Franklin's Emporium Read online

  CONTENTS

  The Birthday Present

  Chapter One

  Golden Bay

  Chapter Two

  Dresses

  Chapter Three

  Franklin’s Emporium

  Chapter Four

  Harriette’s Haberdashery

  Chapter Five

  Back to the Emporium

  Chapter Six

  The Mummy’s Revenge

  Chapter Seven

  Trapped

  Chapter Eight

  The Party

  Chapter Nine

  Disgrace

  Chapter Ten

  Goodbye, Golden Bay

  Epilogue

  Bonus Bits!

  THE BIRTHDAY PRESENT

  I watched my cousin, Maisie, open the first of her birthday presents. I was as surprised as all the other guests when she screamed, threw the gift on the floor and jumped on it.

  ‘Whatever’s the matter?’ Aunt Minty stooped down and picked the present up.

  It was a pair of white lace gloves with a designer label so famous even I recognised it.

  ‘No!’ Maisie pushed her mum’s hand away. ‘Get rid of them, they’re horrible.’

  ‘Just try them on, Maisie,’ my Uncle Adrian snapped. You could tell he was embarrassed. His boss had bought the gloves and she wasn’t looking too pleased.

  Maisie burst into tears and ran off.

  Everyone was mystified except me. As soon as I saw the gloves I knew what was wrong.

  Chapter One

  GOLDEN BAY

  When Mum and Dad told me I was going to stay at the seaside with Dad’s distant relatives, Adrian and Araminta, for practically the whole summer I didn’t bother trying to make them change their minds. They never do.

  Dad had lost his job and got a big redundancy payment. They’d decided to splash out and use some of it to go on a second honeymoon in Thailand. They wanted to experience the magic of the East. If it was magic they were after they should’ve gone to Golden Bay and let me go to Thailand.

  Although I’d never been to Golden Bay before I checked it out and discovered it was weird, like a place from the olden days when kids rode donkeys and built sandcastles with tin buckets.

  Things got weirder still when Mum and I caught the train to Golden Bay. Instead of going to the main train station we went to one a few miles out of town. It was like a film set for The Railway Children.

  ‘What is this place?’ I asked Mum.

  ‘It’s a Preserved Steam Trust.’

  I was still mystified.

  ‘When this line was closed ages ago, enthusiasts were allowed to buy it and run it. They keep up the old railway station and rescue steam engines as well.’

  ‘I’d rather go by car.’

  ‘Oh Alex, you know Dad had to drive to London and get the boys.’

  My twin brothers, Ben and Sam, had finished university and Dad had gone to fetch them. They were artists and were coming home to set up their first big installation in a local gallery. That’s why I couldn’t stay with them while Mum and Dad were in Thailand: they said I’d get in the way.

  ‘Anyway,’ Mum went on, ‘I’d have thought this was exactly the sort of place you like.’

  She was right, in a way. The part of me that loves fantasy did like the Victorian ironwork, the old signs and the burping engines. It was very steam punk. I started making up a story set at night in a deserted Victorian railway station. I was well into it and hardly noticed when we got a carriage all to ourselves and Mum stowed the cases on a netting rack above our heads. It didn’t even register when we chuffed out of the station and down the track.

  I was busy plotting a chase between a vampire and a woman private detective when Mum broke my concentration.

  ‘That’s a nuisance!’

  The night-time cobbled streets and pounding feet faded from my mind. ‘What is?’ I asked.

  Mum shook her phone. ‘The signal keeps coming and going. Minty warned me that the connection was unreliable.’

  Mum put the phone away and started reminiscing. I’d heard the stories before: how Mum had met Dad at university when he was sharing a house with Adrian, who’d just met Araminta. Mum went all wistful, like old people do when they go on about their student days, and I zoned out until I heard Mum say ‘Maisie’.

  Maisie was Araminta and Adrian’s daughter. When my family went to stay with hers in London, which is where they live most of the year, Maisie and I were expected to get along because there’s only a couple of years between us. We didn’t get on – at all. The adults never noticed.

  ‘What about Maisie?’ I asked cautiously.

  Mum smiled at me. ‘You’ll have a lovely time together.’

  Doing what? I thought. Building sandcastles and riding donkeys?

  The engine gave a strangled whistle and heaved the train into another Victorian-looking station. A sign on the platform said, ‘Golden Bay’.

  Mum got the cases off the rack. I hitched up my bag and followed her onto the platform. ‘There they are,’ Mum said, and rushed up to Adrian, Araminta and Maisie. They did the usual hugging and kissing thing, then Mum nudged me forward. She was so excited she used the word she’d sworn not to: ‘And here’s my baby – hasn’t she grown since you last saw her?’

  I blushed a bright tomato red.

  ‘Welcome, darling.’ Araminta bent down and gave me a pecking sort of kiss on the cheek.

  I glared at Mum through the cloud of expensive perfume hanging around Araminta like mist on a mountaintop. ‘Don’t call me that,’ I hissed.

  Mum giggled – which meant she was nervous – and said, ‘Oh dear, Minty, she doesn’t like to be called that. It’s a name the twins tease her with and she hates it.’

  Too right I hate it. When Ben and Sam were younger and I was very little, they used to torment me with it if I tried to tag along with them and their friends. ‘Go home, Baby,’ they’d yell and all their friends would join in, chanting, ‘Baby! Baby! Baby!’

  It sent me into frothing rages. The boys and their friends only laughed louder and shouted, ‘Baby!’ all over again just to wind me up some more. The twins are OK now, more civilized and almost human compared with some lads, but I still hate being called ‘Baby’.

  ‘Never mind,’ Adrian said in a smoothy way. ‘Come and say hello to Maisie.’

  Maisie stepped forward so that her back was to the grown-ups. ‘Hi,’ she said brightly, then mouthed, ‘Baby’.

  And that’s how it all started. Every time we were on our own it was ‘Baby’ this and ‘Baby’ that. I ignored it as best I could though it was hard. She turned it on like a dripping tap – ‘Baby, Baby, Baby,’ drip, drip, drip – and it drove me CRAZY.

  Chapter Two

  DRESSES

  Mum stayed with me for one night in Adrian and Minty’s grand holiday home. It was a Regency house at one end of the sea front. She was well impressed with the bedroom we were given. It was pretty good – big with space for two double beds. It also had three windows.

  ‘Triple aspect,’ Mum said with a sigh. She watched those property programmes on TV and dual aspect was what she drooled over. Triple aspect was beyond wonderful.

  She was also impressed with the en-suite bathroom. So was I, at first. No more fighting for the bathroom with two brothers, no more of their gruesome boxers left on the floor.

  ‘Why’s it got two doors?’ I shook the handle of the one on the far wall. It was locked from the other side.

  ‘It’s a Jack-and-Jill bathroom,’ Mum said. ‘There must be another bedroom on the other side. They share the en-suite.’

  I just knew that Maisie had the other room. The potions and lotions were all teen stuff with names like Wishes and Sizzle. The bathr
oom smelt like one of those cosmetics counters in a big store where they squirt perfumes at you as you walk by.

  A gong sounded. ‘Dinner,’ Mum said.

  They had a gong? Why didn’t they yell up the stairs like normal people?

  Dinner was good. Minty was a fantastic cook. It was about the only thing I did like once Mum had gone home.

  There was one other thing I really enjoyed: Maisie and I were allowed to go off on our own in Golden Bay. We didn’t often stay together though we were supposed to. Maisie usually met up with her friends and they hung about in a group on the pier. That was fine by me.

  I explored the old town – narrow, cobbled streets, winding lanes, pastel painted houses; the promenade – rickety old pier, sea wall, little cove with fishing boats; the beach – sand, rock pools, donkeys and deckchairs; the cliffs – fabulous caves at the base, a posh boarding school perched on the top; and, best of all, Franklin’s Emporium.

  Franklin’s was a huge art deco department store, built about eighty years ago when Golden Bay was what my mum called, ‘a playground for the wealthy’. Then the town went out of fashion and Franklin’s closed down. It was put up for sale and let it out in ‘units’.

  I loved it from the first time I saw its seven storeys of peeling blue and white paintwork. Inside it was even better. It had marble floors and alabaster columns and a Ladies Room, all gilded like something out of the Arabian Nights. You could shoot a brilliant fantasy film in there.

  When I wasn’t exploring or reading fantasy novels I was at Franklin’s. I could’ve almost enjoyed staying in Golden Bay if it hadn’t been for Maisie’s birthday and the white lace gloves.

  Maisie and her friends had been birthday shopping solidly for a week and she’d tried on millions of dresses. It was great; it meant she was too busy to bother with me. That changed on the morning of the party.

  I was lying on my bed reading when she burst into my bedroom through the connecting bathroom. She had a green dress in one hand and a black one in the other.

  ‘All right, Alex, which one?’ she demanded, even though she didn’t care what I thought. She only wanted to stop me reading because she knows I like it. Also, she wanted to show off. Those dresses must’ve cost a packet and she’d bought them from her massive clothes allowance which was more in a month than my total pocket money for a whole year.

  I forced myself to look fascinated.

  ‘The green one’s nice. Try it on.’

  That was a mistake. She tried the black one on, then the green one. Then the black one again with red shoes. Then the green one with toning sandals. Then the black one with gold sandals. It really did my head in. I could feel the words, ‘This is dead boring,’ writing themselves across my face.

  Maisie read my expression. ‘You might try and show some interest, BABY Alex. These are designer clothes,’ she sneered.

  It’s interesting that sneer. It changes her face. It goes from being really, really pretty to all warped and lopsided like a wax head that’s softened sideways in the sun.

  I was fed up with Maisie. I got off the bed. ‘Please yourself what you wear. You will anyway.’

  Maisie flicked her long blonde hair over her shoulder. She did it gracefully, like one of those models in shampoo adverts, only it reminded me of a cat lashing its tail while it’s making its mind up whether to savage you or not. I made a quick escape downstairs to the marquee that Minty and Adrian were busy organising for the party.

  Minty was putting a glass vase full of pebbles supporting leafless, squiggly twigs onto a dazzling white tablecloth. I had to admire the time and effort she was putting in. At home we get paper tablecloths for parties, and paper serviettes. Minty calls them ‘napkins’ – she winces when I say serviettes, as if she’s trodden on a nail.

  ‘Can I help, Aunt Minty?’ I offered, desperate to get away from Maisie.

  I was too late. Maisie flounced through the tent flaps with a dress in each hand.

  ‘Mummy, which of these looks best?’

  Minty concentrated on sliding the vase about two centimetres to the right. ‘They’re both lovely, darling,’ she said without even bothering to glance at Maisie.

  Maisie pouted. ‘You just don’t care, do you?’

  She had a point. One minute Minty and Adrian were drowning her in praise and adoration and the next they were so involved in their own things it was like Maisie was invisible. This was one of those times.

  Adrian came in from the garden looking bulkier than usual. He’d got metres and metres of outdoor fairy lights slung round his middle.

  ‘Daddy!’ Maisie flounced forward and thrust the dresses under his nose. ‘Mummy’s no use to me at all. What do you think? Green or black?’

  Adrian tried to struggle out of the flex like a fly trying to escape spider wrappings. ‘I’ve got to get these strung up and then start on the rest of the lighting. Have to sort out those flares.’

  Maisie’s round blue eyes bulged in fury. There was going to be a row. I went back upstairs.

  It was a big mistake. I should’ve gone to the Vermin Shed, which was where I did most of my reading. Adrian had christened it the Vermin Shed because it had loads of creepy crawlies in it: massive wolf spiders, woodlice, and even mice. That meant it had one big attraction for me; Maisie wouldn’t go near it. When she realised that’s where I kept disappearing to she did her waxy sneer and said, ‘Vermin in the Vermin Shed. How appropriate.’

  It didn’t bother me. I loved that shed.

  I was pretty sure Adrian was going to be in and out of it for the rest of the day, looking for things to make his outdoor lighting work. That was why I decided to go to my room instead.

  I lay back on my bed, picked up The Curse of the Hunter’s Moon, and started reading. The book was all about ravening werewolves and was a lot less scary than Maisie’s tantrums. I got to read for a whole fifteen minutes before she came back. I was on chapter five when she appeared in the doorway.

  ‘Green,’ she said.

  I turned over a page.

  She came up to my bed and hovered there like a vulture. I knew I was doomed. I felt it in my bones.

  ‘I need a pair of gloves to go with this dress,’ she said.

  I still didn’t look up. ‘In the middle of summer?’

  ‘Don’t pretend to be stupid, BABY.’ She took a step nearer.

  ‘Like I said, BABY Alex, I need a pair of gloves to go with this dress. I know it’s hard for you to appreciate but I’m talking fashion here.’

  I concentrated on my book. ‘So?’

  ‘So, I need time to get ready. So, you can go and get my gloves.’

  I turned a page. ‘Why should I?’

  I felt the bed give as Maisie sat on the end. ‘I know you don’t want to come to my party and that’s OK because I don’t want you there either but Mummy would be mortified. She’s told all her friends about how she’s taken you in to help your parents out and they’re expecting to see you. Get my gloves and I’ll back you up if you tell her you feel sick and have to stay in bed tonight.’

  I didn’t trust Maisie to keep her side of the bargain, and I didn’t like lying to Minty, but I didn’t fancy being exhibited like a pet monkey either. I lowered my book.

  ‘Give me some money then.’

  Maisie did her horrible smirk and handed me thirty pounds in notes.

  ‘What are these gloves like?’ I asked her.

  ‘White lace.’ She stretched out a hand like she was trying on a glove for size, ‘fingerless and with a little frill round the wrist.’

  ‘Where am I supposed to find something like that?’

  Maisie snatched The Curse of the Hunter’s Moon off me. ‘Try Franklin’s.’

  I cheered up immediately though I didn’t let her see.

  ‘Which unit?’

  ‘I think there’s some haberdashery unit that does scarves and things – they’ll do gloves as well.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you know which floor?’ I didn’t fancy trawling a
ll seven.

  ‘No. You’ll find it if you really want to miss my party.’

  ‘Fine,’ I said.

  Maisie snapped my book shut and tossed it on my bed. ‘Baby trash,’ she said.

  ‘Trash yourself,’ I said and I ran all the way to Franklin’s to burn off my temper.

  Chapter Three

  FRANKLIN’S EMPORIUM

  Although Golden Bay is old-fashioned it’s still popular, especially with families, and when I pushed through the front door at Franklin’s I saw that it was packed with grockles. That’s what Maisie and her friends call them. I call them tourists and Mum calls them holidaymakers. Maisie thinks they’re common but they’ve paid their money and they’re entitled to be there just as much as she is. And I’m a grockle too, in a way, except I wouldn’t have come within fifty miles of Maisie and her parents if I’d had a choice whereas real grockles save up all year for the chance to go to Golden Bay.

  My trainers squeaked across the marble floor as I wove through the people wandering around the big, glamorous entrance hall and made my way to the notice board by the lift.

  The board was crammed with cards pinned in different sections according to what floor the unit was on. Dragon’s Bane Fighting Fantasy was on the second floor, Black Cat Bookshop on the third, Caruso’s Gelateria on the fourth and so on. Papertape, the stationer’s, had CLOSED written across it in red. A lot of the units were there and gone quicker than a hungry grockle’s bag of chips. I’ll miss Papertape, I thought, scanning the board for a card saying ‘haberdashery’. There wasn’t one.

  That was when I made my next big mistake. If I had a problem or I needed to remember something I made up rhymes. When I did it at school it drove the teachers mad, especially Mr Polemounter, our history teacher, who was ancient and liked a lot of quiet in his lessons. Once, when we were doing the 17th century witch persecutions, I wanted to remember 1612, the date of the Pendle trials, and I started muttering: