MISS HOPKINS GARDEN

Angela despaired of her mother, she was always over-reacting.  When they were driving to Miss Hopkins’ house she shrieked at Dad for breaking the speed limit.  He only went one mile an hour over, but she shouted at him about losing his licence and worse what if he ran someone over and even worse what if that someone was a child?  They arrived at an old Victorian house to help a crazy old lady with her gardening.  Mother led the way round the side, through a yard and a gate into an untidy garden which they were going to weed.

 

Despite the fact they’d only be gardening, Mother had insisted that Angela wear a dress and she herself wore some fussy tweed trousers and blazer.  “Miss Hopkins likes people to look smart,” she’d explained.  Dad wasn’t having any of it; he was gardening and so wore jeans and an old shirt.

While Mother and Dad got their gardening tools ready, Angela looked towards the house, it was huge on three storeys with big windows.  The old lady was watching them from upstairs, her white hair straight and short, a pair of spectacles perched on her nose.  She was in a black dress buttoned to the neck.  She did not wave and she did not smile.  Angela looked away uneasily; “Can I go and play?”

Mother looked up from the border she was getting started on; “Won’t you help?”
“I’m wearing a dress!”
“Go and play then, but don’t go into the greenhouse.”
“Why?”
“Well,” Mother lowered her voice, “Miss Hopkins is a bit doolally in her old age.  She saw mice in there and started to leave cheese for them.  Unfortunately this attracted rats and they got really big from eating the cheese, giant even.  You don’t want to be eaten by a giant rat, do you?”
Angela laughed scornfully and glanced at her Dad who rolled his eyes. 

 

Angela skipped up the shrub bounded path, her parents’ voices becoming fainter with distance.  The greenhouse was at the very end of the garden, old, shabby and neglected full of pots with dead plants in them.  There was no way there were giant rats though, Mother was exaggerating like she always did.  However, something slowed Angela’s approach and made her creep to the door; she told herself it was because she was doing something she shouldn’t.  She peered through the glass door.  The cutest brown mouse ever was nibbling cheese from a saucer.  Angela wanted to hold the mouse like she held her hamster.  She pushed open the door and crept into the still heat that smelt of decay.  The mouse didn’t run, Angela moved closer to it and heard the door bang shut in the wind behind her.  She reached out her hand and the mouse suddenly quailed and uttering a high pitched squeak it scurried away.  Angela straightened, a prickling sense of dread overcoming her.  Very slowly she turned, behind her was a rat as tall as her father, standing on its hind legs, teeth bared.  She screamed for Mother, but the sound was muffled by the heat and the glass.

 

Mother and Dad came up the garden to look for her; “I told her not to go into that greenhouse,” Mother said, “I bet she went straight to it.”

They peered through the glass door.  All that remained were Angela’s red shoes.
Mother sighed; “I don’t know how we’re going to explain this to the Police.  They’re going to think it was us, aren’t they?  They’re going to arrest us and the Court will find us guilty and we’ll end our days in prison.  I told her, didn’t I?  No-one ever listens to me.”