled floor of the hall, sniggering together and mocking her. When they were fed up with that, they threw the bonnet back. Nelly caught it and tied it on to her head immediately.

  ‘Who are you going to tell?’ they sneered.

  ‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’ Nelly replied coldly and there was something in her tone as she said it that worried them slightly.

  ‘Mrs Haverford-Snuffley?’ they asked and she shook her head.

  ‘Who, then?’ But she didn’t reply, and said instead, ‘You’ll be sorry you did this. REALLY sorry.’ And then Nelly did something that absolutely astonished them.