Aunt Agatha always called Felix ‘my brother’. Never ‘your father’. Stella shrugged and hopped down from her chair as if she didn’t mind and had far more important things to be doing anyway. But if Aunt Agatha wanted to talk to Felix ‘in private’ that could only mean that she wanted to talk about Stella. And, like any self-respecting child, Stella fully intended to eavesdrop on any conversation that concerned her.
So she went back into the house the way she’d come, grabbed her cloak and then went outside around to the marshmallow shrub at the side of the orangery. It wasn’t a very large shrub but it was just big enough to hide her from view if she gathered up her petticoats, crouched down low in the snow and didn’t move an inch. From there she could peer through the leaves and fluffy pink marshmallows at Aunt Agatha and Felix, and quite clearly hear every word that was being said.
‘Really, Felix, it’s too much!’ Aunt Agatha was complaining. ‘Bats in the belfry, dinosaurs in the orangery, fairies in the wood pile … I mean, where will it all end?’
‘Agatha, please,’ Felix replied. ‘There are no bats in the belfry. I’m not even sure what a belfry is, to be quite honest with you, but I’m reasonably certain we don’t have one here. The bats are in the smoking room. They used to favour the library but ever since that falling out with the bookworms they—’
‘Oh, I don’t care about the bats!’ Agatha interrupted impatiently – which Stella thought was pretty rude considering that she was the one who’d brought up the bats in the first place. ‘I care about what’s going to become of this girl.’
‘“This girl”,’ Felix repeated in a quiet voice. ‘Are you, perhaps, referring to my daughter, Stella?’
‘Felix, please be serious. She isn’t your daughter. Not really.’
Felix stood up abruptly and there was a pause, which Stella knew meant that he was silently counting to ten inside his head. Felix said you should always count to ten if you feared you were in danger of getting angry with someone, although Stella very rarely saw Felix angry. In fact, Aunt Agatha seemed to be the only person who could succeed in spoiling his typically cheerful mood.
‘She is my daughter,’ Felix finally said, ‘in every way that can possibly matter.’
‘Listen, I came early because I wanted to speak to you seriously about just what you intend to do with her. I mean, she’s not going to be a child forever. What’s going to become of her when she grows up? She can’t just live here indefinitely, can she?’
Felix took a watering can out of an ice box and calmly began to sprinkle fresh cold milk over Mildred, who was still happily soaking in her cereal bowl. ‘And what would you suggest, Agatha?’ he asked.
‘Well, I have some wonderful news, Felix. In fact, I’ve solved the problem.’ The feather in Aunt Agatha’s hat wobbled as she drew herself up in her chair. ‘I’ve secured a place for Stella at a finishing school for young ladies.’
Felix set the watering can down. ‘But Stella already goes to school with the local children here. And I’m seeing to her education as well—’
Aunt Agatha pointed a finger at him. ‘You’ve been filling her head up with a lot of silly nonsense from books. Stella needs to learn how to do useful things, like sew and embroider and wear a dress without ruining it in five seconds.’
Stella couldn’t help glancing guiltily down at her party dress. She saw that Buster had pulled some of the threads loose with his claws when he’d been on her lap earlier, and that the petticoat hem was looking rather bedraggled from trailing in the snow. It seemed Buster had drooled a little on the fabric, too. Stella sighed. Pygmy T-Rexes were prone to drooling something terrible when there were fudge sticks around.
‘At a finishing school for young ladies she will be taught how to sing and draw,’ Aunt Agatha went on. ‘She will be made to see that it’s incorrect for a girl to gallop about on unicorns and pore over dusty old maps. Her posture will be corrected. The girls there spend an hour every day walking up and down with books on their heads.’
Felix gaped at her. ‘Do they really?’
Aunt Agatha gave an emphatic nod. ‘Yes, indeed. Two hours, sometimes.’
‘That time would be better spent reading the books, surely?’
‘It is a quite splendid establishment,’ Aunt Agatha said, pretending not to have heard him. ‘If Stella were to spend even one term there, you would be amazed at the change in her, Felix, really you would.’
‘I don’t doubt that for a moment,’ Felix replied.
‘They’ll show her how to do her hair in the latest fashion,’ Aunt Agatha said, warming to her theme. ‘And she’ll be taught how to dance, and apply powder and rouge, and make herself attractive to a gentleman. Then, when she’s older, a suitable marriage can be made for her and she will be someone else’s responsibility. I’ve thought it all through, Felix, and this is the only way. I know you’re fond of taking in these snow orphans but a girl is quite different to a polar bear – I mean, even you must realise that.’
Stella held her breath, her heart hammering in her chest. What if Felix agreed with Aunt Agatha? She was sure it would break her heart if he sent her away. Suddenly she wished she hadn’t been so grumpy with him last night. She wished she’d been a better daughter and that she’d told him how much she loved him fifty times every single day.
Felix turned away from the table and Stella gasped as she realised he was walking over to the glass wall right where she
