Free Amelia by Siobhan Parkinson

manoeuvring the tray in front of her, as if it were a particularly unwieldy bicycle with a large front basket , like the one the butcher’s boy used for deliveries, with her elbows sticking out even more pointedly than normal. Her cap was slipping down her shiny forehead onto her pointy nose, and she kept jerking her head back to try and jolt the cap into position, because she didn’t have a free hand to adjust it.
    Amelia stood hesitantly in the hallway. She was a bit daunted by the size of the tray, so instead of taking it she said, ‘Hold still a minute, Mary Ann,’ and she reached up and fixed Mary Ann’s errant cap.
    ‘Thanks,’ said Mary Ann with a sniffle. ‘Lawny, I’m run off my feet. I suppose you couldn’t blow my nose for me too, could you?’
    ‘Oh no!’ said Amelia, with distaste.
    ‘Idiot!’ said Mary Ann, with a high-pitched laugh. ‘I was only pulling your leg.’ And she turned to go into the dining room, still bearing the tray awkwardly in front of her.
    ‘Hey, wait a minute!’ said Amelia, trailing after her. ‘Aren’t you going to let me say thank you?’
    ‘What?’ said Mary Ann distractedly, from the doorway, turning her head to look back at Amelia.
    ‘For the handkerchief. It’s lovely. The embroidery is beautiful . Thanks, Mary Ann.’
    ‘It’s nothing,’ Mary Ann mumbled and proceeded into the dining room with the tray. She preferred pulling people’s legs to making polite conversation.
    ‘How come everyone’s so busy?’ asked Amelia, following Mary Ann into the dining room. She could hear doors banging and feet clip-clopping along with hurried steps. And there was Mama, standing on tiptoe on a step-ladder, pinning paper chains to the picture rail.
    ‘For goodness’ sake!’ said Mama, looking down at Amelia and answering the question she had put to Mary Ann. ‘In case you didn’t realise it, we are giving a party for twenty people in an hour’s time. Really, Amelia, do you think these things just happen by themselves?’
    ‘Of course I know they don’t, but it’s cold food. And there’s Mrs Kelly to help in the kitchen.’
    ‘She never showed up,’ said Mary Ann, taking Amelia by the waist and bodily moving her out of the middle of the room, where she was quite in the way.
    ‘Oh dear!’ said Amelia. ‘So it’s just you and Cook.’
    ‘That’s right,’ said Mary Ann cheerfully. ‘And now if you don’t mind, Miss, I’ve got to get back to the kitchen.’
    Amelia stood for a while and wondered why Mrs Kelly hadn’t shown up. Perhaps the dressmaker’s assessment had been right, and the Kellys were a feckless family after all. It didn’t seem to make any sense to turn down a chance to make a little extra if money was short.
    As she stood and wondered, Amelia gradually noticed the transformation that had taken place in the dining room. The french doors to the orangery were open, as she had planned, so it all looked like one generous, sunlit room. Little straight rainbows, like living icicles of light, danced on the floor, as the sunshine refracted through the orangery and fell into the room. The paper lanterns Amelia and Edmund had made for the party were strung in the orangery, and Mama had even found, not real orange trees, but a few parlour palms and aspidistras to give the flavour of a proper conservatory. Through the french doors, flung open to the orangery, through the clear air of the orangery itself, and on through its crystal walls you could see the garden , all awash with spring, the fruit trees dainty in their blossomy dresses and the garden bench at the foot of the garden strewn with fallen petals.
    ‘Oh, Mama!’ breathed Amelia, completely forgetting that Mary Ann was footsore and overworked, that Mrs Kelly was feckless and foolish and that she, Amelia Pim, had lost her first ever gold watch on the very day it was given to her by her dear Papa. ‘Isn’t it wonderful?’
    ‘Glad – you – like – it – darling,’ said Mama with an