Asking for Trouble: 1 (London Confidential) (3 page)

Three days later I got an e-mail from Jack.

To: Savannah Smith


Hullo, Miss Smith. We’ve got several applicants for the journalist position. Of course, the most important thing to any editor is the quality of the writing of those contributing. To that end, could you please write a sample article on one of the topics below and e-mail it to me by the end of the week? It may take me a while to read through them all, but I’ll notify you if you’re a finalist.


“What’s that?” Mom walked into my room with a stack of clean clothes.

“An e-mail from the editor of the paper! He wants me to submit a sample of my writing!” I jumped up and down in the room and my mother celebrated with me.

“Don’t worry about chores,” she said after I’d explained to her that I needed to write a sample article. “Just focus on this.”

She went whistling down the hall, happier, I think, than even I was.

Well, maybe not. But we were both pretty excited. She called my grandparents and Auntie Tricia long-distance to tell them and to ask them to pray.

I spent all evening writing the article. Louanne even kept Growl quiet. It was a family effort.

The next day, I polished the piece and wished I had a friend who also wrote who could proofread it for me.

The third day, I sent it in.

A few nights later we were having company for dinner, so I skipped my Fishcoteque run.

“Mmm,” Louanne said. “Who’s coming?”

“Aunt Maude,” Mom answered.

“No, no, nooooooo!” Louanne wailed. Giggle, who had been calm up to this point, was instantly alarmed by Louanne’s noise and joined in with a howl.

I had to admit, I felt like howling myself.

“We have to have her over,” Mom said as she grabbed some foil-wrapped potatoes from the cooker, aka oven. “And it might be enjoyable. It’s been a long time since we had any kind of company at all.” My mom loved inviting people over. At our house in Seattle she’d always had her friends over for game nights or tea or Bible study.

“Maude’s not even our aunt,” Louanne persisted.

“No . . . she’s a friend of your grandmother. And she’s our landlord. If you want her to let us keep Giggle, we need to make sure she really, really likes us.”

“Aha! I’m going to be on my worst behavior!” I said. “Just a minute. I’m going to put on my black lipstick and mess up my hair and play screaming metal music from my laptop.”

Louanne looked as if she might cry.

“Just kidding, just kidding,” I said. “I don’t like Giggle, but I do like you.”

Giggle growled at me, and I threw a towel at him.

At six on the dot, Aunt Maude arrived. Dad opened the door. “Maude, how nice to see you!” he said, kissing her cheek. “Girls, come and say hello to Aunt Maude.”

I walked forward and kissed her cheek, following my dad’s lead. I got a big sniff of her face powder and quickly turned my head to sneeze it out.

“Not ill, are you?” she inquired. “I’m susceptible to head colds and such. I wish I would have known if you were feeling dodgy.”

“No, it’s allergies,” I said. And I didn’t mention
who
I was allergic to.

“Hi, Aunt Maude,” Louanne said sweetly. Right by her side, looking like Puppy Charming, was Giggle.

“And this must be the lovable little mutt,” Maude said, softening for, I guessed, the first time ever. She reached down and scratched him behind the ears, and he nuzzled her hand. He knew who buttered his scone.

I was glad for Louanne, who looked as if she might collapse with relief. I understood. Giggle was one of the reasons London was bearable—fun, even—for her.

After taking off her cape and setting down her bag—both of which suspiciously looked like they’d been stolen from one of those British nanny shows—Aunt Maude followed us into the tiny kitchen. Like most people in England, we lived in a semidetached; that is, a house divided neatly in two with one family on one side and one on the other. Which meant the rooms were much smaller than the ones back home.

“Well, looks as if you’re taking good care of the place.” She sniffed.

“Thank you,” Mom said. “Won’t you have a seat?”

Mom brought out the meal, which she’d kept plain just for her guest.

“Meat, two veg, and jacket potatoes,” Maude said approvingly.

“Care for butter?” I asked. And those were the last words I got in for the entire meal. Maude told us all about her varicose vein problems, her digestive problems, the crime problems that Wexburg had now that they’d never had before, and how unlikely it was that England would ever be the same again, no matter what the Queen did, God save her.

Two hours later we politely closed the door behind Aunt Maude and slumped onto the sofa in the sitting room.

“And you want to make more British friends?” Dad teased my mother.

“They can’t all be like that,” Mom said. “Can they?”

Dad and Louanne went to clean the kitchen, and Mom and I stayed to talk.

“Do you think all of them
are
that way?” I asked quietly. “I mean, the women . . . and the girls my age?”

Mom looked at her hands for a minute. “No, no, I don’t. We just haven’t found the right ones yet.” She stood up. “I’ll be right back.” A minute later she came back with her Christmas cookie cookbook.

“Oh yeah,” I said. “I was worried you’d left that at home.”

“Never,” Mom said. “Today I was moping around feeling sorry for myself, thinking that I’d be planning my annual Christmas cookie exchange if I were at home. Then I thought, why not have one here? I’ll invite all the neighbors.”

I didn’t really want to stick a pin in her balloon, but someone had to say something. “Do you think the neighbors . . . well, do you think they seem like the cookie-exchange type?”

“Never know till you try!” Mom said. “Since Christmas is just over two months away, I’m going to hand out invitations soon. Maybe hold the party a week or two before Christmas. And—” she snapped the book shut—“how about you, Sav? How about that Hazelle in your maths class? Isn’t she on the newspaper staff too?”

“Oh, Mom. Hazelle wishes I were yesterday’s news. And bad news, at that. If anything, she’s probably trying to convince Jack not to offer me a position.”

“How about those girls at Fishcoteque?” Mom pressed. I had to admire her persistence. And maybe she was right.

“The ones in my science class?” They
had
smiled at me in class again this week. And shared their dissecting equipment.

Mom nodded hopefully.

“Science club meets tomorrow. I could give it a try,” I said doubtfully. I didn’t mention that I was the only one in class who had popped the crayfish’s eye during the dissection. Really, my only skill was writing. But so far, no word from Jack. Face it, he probably wasn’t going to invite me to join the staff. Maybe it was just as well—maybe I had it coming, with my false pretenses and all.

“That’s my girl,” Mom said. “Tomorrow then. Science club.”

Science club met after school on Wednesday. I strolled in just as they were getting ready to experiment, but I noticed that Gwennie from science class (and Fishcoteque) wasn’t even there.

I pulled on a white lab coat, snapped on some goggles, and felt very intelligent indeed. The teacher partnered me with another new person, and we stood over a little Bunsen burner with two glass beakers. The teacher spoke pretty quickly, and I was having trouble keeping up with his instructions. Especially since his accent was so thick. I’m not sure I understood it at all. The liquid in the blue-rimmed beaker went in first . . . or was it the red one first? Don’t put the liquid from the yellow bottle in . . . or did that one go in all of them?

“Did you write all that down?” I whispered to my lab partner.

“I thought you were getting it,” he said. He looked about as clueless as I felt.

I looked around and saw that several others were pouring the liquid from the yellow bottle into a beaker. So I did the same thing and then set it on the stove, or cooker, or whatever they call it. Apparently everybody else had done something special to their beakers first or had superstrength ones or something. Oh no!

My beaker was the only one that shattered, sounding like a hammer hitting a lightbulb. It spewed dangerous liquid in every direction. Great. My British nickname would be Beaker Breaker.

“Ah, blimey,” my partner said and tried to distance himself from me.

After getting the mess cleaned up and everyone calmed down, the instructor came over.

“Miss . . .”

“Smith,” I said. “Savannah Smith.”

“Have you ever had a proper chemistry class before?” he asked.

I shook my head. He said nothing more—he just kept looking at me.

“I guess I should try the gymnastics club?” I suggested, knowing that really all I wanted to do was write.

“That sounds like a splendid idea,” he agreed. “A really splendid idea.”