Elspeth's revenge (part 1)

It started of as being a pretty uneventful week for Elspeth. Her parents, the King and Queen, had left days earlier leaving her and her elder sister, Sophie, in the care of their Nanny and Tutor, Delilah. Elspeth didn’t care much for Delilah. She hated the fact that she would wake her at the crack of dawn each day for reading, writing, sums and tests. It was all boring and pointless she thought and resented it all the more when the sun shone brilliantly outside and all she wanted to do was get out there and play with their dogs, pick flowers and make daisy chains. So it was extremely fortunate for her when one morning Delilah tripped down the grand staircase and broke both her legs leaving her and her sister in the care of the servants.
For Elspeth and Sophie this was the most perfect situation they could ever have imagined they’d be in; their parents were away, their guardian incarcerated in the local hospital and a huge Palace to explore at their leisure.
“Seeing as mum and dad are away for a while now is the perfect opportunity for some exploration,” Sophie said delightedly as she added the Greek doll her mother had brought back from her recent trip, to her collection on the shelf above her bed.
“That sounds like a fab idea. I’m coming too,” Elspeth said jumping up and down in excitement.
“You can’t,”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m the eldest so I’m in charge and I say that you should stay here and finish your homework. I’m going to explore the North Tower. Mum and Dad never let us go up there and I want to know why,” Sophie demanded.
“That’s not fair. I want to see the North Tower too.”
“Well you can’t. You’re too young and it might be dangerous so you’ll just have to stay.”
“You can’t make me Sophie and if you do I’ll tell mum on you.”
“And if you tell mum on me I’ll tell her who broke her precious china hand mirror. You know, the one with the roses on the edges.”
“I didn’t mean to break it. I just wanted to look at it. That’s all,” Elspeth huffed.
“Well then you’d best keep quiet hadn’t you,” Sophie said pointedly and waltzed out of the room.
Elspeth couldn’t believe the nerve of her sister. ‘How come she gets to go and I don’t. It’s not fair,’ she thought and folded her arms, screwed up her face and proceeded to kick anything across the floor that was in reach of her foot.
While teddy bears, dolls and plastic horses flew across the room Elspeth failed to notice a young palace maid, had entered and was standing in the doorway, nervously awaiting a moment to address the little princess.
“Excuse me, my lady,” the young maid said. “Can I be of service to you?
“No,” she snapped. “Unless you can get me another sister.”
The maid paused, unsure how to answer her, or if she should answer her at all. After what seemed like an eternity she cautiously asked:
“Are you not happy with the one you have?”
“No,” she snapped again, louder. The sharpness in her tone made the maid jump. “What’s your name anyway?”
“Angelina, my lady.”
“How old are you, Angelina?” she enquired as she stopped kicking toys around, reached for her sister’s collection of dolls on the shelf and began to pull the heads, legs and arms of them.
“Eighteen, my lady,”
“Do you want to be my new sister?” she asked, smiling with delight at how
easy it was to decapitate them.
“I don’t think your mum and dad would like that too much?”
“Why not? You’re much prettier than her and I bet you’d be a better sister. She’s always bossing me around. I never get to have any fun,” she huffed as she reached for a blue felt tip pen and began drawing glasses and bushy moustaches on the decapitated dolls’ heads.
“May I ask what are you doing?”
“Destroying all Sophie’s toys,” she said bluntly as though it should have been obvious to Angelina. “She wouldn’t let me go with her to investigate the North Tower. I wanted to. I wanted to so much. Nasty, evil, horrid sister. She said it was too dangerous and I should stay here finish my homework. But I’ll show her. I’ll show here good and proper. When she comes back and sees these she’s be sorry she didn’t take me with her. Anyway it’s none of your business. I can do what I want.”
“I suppose you can but don’t you think that revenge is a little wicked and spiteful?” the maid protested.
“Raven-jar?” said Elspeth, frowning with confusion. “What kind of word is that?”
“No, not raven-jar. Rev-enge,” Angelina explained, saying the word slowly so Elspeth could understand.
“Well, whatever. She’s got it coming to her. She knew I’d be annoyed she left me, so there.”
“Well if that’s the case then she knows that you’re going to do something to get her back right?”
“Suppose so, yeah,” Elspeth muttered.
“So why don’t you do something that she won’t expect you to do.”
Elspeth thought for a moment or two. She looked up at the dolls on the shelf that were yet to be dismembered and back at the maid.
“What did you have in mind?” she asked curious to know what could possibly be more gratifying than destroying her sister’s prized collection of dolls.
“Well we could start by putting all the legs and arms back on the right dolls,” Angelina said.
“What!” Elspeth said glowering at Angelina.
“Then we’ll clean up the dolls’ faces,” Angelina continued ignoring Elspeth’s outburst.
Elspeth frowned at Angelina, perplexed.
“Then,” Angelina continued. “We’ll put them in a nice orderly fashion back on your sister’s shelf.”
“That won’t annoy her at all. That’s too nice.”
“Won’t it?” Angelina said innocently. “Then after that we’ll go down to the kitchen and make her a nice batch of chocolate chip cookies, buttercream fairy cakes, and fresh lemonade.”
Elspeth stared as Angelina began to pick up the arms, legs and heads that were strewn across the room and sorted them into piles according to which legs matched and which arms matched. She was rather confused as to why being nice to her sister would irritate her but when she thought of melt in the mouth cookies and soft cream and sponge it tantalised her taste buds and made her mouth water and pretty soon she’d forgotten what she’d been doing and could only think of eating sweet treats.
“Can we put different chocolate chips in the cookies? I mean white ones and plain ones and different coloured ones?” she said her eyes gleaming with excitement.
“Certainly. What flavour of chocolate chip does Sophie like the most?”
“Milk chocolate.”
“Okedoke. We’ll make an extra large batch of milk chocolate chip cookies.”
“And can we draw smiley faces on them, with icing?” she added with delight.
“Of course we can.”
Elspeth clapped her hands with excitement as she followed Angelina along the wide, polished floored, corridor that always had a pungent smell of lemon furniture polish that made her scrunch her nose up in repulsion.
Down the grand staircase they both descended until they reached the main hallway where they doubled backed to a door that didn’t look like a door at all. It looked as though it was part of the wall as the top half was papered in the deep red swirling patterned wallpaper and the bottom half was dark wood panelling, just like the wall. Angelina pushed it open, and Elsepth’s eyes widened. She was itching to see what lay beyond the door. But was rather disappointed with what she saw. It was nothing like the rest of the Palace. It was cold and dark and smelt musty, like mould and earth. The walls were bare bricks, with no paint or pictures to adorn it, and the floor was made of horrid grey concrete.
She followed Angelina down a flight of steps where the sound of voices echoed and musty smell had been replaced with the sweet smell of roasted potatoes, gravy, pork and apple sauce. ‘I must be near the kitchen,’ she thought. Usually she would never have been allowed anywhere near the kitchen let alone allowed inside to make cookies and cakes, but as her mum and dad were away there was no-one to say no to her.
“I wish mum and dad would go away more often,” she said casually. “This is fun. Sophie is going to be so jealous when she finds out where I’ve been. What do you think Molly?” she said to the tatty, knitted dolly clutched in her hands.
“I’ve noticed you always seem to be carrying that dolly around with you,” Angelina enquired. “It’s filthy. Why don’t you wash it?”
“Mum’s always telling me to get it washed. She said she’s going to take it one day when I’m not looking and send it down to the laundry room. I told her she couldn’t do that because then it wouldn’t smell the same and I like the way it smells. So I carry it around with me all the time cos that way if I have it she can’t take it away. Right?”
Angelina nodded and chuckled at her as she pushed the swing door into the kitchen narrowly avoiding knocking one of the butlers who was stood on the other side talking to a chef.
Elspeth was a little afraid to go into the kitchen at first. It was a very stark looking place, all white tiles and chrome, and very noisy too. Lots of people dressed head to foot in white clothes, some stained with food, shouted at one another, which made Elspeth think that they may shout at her for being there when she wasn’t supposed to be.
“It’s okay,” Angelina said soothingly. “You can come in. We’ll go into the little workroom round the side. They usually use it to make little sweets and stuff but not today. It’ll be quiet round there.”