‘Just opening my list of secret, and utterly brilliant, ways to save Squabble Sauces,’ she muttered, loudly enough for her brother to hear.
Fibber looked up briefly, then carried on writing.
Fox tapped away with a smirk. ‘I’m adding in a few more belters to clinch the deal.’
Which was entirely untrue. There was no list of breathtaking ideas that would save the dwindling Petty-Squabble empire. Fox knew all the right words to blag her way through the weekly family business meetings – expenditure, capital, profit margin, asset – but she had no idea what any of these terms actually meant. And she was absolutely hopeless at strategic thinking.
For a moment, Fox felt the weight of something dark and unlovely shifting inside her. Fibber was a businessman-in-the-making. He was clever and smooth-talking – he could fool even the most intelligent grown-ups with his silky lies – and although at school he was far too arrogant to feel the need to make friends he had, this term, endeared himself to a teacher, Mrs Scribble, with whom he now took extra lessons during lunchbreak because she sensed in him some ‘hidden potential’.
The darkness inside Fox flinched. No one had ever thought that she was special. That she had ‘potential’. What was she good at? Too much of a solo act to be picked for the sports teams, not bright enough to achieve top grades and not nearly popular enough to be picked for Head of School in Year Six next term. Everyone in her class seemed to be good at something, even the really quiet ones who (much to Fox’s annoyance) looked perfectly ordinary, but ended up being fabulous at spelling, feverishly fast on ice skates or shockingly good at the clarinet.
Fox had concluded some years ago that her obvious lack of talent was what made her unlovable to her parents. Stamping on other people’s feelings every day was all very well – after all, Fox didn’t fancy being kind because being weak, as well as talentless, would only add to her misery – but the heart is a fragile thing and sometimes people assume that the best way to keep theirs safe is to build a wall round it. And that was just what Fox had done. Hers was a very high wall that had grown up over the years without her truly realising, because it made dealing with being unlovable ever so slightly easier.
She stole a look at Fibber. Was he quieter than usual because he had, finally – and perhaps predictably – come up with a way to save the family fortune? Maybe he was just moments away from announcing his triumph. Fox contemplated her options. She could pin Fibber down, snatch his business plan, then – she thought fast – eat it? Or was it time to do a Great Uncle Rudolph (without the tunnel drama): grab the plan and hold it hostage until Fibber agreed to say that he and Fox had come up with all the ideas together?
Before Fox could do either, the door to the penthouse suite opened. In stormed Gertrude Petty-Squabble, wearing a white bathrobe, white slippers and a white towel twisted up over her hair. She was wearing so much white she looked uncannily like a meringue while behind her, red-haired and red-faced, was Bernard Petty-Squabble resembling a volcano rammed into a business suit.
Bernard flung the door shut. Then he and his wife eyed their children with the kind of look that is usually only reserved for traffic wardens and large spiders. Fox gulped. She knew all too well that when her parents barged into a room like this it was never good news…
‘The facial was a disaster,’ Gertrude snapped.
She swept across the living room, plucked a grape from the fruit bowl on the table between the twins, threw it in her mouth, winced and then spat it out onto the carpet.
‘Just as the beautician was finishing up,’ she muttered, ‘I launched into my sales pitch for the new Petty Pampering range whereupon I was told that the spa had decided to discontinue stocking my products, as of next month, because of complaints about the moisturiser.’
Bernard rolled his eyes. ‘I knew that moisturiser would come back to haunt you. But did you listen to me?’ He thumped his clipboard down on the table. ‘No. Too busy waiting for your son to sweep in and save the day.’
Fibber shifted but didn’t look up.
‘Time is marching on,’ Bernard tutted to his wife, ‘and Petty Pampering profits are accelerating at the pace of an asthmatic ant.’
‘While Squabble Sauces,’ Gertrude shot back, ‘are run by a man with about as much skill as a newly born baboon.’ Before her husband could reply, Gertrude rounded on Fibber. ‘I thought you said we’d discontinued the moisturiser because it dyed customers’ eyebrows green?’
Fox watched Fibber, every muscle inside her tight with dread. Was now to be the moment her brother stood up and revealed his groundbreaking plan to save the Petty-Squabble empire?
Fibber placed his pad of paper inside his briefcase and clicked it shut. Then, very calmly, he looked up. ‘I am pleased to say, Mother, that I am very close to presenting you with my incredibly detailed and unmistakably profit-soaring business plan that will ensure every spa in the world champions Petty Pampering products.’
Gertrude smirked at her husband. ‘As we always thought, Bernard: Fibber will be the one to save this family.’
Fox swallowed. She felt the need to say something brilliant so that her parents remembered that she, too, was in the room.
And so she coughed. ‘Father, my even more detailed and profity plan for Squabble Sauces is also almost ready. We’re looking at some profit margin… capital… greatness ahead.’ She reached for her tie and put it back on. ‘Asset.’
‘Almost ready isn’t good enough,’ Bernard barked. ‘Not when the head chef of the Neverwrinkle Hotel is refusing to cook
