Free The Truth About Verity Sparks by Susan Green Page A

tragedy.”
    Did he mean the Tissots or Mr Savinov? I waited for him to explain himself, but, still eating his toast, he picked up his morning’s letters and left the room.
    “So, no experiments today?” said SP with a quick grin. He knew how I felt. “Do you want to skip lessons as well?”
    “Lessons?” said Judith, standing up and dropping a light kiss on her brother’s cheek. “Can’t we let the poor child alone? Sometimes I think we’re working her much too hard.”
    Too hard! If only she knew.
    “Come on, Verity,” said Judith. “Aunt Almeria and I are bored to tears. Please come and talk to us. You come too, SP. I think Antony and Cleopatra are due for their breakfast.”

    I couldn’t see Mrs Morcom at first. Or the snakes, and that made me nervous.
    “There’s nothing to fear, Verity. They’re all tucked up in their case,” said Judith. “I think Aunt must be at her easel.”
    The easel turned out to be a wooden stand. Propped onto it was a board, and on the board was a picture. It was a mass of greenery and palm fronds and some kind of fruit, and half-hidden in it was a snake.
    “Did you do that, ma’am?”
    “I did.”
    “It looks real.”
    Mrs Morcom smiled. “I’ve taken a little artistic licence with the colouring,” she said. “But it’s generally quite accurate. The palm –
Macrozamia moorei
– is the real subject, of course.” She turned to Judith. “Now, where’s that brother of yours, Judith? Too busy to see his aunt today?”
    “He’s gone to get their rats, Aunt.”
    I was puzzled. “What’s the rats for?”
    Mrs Morcom raised her eyebrows. They were very thick, whiskery eyebrows, and underneath them her eyes were bright and beady, like those of a small wild creature. She smiled as she said, “To eat.”
    “Oh.”
    “What did you think snakes lived on?”
    I turned and stared at Antony and Cleopatra, peacefully coiled up in their large glass case. “Grass?”
    “Snakes need live meat, Verity. ‘Nature, red in tooth and claw,’ as Tennyson says. Tennyson,” she explained kindly, “is one of our great English poets. Except it’s fang and constrictor muscles in this case. Ah, there you are.”
    SP had returned with a box. Out of it he plucked a large black-and-white rat. It hung there placidly as he held it by the tail with one hand, opened the top of the of glass case with the other hand, and quickly dropped it inside. The rat took a few little steps, and sniffed. It sniffed again, nibbled at something on the floor of the case, twitched its whiskers, and nibbled some more, quite unaware of what was uncoiling only a few inches away.
    “Don’t watch, Verity,” said Judith.
    I sensed rather than saw Cleopatra’s head dart forward, for she moved as quick as lightning. In a trice, she was coiled a couple of times around the rat’s body and clamping her jaws around its head.
    “You’re not going to faint again, are you?” asked Mrs Morcom.
    “No, ma’am.”
    “Sit down then, child. You’ve gone green.”
    The next time I glanced her way, Cleopatra had just the rat’s rump and long pink tail sticking out of her mouth. It was quite a business, I could see, getting a big fat rat down a snake’s gullet. How uncomfortable, I thought.
    “It’s too big.”
    “She’ll swallow it all right,” said SP. “But she’s often stuck like that for minutes at a time.”
    “Ugh.” I shuddered a bit. “Poor rat.”
    “It didn’t know what hit it,” said Mrs Morcom. “And it wasn’t a poor rat at all. It was a very pampered rat, raised with the best of care by Ben O’Brien, the gardener’s boy. SP’s going to feed Antony now, so turn away, if it bothers you. Would you like to see some more of my paintings? Go into my studio – there, girl, over there. See that portfolio on the desk?”
    Mrs Morcom’s studio was a little room off the conservatory. In it was a large desk, another easel, and shelves from floor to ceiling, full of books and jars of brushes