Clementine Rose and the Pet Day Disaster 2 by Jacqueline Harvey Page B

banged upstairs and Aunt Violet leapt into the air. She looked up towards the noise and locked eyes with her brother – or at least, the portrait of him hanging on the wall.
    ‘What are you looking at, Edmund?’ She didn’t like the way his eyes seemed to be following her. ‘No, I’m not going,’ she said decisively.

    Aunt Violet shook her head. Obviously she’d been spending too much time with the little one, who believed that the portraits could speak to her. And besides, she was far too busy to go running into town for a silly pet show.
    Aunt Violet stalked off to the kitchen to make her tea. But all the while there was a gnawing feeling in her stomach. She caught sight of the book she’d been reading with Clementine. She’d forgotten how much she had loved that story. She smiled to herself as she recalled sitting with her mother on the veranda many years ago. They’d been reading the exact same book and Violet’s beloved little terrier Hinchley was curled up on her lap. How she had loved that dog.
    ‘Oh, all right, I’m going,’ she muttered under her breath, before removing the kettle from the stovetop. She scurried up the back stairs to her bedroom, where she retrieved her handbag and car keys. Coming down the main stairs, she spotted Pharaoh through the double doors to the right. He was lying on the sitting room floor, basking in a shard of sunlight.
    Aunt Violet looked back at her brother. ‘Are you happy now?’ She picked up the bag from the table. Checking that she had her house keys, the old woman strode to the front door. Her shiny red car was parked in the turning circle. She locked the house, walked over to the vehicle and opened the driver’s side door before she realised that she’d left her sunglasses on the dresser in her bedroom. Aunt Violet sighed deeply and shook her head, tutting at herself.
    She headed back inside, leaving the door ajar. As she climbed the stairs, she didn’t notice a grey streak race out the door and towards the car.
    Within a minute, Aunt Violet was speeding towards Highton Mill, the black bag on the passenger seat and her sunglasses perched on her nose.

‘And who do we have here?’ Queen Georgiana asked Clementine. She smiled at Lavender. The pig looked up at the old woman and seemed to smile back at her. The Queen was currently judging the Cutest Pet category inside the school hall. Queen Georgiana’s lady-in-waiting, a stout woman of advanced years, was following closely behind. The woman wore a suit like those preferred by Mrs Bottomley and she had a snarl on her face to match.
    Clementine curtsied just as Miss Critchley had taught the girls, and then replied, ‘Her name is Lavender, Your Majesty, and she’s a teacup.’ Clementine giggled. ‘I mean a teacup pig.’
    ‘And so she is.’ Queen Georgiana reached out to give Lavender a scratch behind the ear. ‘And a very pretty little piggy you are too.’ Lavender sniffed the Queen’s hand before giving her finger a nibble. ‘Oh, you cheeky thing,’ she gasped and laughed loudly.
    Her lady-in-waiting screwed up her nose and whispered under her breath, ‘How ghastly. A pig!’
    Queen Georgiana’s ears pricked up. So did Clementine’s.
    ‘For heaven’s sake, Mrs Marmalade, this piggy is so clean you could eat your dinner off her belly.’
    Clementine smothered a giggle as she imagined Lavender acting as the Queen’s dinner plate.
    Mrs Marmalade sniffed and muttered a half-hearted apology to Clementine.
    The Queen continued along the line. Sophie was standing beside Clementine and holding her cat Mintie, who was wriggling like a garden worm. Sophie curtsied too and almost lost her grip on the ball of white fur.
    ‘If I were you, dear, I’d pop her into that cage there,’ the Queen suggested, ‘before she gets away. I don’t like the look of that dog over there one little bit.’ She nodded towards a giant mastiff who was drooling all over the floor. Standing beside the dog was its owner,