Black Maria. Diana Wynne Jones

I’m calling her Elaine. Elaine came marching in again, in her black mac but without her torch, at the same time as Chris and Mum. I’d heard Chris’s voice and then Mum’s and I jumped up, feeling I was being let out of prison. Something was actually happening! Then the living-room door opened and it was Elaine. “Don’t go, dear,” Aunt Maria said to me. “I want you here to be introduced.”

      I had to stand there, while Elaine took no notice of me as before. She went to Aunt Maria and kissed her cheek. “They’ve done your shopping,” she said, “and I told them where to put things. Is there anything else you want me to tell them?”

      “They’re being very good,” Aunt Maria said. She had gone all merry. “They’re trying quite hard. I don’t expect them to get anything right straightaway.”

      “I see,” said Elaine. “I’ll go and tell them to make an effort then.” She was not joking. She was like a Police Chief taking her orders from the Great Dictator.

      “Before you do,” Aunt Maria said merrily, “I want you to meet my new little Naomi. Such a dear little great-niece!”

      Elaine turned her face towards me. “Mig,” I said. “I prefer being called Mig.”

      “Hello, Naomi,” said Elaine, and she strode out of the room again. When I went after her, I found her standing over Mum and Chris and scads of carrier bags, saying, “And you really must make sure she is never left alone.”

      Mum, looking very flustered, said, “We left Mig here.”

      “I know,” Elaine said grimly, meaning that was what she was complaining of. Then she turned to Chris. Her mouth made the stretch with two creases at the ends. “You,” she said. “You have the look of a gallant young man. I’m sure you’ll keep your aunt company in future, won’t you?”

      We think it was meant to be flirtatious. We stared at one another as the back door shut crisply behind Elaine. “Well!” Mum said. “You seem to have made a hit, Chris! And talking of hits, hit her I shall if she gives me one more order. Who does she think she is?”

      “Aunt Maria’s Chief of Police,” I said.

      “Right!” said Mum.

      Then we unpacked all the loads of provisions and, guess what? We found a deep-freeze in the cupboard beside the sink, absolutely stuffed with food. There was ice cream and bread and hot dog sausages and raspberries in it. Half the stuff Mum had bought was things that were there already. Chris sorted through it with great zeal. Mum is always amazed at how much he eats and keeps saying, “You can’t still be hungry!” I have tried to explain, from my own experience. It’s a sort of nagging need you have, even when you feel full. It’s not starving, just that you keep wanting more to eat.

      “Yes,” says Mum. “That’s what I mean. How can you find room? Oh dear. We wronged poor Lavinia again. She left Aunt Maria very well supplied after all.”

      Chris taxed Aunt Maria with this over lunch. Aunt Maria said loftily, “I never pry into the kitchen, dear. But frozen food is very bad for you.” And before Chris could point out that Aunt Maria was at the moment eating frozen peas, Aunt Maria rounded on Mum. “I was so ashamed, dear, when Elaine came in. The thought of her seeing you and Naomi in that state. And you went out like that, dear.”

      “What state? Out like what?” we all said.

      Aunt Maria lowered her eyes. “In trousers!” she whispered, hushed and horrified. Mum and I stared from Mum’s jeans to mine and then at one another. “And Naomi’s hair so untidy,” Aunt Maria continued. “She must have forgotten to plait it today. But of course you’ll both change this afternoon, won’t you? In case any of my friends call.”

      “And what about me?” Chris asked sweetly. “Shall I wear a skirt too?” Aunt Maria pretended not to hear, so he added, “In case any of your friends call?”

      “These peas are really delicious,” Aunt Maria said loudly to Mum. “I wouldn’t have thought peas were in season yet. Where did you find them?”

      “They’re frozen,” Chris said, even louder, but she pretended not to hear that either.

      It is very hard to know how deaf Aunt Maria is. Sometimes she seems like a post, like then, and sometimes she can sit in the living-room and hear what you whisper in the kitchen with both doors shut in between. Chris says the rule is she hears if you don’t want her to. Chris is thoroughly exasperated by that. He keeps trying to practise his guitar. In the little room halfway upstairs, with his door shut, Mum and I can hardly hear the guitar, but whenever Chris starts to play, Aunt Maria springs up, shrieking, “What’s that noise? There’s a burglar trying to break into the house!” I know how Chris feels, because Aunt Maria does that when I have my Walkman on too. Even if I turn it so low hardly a whisper comes into the earphones, Aunt Maria shrieks, “What’s that noise? Is the tank in the loft leaking?”

      Mum has made us both stop. “It is her house, loves,” she said when we argued. “We’re only her guests.”

      “On a working holiday!” Chris snarled. Mum was cleaning Aunt Maria’s brass, because Aunt Maria said that this was Lavinia’s day for doing it, but she didn’t-expect-Mum-to-do-it.

      On the same grounds, Mum changed into her good dress and made me wear a skirt. I pointed out I’ve only got one skirt with me – my pleated one – and Mum said, “Mig, I’ll buy you another. We are her guests.”

      “Oh good,” said Chris. “Is that a rule – visitors have to do what the owner of the house wants? Next time Andy comes round in London I’ll make him kiss Mig.”

      That made me hit Chris and Aunt Maria shrieked that slates were falling off the roof.

      “See what I mean?” said Chris. “It is her house. Pieces fall off if you hit me. Wicked, destructive Mig, knocking nice Auntie’s house down.”

      I think he meant me to laugh, but Aunt Maria was getting me down too, so I didn’t. I stopped talking to Chris for a while. What with that, and being numbed with boredom, I didn’t manage to speak sensibly to Chris until two whole days later. It was silly. I kept wanting to ask him about his ghost, and I didn’t.

      In the afternoons, Aunt Maria’s friends all come. They are the ones she talks about all morning. I had expected them all to be old hags, but they are quite ordinary ladies mostly in smart clothes and smart hairdos. Some of them are even nearly young, like Elaine. Corinne West and Adele Taylor, who came first, are Elaine-aged and smart. Benita Wallins, who came with them, was more the sort I’d expected, stumping along with bandages under her stockings, in a hat and a shiny quilted coat. From the greedy interested looks she gave us, you could see she knew we’d be there and couldn’t wait to inspect us. They are all Mrs Something and we are supposed to call them that. Chris calls them all Missis Ur and mixes their names up on purpose.

      Anyway they came and Mum made them all mugs of coffee. Aunt Maria gave a merry laugh. “We’re camping out at the moment, Corinne dear. Now this is Betty and Chris, and I want you all to meet my niece, my dear little Naomi.” She always says that, and it makes me want to be rude like Chris, only I can never think of things to say until after they’ve gone. I am a failure and a hypocrite, because I feel just as rude as Chris. But it just doesn’t come out.

      They must have gone straight next door when they left. Elaine marched in ten minutes later, using her two-line smile and uttering steely laughs. When Elaine laughs it is like the biggest of Aunt Maria’s clocks striking – a running-down whirr, followed by clanging. We think this means that Elaine is being social and diplomatic. She flings her hair back across the shoulders of her black mac and corners Mum.

      “You’ll have a lot of hurt feelings,” she said, “if you give any of the others coffee in mugs.”

      “Oh? What should I do then?” Mum asked, making an effort to stand up to Elaine.

      “I