The Harriet Bean 3-Book Omnibus by Alexander McCall Smith Read Free Book Online Page A

twisting the school gates like that! Did you hear me? Put those gates down at once! This instant!”
    Aunt Veronica ignored the order and continued to twist the gates. She had almost finished, and the gates were beginning to look straight again.
    “Did you not hear me?” barked the teacher, advancing toward Aunt Veronica. “Do I have to repeat everything several times? Is there something wrong with your ears, may I ask?”
    Aunt Veronica gave a last great twist on the iron bars and then looked up. When the teacher saw her, she stopped in her tracks.
    “Veronica!” she exclaimed.
    Aunt Veronica’s face burst into a smile. “Majolica!”
    Then Aunt Veronica rushed forward to hug her sister.
    “She’s going to twist the teacher!” cried somebody in alarm. But when they saw the smile of delight on Aunt Majolica’s face, they knew that everything was all right.
    I was a little bit frightened of Aunt Majolica to begin with, but after a few minutes I realized that underneath the bossiness she was really very kind. As we sat in the trailer and talked, she asked all about my father and myself and told me how happy she was that we had found her.
    “Now there’s something we must ask you,” said Aunt Veronica when there was a short break in the conversation. “Do you, by any chance, know what happened to Thessalonika and Japonica?”
    I waited with bated breath for an answer. I was prepared for a disappointment and for Aunt Majolica to deny all knowledge of them, but she said something quite different.
    “Of course,” she said. “I see them for tea every Sunday at three o’clock.”
    Aunt Veronica and Aunt Harmonicaclapped their hands together with pleasure and I let out a whoop of delight.
    “Then we can get in touch with them?” I said. “Can we call them this afternoon?”
    Aunt Majolica looked at me in surprise.
    “Oh no,” she said. “That won’t be necessary. Anyway, I don’t think they have a telephone in their house. Or at least, they’ve never mentioned one to me.”
    “In that case,” said Aunt Veronica, “can we go and see them?”
    “That won’t be necessary either,” said Aunt Majolica. “They’ll know to come.”
    We all looked very puzzled.
    “I don’t understand,” said Aunt Harmonica eventually. “How will they know that we want to see them?”
    As she spoke the question, I began to realize what Aunt Majolica meant. My father had said that the twins had an extraordinary ability to read minds. Did this mean that they would know what we were thinking, even if they weren’t here?
    Aunt Majolica answered my question before I even asked it.
    “All I have to do is think really hard,” she explained. “If I stand still and think: ‘Thessalonika! Japonica! Please come and see me!’ they’ll come. You watch.”
    While Aunt Majolica and Aunt Harmonica sat in the trailer and waited for the arrival of the last two aunts. Aunt Veronica and I went into the playground to find the girl who had sent in the winning letter. The advertisement had promised a prize for the winner, and we had not forgotten the promise.
    “But what are we going to give her?” I asked Aunt Veronica. “We haven’t bought her anything.”
    Aunt Veronica turned and whispered, “There are some things that can’t be bought. These things are by far the most valuable.”
    I wasn’t sure what she meant by this, but I didn’t have time to find out, as the girl whose name we had asked had been pointed out to us, and Aunt Veronica was making her way toward her.
    The girl was very pleased to hear that she had been successful.
    “We like our teacher,” she said. “We really do. But she is very bossy!”
    Aunt Veronica nodded. “She’s always been like that,” she said. “Right from the time she learned to talk. Her first words were bossy ones. Can you believe that?” The girl laughed.
    “Now,” Aunt Veronica continued, “I promised you a prize, and a prize you will get. I’m not going to give you anything you