Alice-Miranda to the Rescue by Jacqueline Harvey Read Free Book Online

you sleep well?’
    â€˜Like a stone, which is just as well because I am getting far too old for all this,’ the housemistress sighed.
    Alice-Miranda smiled. ‘You always say that, but you still come back every term.’
    â€˜Well, you know I would have thought seriously about retiring if things had worked out with Ursula, but now that the woman has decided to become a teacher, I can’t leave you lot to your own devices, can I?’ Mrs Howard said. ‘Not until I find a suitable replacement.’
    â€˜It wouldn’t be the same without you,’ Alice-Miranda said.
    Mrs Howard scoffed. ‘You’d get used to it.’
    â€˜Will Ursula still come on the weekends when Mrs Shakeshaft isn’t available?’ Alice-Miranda asked. The girls had enjoyed having someone a bit younger taking care of them. Ursula Frost had recently quit her job working for Silas Wiley, the Mayor of Downsfordvale, and had taken up some casual employment at the school. Alice-Miranda had helped the woman reunite with her father, Stan Frost, who lived in a pretty cottage called Wood End, hidden deep in the woods a few miles from the school. Mrs Howard, who liked the young woman immensely in spite of the fact that she was Myrtle Parker’s niece, had been truly hopeful that house-mistressing might have suited her as a permanent career change but, alas, that wasn’t to be.
    â€˜Yes, I think so. Whenever she can,’ Mrs Howard replied. ‘She’s coming this weekend so I can pop over and visit my sister.’
    Alice-Miranda decided to search the rest of the house and then quickly say hello to Bony and Chops before breakfast. The ponies had been delivered back to school on the previous Saturday, having spent the term break at Highton Hall. Max, the Highton-Smith-Kennington-Joneses’ stable-hand, had put the pair on a strict regime of diet and exercise. Alice-Miranda had hoped that Bony’s manners might have improved, although, given the number of times he’d bitten Chops’s tail when she and Millie had been riding on Sunday afternoon, she didn’t think it was likely.
    Alice-Miranda backtracked to Sloane and Caprice’s room but it was still empty.
    â€˜Did you find her?’ Millie asked, warily poking her head into the corridor.
    Alice-Miranda shook her head. ‘I’ll talk to her later. Do you want to come up to the stables with me?’
    Millie nodded. ‘I’d better say hello to Chops or he’ll think I don’t love him anymore.’
    The two girls darted along the hallway and out the back door.
    â€˜Do you think Miss Reedy is turning into a bridezilla?’ Millie asked, thinking back to the night before. The English teacher had stopped in and had a very long conversation with her fiancé about table decorations. She was extremely particular and, although it was obvious that Mr Plumpton didn’t mind what she decided, the woman had gone on and on and on. The girls didn’t hear the final decision, as the couple had ducked out into the corridor, but if the stomping noises were anything to go by, Miss Reedy hadn’t been happy.
    Alice-Miranda giggled. ‘If you’d asked me yesterday morning, when Sloane and I were talking to her, I’d have said no, but who knows after last night. Weddings can do strange things to people.’
    â€˜Just you watch,’ Millie said. ‘She’s a control freak at the best of times and this is her wedding . As if she’s going to leave that up to anyone else to organise.’
    â€˜I suppose you can’t really blame her for wanting everything to be perfect,’ Alice-Miranda said as they entered the cool brick building. ‘Good morning, Bonaparte,’ she sang out, poking her head over the top of Bony’s stall door. The black pony was standing in the far corner with his eyes closed. ‘Would you like some breakfast?’
    At the mention of food, the pony spun