AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I meant to give him a reproachful look, but I could only smile lovingly at him. My darling, cute, grouchy little gargoyle demon! “I love you too,” I told him.
“Oh, wow!” he groaned. “If you were a TV program, I’d switch channels.”
Caroline was looking at me rather anxiously. On the way up to the first floor, she took my hand. “What’s the matter with you, Gwenny?”
I wiped the tears off my cheek and laughed. “I’m absolutely fine,” I assured her. “I’m just so happy. Because I’m alive. And because I have such a wonderful family. And because these banisters feel so wonderfully smooth and familiar. And because life is just so, so, so good.” When the tears came back into my eyes again, I wondered whether it was really just aspirin that Dr. White had dissolved in a glass of water for me. But my euphoria could be simply because of the overwhelming fact that I’d survived, and now I wouldn’t have to spend the rest of my days as a tiny mote of dust.
So outside the dining room door I picked Caroline up in the air again and whirled her around in a circle. I was the happiest person in the world because I was alive, and Gideon had said “I love you.” Of course the last bit could have been a near-death hallucination. I mustn’t rule that possibility out entirely.
My sister squealed happily while Xemerius mimed holding a remote control and trying in vain to work it.
When I put her down again, Caroline asked, “Is what Charlotte said true? You’re going to Cynthia’s party as a green garbage sack?”
That brought me down to earth from my euphoria trip for a moment.
“Ha, ha, ha!” laughed Xemerius. “I can just see it: a happy green garbage sack who wants to hug and kiss everyone because life is so, so, so wonderful.”
“Er—no, not if I can help it.” Good heavens, I hoped I could convince Lesley that it would be better to keep her modern art Martians for another party later. If the rumor was already going the rounds, she must be really keen on the idea, and when Lesley was really keen on something, it was very difficult to get her to change her mind. I knew that from past experience.
My whole family was sitting around the dining table, and I had to exert great self-control to keep myself from hugging them all with the same enthusiasm—I could even have hugged Aunt Glenda and Charlotte. (Which just shows what a peculiar state of mind I was in.) But Xemerius gave me a warning glance, so I contented myself with a beaming smile and only ruffled Nick’s hair in passing. However, when I was sitting in front of my plate—my mother had already put the starter on it—I immediately forgot all about self-control again.
“Asparagus quiche!” I cried. “Oh, isn’t life just wonderful? There’s so, so, so much to be happy about, isn’t there?”
“If you say wonderful once again, I’m going to throw up over your silly asparagus quiche,” growled Xemerius.
I smiled at him, put a piece of quiche in my mouth, beamed happily around the table, and asked, “How was your day, all of you?”
Aunt Maddy beamed back. “Well, yours seems to have been pretty good, anyway.”
Charlotte’s fork scraped over her plate with a harsh, grating noise.
Yes, in the end, my day really had been pretty good. Even though Gideon, Falk, and Mr. Whitman hadn’t shown up again before I left, so I’d had no chance of checking up on whether “I love you, Gwenny. Please don’t leave me” was all my imagination or whether Gideon had really said it. The other Guardians had done their best to improve what Falk de Villiers had called my “bedraggled” appearance. Mr. Marley had even wanted to brush my hair with his own hands, but I said I’d rather do it myself. Now I was wearing my school uniform, and my hair was neatly combed and hanging down my back again.
Mum patted my hand. “I’m glad you’re better again, darling.”
Aunt Glenda muttered something featuring the words “constitution of an ox.” Then she asked, with an artificial smile, “So what’s all this I hear about a green garbage sack? I can’t believe that you and your friend Lassie will go to the party the Dales are giving for their daughter like that! Tobias Dale would take it as a political insult, I’m sure. He’s a really big noise among the Tories.”
“Uh?” I went.
“What did you say?” Xemerius corrected me.
“Glenda, I am surprised at you!” Lady Arista clicked her tongue. “None of my granddaughters would ever dream of such a thing. Going to a party in a garbage sack! What nonsense!”
“Well, it’s better than nothing for someone who doesn’t have a green costume to wear,” said Charlotte nastily. “At least, for Gwen it will be.”
“Oh, dear.” Aunt Maddy looked sympathetic. “Let’s think. I have a fluffy green toweling bathrobe I could lend you.”
Charlotte, Nick, Caroline, and Xemerius giggled, and I grinned at Aunt Maddy. “That’s really nice of you, but I don’t think Lesley would like it. Little green men from Mars don’t wear bathrobes.”
“There you are! They mean it seriously,” snapped Aunt Glenda. “My word, that girl Lassie is a bad influence on Gwyneth.” She wrinkled up her nose. “Not that you’d expect anything else from the child of such lower-class parents. It’s bad enough having her sort allowed to go to St. Lennox High School at all. I for one certainly would not allow my daughter to mingle with—”
“That will do, Glenda!” Mum’s eyes flashed angrily at her sister. “Lesley is a clever, well-brought-up girl, and her parents are not lower class! Her father is … is…”
“A civil engineer,” I prompted her.
“A civil engineer, and her mother works as…”
“As a dietician,” I said.
