The Week at Mon Repose (3 page)

 

 

The skies clouded over. It was raining again by the time the girls reached Mon Repose. They had refused Mr. Masterton's offer of a lift, so it was just on dinnertime when they arrived.

After dinner, Mr. Masterton, under the excuse he was helping the three girls with their math, ushered them into the office. He had them memorising a chant in a language that seemed all coughs, splutters, and sneezes.

“Marilyn thinks it is a sort of incantation we're learning,” Allie said to Jenny when they at last went to bed that night.

“But what for?” Jenny asked. “And will that pompous old creep really share if something turns up? What will our mums say if we come home with gold and gems?”

“Assume we've been shoplifting.” Allie giggled.

She was feeling happier about her week at Mon Repose. It was almost worth it to get to know her cousin Jenny better. Their friendship had cemented itself properly since the séance.

Mr. Masterton made them spend all the next day memorising their chant. Normally Allie and Jenny would have chickened out, but it was still raining, and there was nothing else to do. Also Marilyn didn't seem to mind chanting with them.

They wondered about what was supposed to happen once they had the chant memorised. Mr. Masterton heard them one last time before the dinner bell.

“Word perfect,” he said at last. He checked that no one was within hearing distance. “Our fortune is made. Meet me over at the dam at eight tonight and wear white.” He looked at Marilyn, who had green eye shadow in circles around her eyes, matching her green nail polish. “No makeup, either.”

“Do we or don't we?” Allie asked when he had left.

“This should be something else,” Marilyn said. “The dam is still within yelling distance of the boarding house, and there are three of us.”

Dinner that night was braised steak and onions, tough and leathery, and a soggy lemon pudding with whipped cream. Afterwards Marilyn went with Allie and Jenny to their bedroom and wiped away all her makeup.

Without it, she looked naked and a lot younger. She unrolled a cheesecloth caftan and held it against her. “What are you both going to wear?”

“Mum's old flannelette nightie,” Allie said. “She made me bring it in case it turned cold.”

“I haven't got anything white at all,” Jenny admitted.

There was silence for a few minutes. Allie didn't have anything else that was white either.

Marilyn had a bright idea. “Your bed sheet is white. Use that.”

The three girls sneaked out of the boarding house. No one noticed their departure. The television was blaring away. Parents were putting small children to bed, and a group of olds was playing something called Canasta in the big room.

Once they got over the hill, they stopped by a clump of bushes. Marilyn wriggled her caftan over her jeans and green beaded jumper, and Allie slid the long-sleeved white nightgown over her jeans and brown jumper.

They draped Jenny in the bed sheet so it covered her jeans and blue jumper. Then they walked in slow single file down to the dam where Mr. Masterton waited.

He gave them candles, ordinary ones used when the power goes off, Allie noticed. He spaced them around the dam and lit the candles.

“Now, all together,” he said, and started chanting.

Allie suddenly felt resentful and a bit stupid. They had let Mr. Masterton con them. Nothing was going to happen. Her voice faded. Mr. Masterton gave her a nasty glare.

She raised her voice and continued with the chant. She wasn't scared of him, of course. Without all this interesting hocus-pocus, they had been likely to die of boredom before the week was out. Raising demons or being frightened to death couldn't be any worse than being bored for a week at Mon Repose.

“Stand nearer the bank,” Mr. Masterton ordered. He moved away from the water's edge. Was there a quaver to his voice?

Allie felt the hairs at the nape of her neck prickle. She stopped chanting. “You sure this isn't dangerous?”

“Quite safe, quite safe, I assure you,” he called back, still moving farther away from the water.

Jenny, exactly opposite Allie across the water, raised her candle higher and grinned without slowing the weird chanting. Marilyn's voice wobbled as she tried not to giggle. Allie held her candle higher and chanted on. If Marilyn wasn't scared then she wasn't going to admit to being just a little bit nervous.

The surface of the water rippled. A wind rose. The candle flames flickered. A darker shadow had appeared near Allie. Her chanting died away. She held her candle up to get a better look.

Jenny and Marilyn stuttered to a halt as they noticed the shadow. Mr. Masterton hurried back towards them, the light from Allie's candle showing his dark, round face glowing with triumph. Marilyn and Jenny ran towards Allie and the waiting figure.

It was a skinny boy about their own age. He wore a purple silk turban and was bare, except for a white sarong around his waist. His arms were piled high with coloured rolls of silks. Mr. Masterton snatched them from him, inspecting them roll by roll.

“This is your spirit?” Jenny asked.

“My name is Ahmed,” the boy said as he looked at them. He had shadowy dark eyes in a thin face. “And I'm not exactly a spirit.”

“More like a genie,” Marilyn suggested.

“Something like,” Ahmed agreed.

“Did we really call you up?” Allie asked.

She was intrigued with their first effort at the occult. Would the three of them now be able to chant up some horses and a holiday house at the surf beach?

“Oh, yes, indeed, you called me up.” Ahmed gave the three girls a flashing white smile.

“And did you bring this with you?” Jenny asked.

She fingered a fold of the stiff silk trailing across the mud.

“Hands off,” Mr. Masterton snarled. “This is all for me.”

“We did all the work,” Marilyn snapped back. “You're a greedy pig.”

“This is all for me,” Mr. Masterton repeated.

He staggered off, carrying the rolls of silk, ignoring the three girls and Ahmed.

“What happens now?” Jenny asked.

“You know the incantation to send me back?” Ahmed asked.

The girls looked at each other. They had called up a genie, but greedy Mr. Masterton had left without telling them the incantation to send him back.

What were you supposed to do with a genie once you had called him up?

 

 

It started raining. Ahmed shivered, and Jenny wrapped the sheet around him. The decision to bring him back to the boarding house seemed the only one to make. Due to Mr. Masterton's greed and carelessness, the genie was marooned.

“You'll feel a lot warmer after hot cocoa and some of Mrs. Marybone's warm scones,” Jenny assured him.

“And we'll find some clothes,” Allie said.

Ahmed's flashing smile returned. “This is indeed kind of you, beautiful ladies. I have come a long way, and I am very hungry.”

“It's Jenny, Allie, and Marilyn, not beautiful ladies,” Allie corrected. “And we're very pleased to meet you.”

They sneaked back to Mon Repose unnoticed and crowded into Allie and Jenny's room. Under Ahmed's purple silk turban, his long black hair was twisted into a tight sort of bun. Despite his protests, they brushed it back in a ponytail.

Wearing Jenny's spare jeans, Marilyn's plaid shirt, a pair of her stepfather's wool socks, and his best golfing shoes, Allie decided that Ahmed looked perfectly ordinary. No one would ever guess he was a mislaid genie.

“If anyone says anything, we'll say he's Mr. Masterton's nephew up for a few days,” Marilyn said as she led the way into the big lounge.

No one took any notice of them. The interminable Canasta game was finishing. Mr. and Mrs. Marybone brought in trays loaded with their indigestible scones, pots of jam and cream, and mugs of hot cocoa. Ahmed nibbled on one of the scones and wrinkled his nose.

“Don't you like scones?” Jenny whispered.

“I like...” Ahmed floundered for a word. “Like this,” he said and gestured.

The scones changed. There were chocolate swirls across the tops with coffee cream centres in flaky pastry. The three girls ate appreciatively. Whatever they were eating was delicious.

“That's a good trick,” Marilyn said. “Can you turn the cocoa into something more interesting too?”

Ahmed nodded. The brown liquid in the mugs turned bright emerald green, still with steam rising off it.

“An alcoholic cocoa,” Marilyn whispered. “Like a sort of crème de cocoa.”

No one else seemed to have noticed the changed colour in the mugs of cocoa. The guests chattered on, nodding and smiling as they drank. The conversation got louder.

“This could be interesting,” Marilyn whispered. “Rememb
er it's alcoholic and don't drink
.”

Allie looked up as Mr. Masterton came into the room. He looked very pleased with himself. He didn't notice Ahmed or the three girls. He rubbed his hands together as he spotted the supper trays.

“Ah, a jolly old mug of cocoa,” he boomed.

He sat down and stuffed into the transformed scones and had two mugs of the bright green liquid. He became more expansive and loud voiced.

“Did I ever tell you the one about the travelling salesman and the farmer's daughter?” he asked with a snigger.

The girls waited. No one snubbed him or boxed his ears. Tonight all the guests seemed in an unusually cheerful mood and gathered around him laughing. After awhile Mr. Masterton forgot what he was talking about and started singing loudly in a strange language.

As the evening wore on, some of the old people started doing a shaky Congo around the tables. Mrs. Marybone started crying all over Mr. Masterton's cardigan. Mr. Marybone had one of the more sour-faced guests giggling as he whispered to her. Marilyn's mother was snoring, head dropped forward in the armchair. Marilyn's stepfather was prancing around on the tables between the supper trays with a lily clenched between his teeth.

Allie and Jenny watched wide-eyed.

“The nerd doesn't look as stuffy as usual,” Marilyn said. “I vote we go to bed. I've never seen anything so disgusting as olds letting their hair down.”

“What about Ahmed?” Allie asked. “We've got to find out how to send him back.”

They looked over at Mr. Masterton. He and Mrs. Marybone had collapsed together on one of the couches, snoring loudly.

“Maybe in the morning,” Marilyn said. “Won't get any sense out of him tonight.”

“We can bunk Ahmed on the old couch in the storeroom,” Allie said.

“I won't be welcome back straight away anyway,” Ahmed admitted.

“So you pinched the silks,” Marilyn asked.

“The merchant was very rich and wouldn't have missed them. If I stay here until tomorrow evening, ten years will have passed, and he will have long forgotten their absence,” Ahmed explained.

In the morning, the clouds and rain were gone, and it was a brilliantly sunny day.

“The weather bureau is wrong again,” Mrs. Marybone said. “They predicted rain all week. Who's that boy? I haven't seen him around before.”

“Ahmed Masterton is Mr. Masterton's nephew,” Marilyn said. “He told us he had invited him up here for a few days.”

“No problem then,” Mrs. Marybone said. She held her head and winced. “Mrs. Jenks can make up a bed for him in Mr. Masterton's room, and it can go on his bill.”

“I'm impressed,” Allie said.

“So am I,” Jenny agreed. “That was very clever, Marilyn.”

Marilyn blushed as bright pink as her eye shadow. “Think nothing of it.”

Mon Repose seemed to be living up to its name. Everything was very hushed and quiet. None of the guests were speaking to each other. The small children, who played on the verandas and chased through the house, became quieter and more subdued as parent after parent came out and thumped them for being noisy.

The girls went looking for Mr. Masterton.

“He packed his car last night and left early this morning,” Mrs. Marybone explained. “Said he had some business downtown for a few days.”

After sausages and eggs and cold toast and marmalade for breakfast, Ahmed and the girls went outside.

“Looks like Ahmed's here until Mr. Masterton returns,” Allie said.

“So what would you like to do?” Marilyn asked him. “This is a pretty boring place to visit.”

“I would like a closer look at that jungle over there,” Ahmed said as he pointed to the edge of the National Park.

“Too far to walk,” Allie grumbled. “Wish we had some horses.”

Ahmed flashed his smile. “That is not a problem. I can call up my own horses that you are welcome to use.”

“Really!” Marilyn gasped. “I'd love to go horse riding.”

“We need somewhere no one can see them arriving,” Ahmed said.

“Down the back behind the garages,” Marilyn said. “It's nice and quiet.”

Allie and Jenny followed Marilyn and Ahmed. Behind the garages was a long narrow strip of lawn with two rotary lines full of washing. Ahmed muttered something and gestured. Suddenly the lawn was crowded with four horses milling around and tossing their heads.

Three yellow horses with long, silky white manes and tails, and a black horse with a black mane and tail. They were saddled with heavily embossed, ornate, high leather saddles with decorative tassels on the bridles.

“You must behave for the beautiful ladies,” Ahmed scolded.

The horses stopped stamping around. They turned small beautifully shaped heads towards the girls.

“Fatima, Zenobia, Scherazade, and Caliph,” Ahmed introduced.

Four sets of dark intelligent eyes inspected them. The four horses crowded around them, and four soft noses pushed at the hands out to greet them.

“They are so beautiful,” Allie said.

“Are the rubies real?” Marilyn asked, as she ran her hand along the studded bridle of Fatima.

“Of course,” Ahmed said. “My beauties always wear real gems.”

“The horses are for us to actually ride?” Allie asked. “Can I pick Scherazade?”

“Unless you prefer camels, donkeys, or elephants?”

“I love horse riding,” Marilyn said. “We can get Mrs. Marybone to make us a picnic lunch and spend the whole day out riding.”

“I only wish I was wise enough to solve all your problems so easily,” Ahmed said as he helped each of them mount.

The stirrups were exactly the right length, and even Jenny, who was a bit nervous about riding, felt comfortable in the secure high-backed saddles.

“This will certainly do to start with,” Allie said happily. “You are absolutely fab! I'm so glad we called you up from wherever you came from.” Allie caught a glimpse of his sober face as he swung onto the big black horse. “What's wrong? Don't you want to be here with us?”

“Do you want to go back?” Jenny asked.

“It is a pleasure to be here with you,” Ahmed said. “But...”

“But what?” Allie demanded.

“I can't last here longer than three days without snuffing out.” Allie and the other two girls stared at Ahmed in dismay. “Well, I am a genie, and I'm not really here.”

Marilyn leaned forward and pinched him.

“Ow!”

“But you're real! How can you not be here, if you really are?” Marilyn demanded.

“I'm not anchored here. The gap back where I come from is pulling at me to return,” Ahmed explained. He looked at the girls' blank faces and sighed. “If Bob Masterton doesn't manage to return me before my three days are up, I and my horses will fade into nothingness.”

“Of course he will be back. Mrs. Marybone said he is paid up until the end of the week,” Jenny said.

“What if he doesn't get back in time?” Marilyn asked.

“He's a sleaze,” Allie said. “He's left Ahmed here knowing that he would snuff out if he wasn't returned in time.”

“I can think of worse things to call him,” Marilyn said. “He's a murderer who doesn't care if Ahmed is snuffed out.”

There was a horrified silence. Allie stared to feel sick with shame. If Ahmed was snuffed out, it would be all of their faults for calling him up in the first place!