Free Jasper and the Green Marvel by Deirdre Madden Page A

climbed into the empty dumb-waiter, and waved goodbye to all their new friends.
    ‘Thank you so much.’
    ‘Our pleasure. Come again soon.’
    ‘Goodbye.’
    ‘See you tomorrow!’ Nelly cried.
    ‘Goodbye, goodbye.’
    And with that, PING! the metal doors of the dumb-waiter slid closed, and the rats began their descent to Jasper’s room.

22 Mrs Knutmegg and the Carrots
    The following morning as Jasper was heading out to the garden, he met Mrs Knuttmegg at the bottom of the stairs.
    ‘I need some vegetables from the kitchen garden,’ she said. ‘Six carrots. I’ll be out to fetch them later and I’d ask you to be good enough to have them ready for me.’
    Jasper flounced out of the house without even bothering to answer her, but after the business with flicking Mrs Haverford-Snuffley on the nose, he was keen not to get into any more trouble.
    The kitchen garden was a charming spot.It had a herb garden that scented the air when you walked past it and brushed against the leaves. There were fruit bushes, including blackcurrants and gooseberries. There were strawberry beds too, and raspberry canes. The vegetables grew in neat rows: lettuce and cabbage; leeks, and peas and beans.
    But as Jasper stood that morning gazing over the garden he couldn’t for the life of him work out where the carrots might be. Was there a carrot bush somewhere around that he hadn’t noticed? He poked at some spinach with his toe. Maybe that was a carrot plant and they just weren’t ready yet.
    He still hadn’t worked it out when Mrs Knuttmegg appeared at his elbow, skinny and stern in her dazzling white pinny.
    ‘I’ve come for my veggies, mister.’
    ‘I haven’t got round to that yet. I had lots of other things to do.’
    Mrs Knutmegg folded her arms. ‘I’m in no rush,’ she said. ‘I’ll wait here while you get them.’
    ‘Wouldn’t you like to get them yourself?’
    ‘You’re the gardener, that’s your job.’
    ‘Wouldn’t you rather have a lettuce?’
    ‘Mrs Haverford-Snuffley asked me to make carrot soup for her lunch. I need six carrots.’
    Jasper looked around the garden wildly. ‘I’m not sure that there are any here. I think the last gardener was really stupid and planted them in the wrong place. Do you know, now I come to think of it, I’m sure I saw a carrot bush down in the rose garden. Couldn’t believe my eyes. What’s that doing there? I asked myself. Covered in carrots it was though, oh yes, hundreds of them. Lovely and straight and a nice bright orange colour. Why don’t you go down there and pick as many of them as you want. You see, I am rather busy here …’
    ‘HA!’ And Mrs Knuttmegg once again interrupted him with one of her harsh barks of laughter. Then she did something that astonished Jasper. She bent down and grasped a delicate feathery plant that was growing ather feet. She pulled hard on it and it came out of the ground … and there was a carrot! A nice fat pointy orange carrot!
    ‘How did that get there?’ Jasper said. ‘I know – you put it there! You nasty, weird woman, hiding vegetables in the ground like that! What’s wrong with you? What are you up to?’
    Mrs Knuttmegg dropped the carrot and grabbed Jasper by his lapels, pulled his face up close to hers.
    ‘It’s not me, it’s you,’ she hissed. ‘What are you up to, Professor Orchid? If that’s your real name and you really are a gardener, I’ll eat my biggest saucepan, and I’ll have three tea-towels for dessert.’
    She let go of Jasper’s jacket and held her hands up close to his face. ‘See these?’
    Jasper could see nothing else. They were big hands, muscular and strong from years of kneading dough and mixing cakes. They were rough and red, and scarred from where she had cut herself when chopping things and whereshe had burnt herself on the kitchen stove when lifting things out of the oven.
    ‘That’s what a cook’s mitts look like, mister,’ she said proudly. Then she grabbed Jasper by the wrists