Chapter 2 – A Ruby Necklace
A/N: I would just like to prewarn all readers that Poppy's older brother enjoys swearing. Anybody offended by strong Lancastrian accents or excessive swearing must avoid this... Poppy's brother, Nathan is by far a shining example of both these traits. And also Alice in Wonderland is by written by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under thepseudonymLewis Carroll, not me. And I'm not making a profit when I reference to his work so don't worry.
Chapter 2 – The Ruby Necklace
Jabbing a key into the door, Poppy's mother twisted it quickly and pushed the door open. Poppy and her mother were welcomed to a cramped hallway with a plain mirror hanging desolately on top of peeling wallpaper. The house was small, three bedrooms, and reeked of damp.
"You know where you're goin' missy! Up to your bedroom! And if you eva' embarrass me like that again at school, I'll... I'LL..." her mother fumed, her raging screams crawling at her throat and her piercing blue eyes gleaming in fury.
Running up the narrow stairs coated in rough torn beige carpet, Poppy launched into the softness of her small bed and threw her school bag on the floor. Sitting cross-legged, she began to read the nearest book, her favourite 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'. It was her favourite as she could picture herself one day plummeting down a rabbit hole and happily living in a place filled with magic, wonder and riddles. Only one thing in it smoked but it was funny because it was a caterpillar not a nicotine yellow banshee called Mrs. Boris.
Poppy read the worn pages with sentimentality. Her delicate fingers tracing the page as if she was stroking the most fragile of petals. She read whilst the long hand danced across the clock face. After finishing the book once again, she placed it back on its resting place, her bedside table. She kicked off her shoes, her feet felt sweaty and swollen. She looked up at the clock on her window, the stubby hand pointing at three. Her brother ought to be home from school in a moment.
Nathan unlike Poppy was not academically successful. He already was suspended two times this year; one suspension was for assaulting a teacher another for setting the fire alarm off to avoid a maths test. Poppy didn't understand what Nathan hated so much about maths. It was easy. Recently, Poppy noticed that he smelt of the same stale cigarette smoke as mother did. But feared of asking about it in case he'd rip up her drawings like he did the last time she asked about his dirty magazine collection.
Poppy heard the front door slam shut and the strong strides of her brother as he ran up the stairs.
He said gruffly, "I 'EARD WHAT YOU DID TODAY, POPPY!" He swung his sister's door open without knocking and raised his hand. Poppy shuffled away from his hand with terror in her eyes.
Nathan grunted in his northern accent, "Wot's wrong wiv' yer? I jus' gonna giv' yer a high five!"
"I... why are you? I'm in trouble!"
"You twatted the shit out of that bible-bashing cunt! I hate his fuckin' older sister Catherine too... right stuck up bitch!"
Poppy blinked at her brother, his recently pierced ears, his spotty face, his devil-bred eyes as blue as their mother's. Poppy gulped, "I didn't mean to hurt him so badly though."
Nathan ignored her and beamed in pride, "I can't believe it, our Poppy banged a lad. I bet he feels well bad, ha! What a fookin' poof he is. Yer can't even hurt a fly, Poppy. How the 'ell did yer do it?"
Poppy shrugged. She just recalled that she put her prized poppy painting into her bag and wonder how crushed it got by now. She sighed. By the time she looked back up, her brother had vanished into the depths of his own lair. Poppy rummaged through her tatty school bag and found her painting. It was slightly creased at the edges but it wasn't beyond repair. She smiled as she stuck it on her bedroom wall with a pin on a cork display board. Poppy found the cork display board in a skip somewhere and kept it on her wall ever since. But she never had much to put on it. Not after her brother tore all her drawings.
"POPPY!" She jumped at the sound of her mother's voice. "POPPY! COME DOWNSTAIRS NOW! IT'S YER DAD!"
Poppy leapt out of bed without her shoes and ignored the pricks from the exposed tackless strips and their pointy nails. She couldn't believe it! Her father was visiting again! She was beaming with happiness and stormed down the stairs and almost ran into her mother.
Poppy couldn't stop grinning at her father. He was a tall but thin man about mother's age. Nathan called him rabbit-teeth because his two front teeth were slightly bigger than normal. Also her father dressed in strange clothes... once he came in this suit that looked suspiciously Victorian with a cape when Poppy broke her leg and went to hospital.
"Nice to meet you, Poppy. How are you doing?" her father said in his sophisticated southern accent. That was something else that Poppy loved about her father. His crisp "t's and "h's" and pronouncing the "ings" at the end of verbs.
Poppy squealed and grinned, "I-I can't believe you're here!"
"It's your birthday in a few days, isn't it?"
Poppy's grin grew wider exposing all of her teeth, "Yeah. I'm eleven!"
"The big eleven, eh?"
Poppy's mother folded her arms, "I don't see what's so special about bein' eleven. You always tellin' me that there's someat special about it for our Poppy."
"It just is, Kim. You'll know soon enough," he explained.
"B-but... why won't you tell me now?" her mother threatened, one hand perched on her hip another clenched into a fist.
"W-well... it just is, Kim."
Poppy's mother groaned, rolled her blue eyes and demanded, "Where's my child support? You haven't been here for six month. Don't give me your excuses about work and all that crap. Cough up the cash..."
Poppy blinked at her mother's callousness. Her manicured hand, her white square fingernail tips and her nicotine yellow index finger lay in the air, cupped and ready to receive any cash.
He rummaged through his pockets and brought out a huge chunk of money tied with a red elastic band. He slowly mumbled as he placed it in her mother's hand. Soon, a pile of old bank notes lay upon her hand. It grew to the size of a mountain and they started to float to the ground.
"You satisfied, Kim?"
She blinked in horror and quickly kneeled down to grab any money on the carpet.
Her father continued, "That's two thousand pounds and a bit extra. Enjoy."
"There's no need to be so sarcastic!"
Poppy's father sneered at her mother, "Kim, can I talk to Poppy alone?"
"Why?"
"Because I want to and the fact I just gave you that much cash doesn't warrant you to be angered by a lack of child support."
Her mother scowled and ran off the kitchen, slamming the door behind her. They heard her groan from the kitchen, "This is a fuckin' conspiracy, this is!"
Poppy sat down on the threadbare couch and beckoned her father to join her. With a slight twitch of his lips and hesitation, he sat down next to his daughter.
Poppy looked at her father, enthralled with his deep and smooth southern accent. His gait and manner were unseen in Blackburn. "So, Poppy, I got you a birthday present. Open it now, if you like." He handed Poppy a present. She took the salmon tissue paper off the perfectly wrapped gift. Inside was a box which she undid the red ribbon of and slowly slid up the lid. Inside was a glinting ruby penchant underneath two delicate earstuds of pure ruby. Poppy gasped. She never had jewellery apart from a few silver studs.
"I heard ruby is your favourite. I am more partial to emerald.... but I thought ruby is more becoming for you. Suits your hair." He said looking at his daughter's auburn hair.
Poppy grinned and said breathlessly, "Thanks so much, dad!" She leapt over the distance between them and gave him a tight hug. She hadn't hugged him for six months.
"Wait, wait, there's more," he handed her an envelope. "I hope it's the right sort of money..."
Poppy peeled the red envelope and tugged out her birthday card. On it was her favourite flower, the poppy, her namesake. She would just be happy with the card alone, or even the fact that her father remembered her favourite flower, colour or gemstone was enough. Her own mother that raised her for eleven years didn't even remember these all the time. But some money fell on her lap.
"Wha-?"
"Well, do something and get it off your lap," her father said, his voice dripping in an irony that Poppy only recently understood.
Poppy lifted the crumbled pound notes from her lap. She counted, twenty, fourty, sixty, eighty, hundred, hundred and twenty, hundred and forty, hundred and sixty, hundred and eighty.... two hundred! Poppy's jaw dropped.
"What is it? Is it the wrong money? I'm sorry if it is."
"I-I-I've never seen so much... money in my life," Poppy shook in amazement. "Thank you very much! THANK YOU!"
He winced at the high-pitched squeals of his daughter, "Just promise me to hide it from your mother. Just pretend I got you the necklace."
"O-okay," Poppy agreed.
"Poppet..."
"Yeah?"
"I've got something else to tell you about. It's very important."
"What is it, dad?"
"Well, you'll get an even bigger present for your eleventh birthday on the... thirty-first of March."
"Is it from you?"
He paused, bit his lip and then answered, "Kind of, I guess. Anyway, I'm just here to tell you that your life will significantly improve by this September."
"Why?"
"That's your surprise birthday present."
Poppy whined, "But I wanna know what will make my life better now!"
"Patience, Poppy, Patience. It's an important virtue. Anyway, just please don't be too shocked about it.... it's a bit more than forty galleons!"
"What..?"
"I mean... two hundred pounds."
"Oh," Poppy replied and looked at the kitchen door, "dad, why are you so strange?"
"That's a lovely thing to say to a person," he drawled sarcastically.
"I...I... don't mean it like that. But you're dead posh and you're well rich! You dress in really posh clothes and stuff. That's strange for me."
"I just am, Poppy. I didn't choose it."
"Can I be like you one day, dad?"
"Of course, you can. Just do as I say, okay?"
Poppy nodded and smiled again at her father.