Pernickety boo, p.1
Pernickety Boo, page 1
First published in the United Kingdom by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2024
Published in this ebook edition in 2024
HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
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Text copyright © Sally Gardner 2024
Illustrations copyright © Chris Mould 2024
Cover design copyright © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2024
Cover illustration copyright © Chris Mould 2024
Sally Gardner and Chris Mould assert the moral right to be identified as the author and illustrator of the work respectively.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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Source ISBN: 9780008602642
Ebook Edition © August 2024 ISBN: 9780008602659
Version: 2024-07-29
To the original Sylvie Moonshine,
my beloved granddaughter, Sylvie
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
About the Publisher
A sorcerer, finding himself caught in the rain, bought an umbrella – a non-folding, plain black stick umbrella. It was nothing out of the ordinary, and it might have stayed that way if it hadn’t been bought by a sorcerer.
The sorcerer rushed home with it as fast as the wind and rain would let him. He’d just remembered he had left a spell on the boil, which was never a good idea. This particular spell came from The Time Traveller’s Book of Spells, and the sorcerer was very excited when he saw it still bubbling away. The brew needed an urgent stir, but there was nothing handy to mix it with, except the umbrella.
It’s only a cheap umbrella, he thought. But the second he put it in the cauldron it came to pieces and disappeared into the spell.
‘Whoops,’ said the sorcerer. ‘But does it matter, I wonder?’ And he went to look in The Time Traveller’s Book of Spells.
At that moment, the doorbell rang. He had forgotten he’d invited his neighbour for tea. She had brought a sponge cake with raspberry jam and cream, and with her was Boo, her bouncy, hairy greyhound.
After they’d gone, the sorcerer went straight back to his spell. And so it was that cake crumbs and jam and dog hairs got muddled up in the mixture.
There was no sign of the umbrella.The sorcerer thought the spell was ruined.
‘Oh bother,’ he said, stamping his foot. ‘Oh boohoo. It’s gone wrong again.’
It was still raining the next morning, and the sorcerer was late for work in a magic shop near Embankment Station in London. He looked into the cauldron before he left, and to his surprise it was as clean as if brand-new. Resting by its side was the umbrella.
‘Well, I never,’ said the sorcerer. He picked the umbrella up without looking at it properly and rushed to catch an underground train on the Circle Line. At Embankment Station, he jumped off, leaving the umbrella behind.
It went round and round and round the Circle Line all day. The only person who noticed it was a small boy.
‘Hello,’ said the umbrella.
‘Gosh,’ said the boy. The umbrella’s handle was carved in the shape of a dog’s head, with a very long snout and a shiny nose and ears that flopped back. ‘You can talk.’
‘I suppose I can,’ said the umbrella.
‘Do you have a name?’ asked the boy.
‘No,’ said the umbrella. ‘Do I need a name?’
‘Yes,’ said the small boy. ‘You need one for someone to let you in at the front door, and another name to be let out of the back door.’
‘Who are you talking to?’ asked his mum.
‘An umbrella,’ said the boy.
‘Don’t be silly. Umbrellas can’t talk,’ she said.
And then they were gone.
Two ladies sat down, and the umbrella listened to them.
One lady said to her friend, ‘You’re so pernickety.’
Pernickety, thought the umbrella. What a beautiful word. A magical word.
At Baker Street Station, the umbrella was handed in to the Lost Property Office, where it stayed for five years. The umbrella learned French, Spanish, German and Mandarin from other items of lost property.
At the end of five years, the umbrella knew who he was. He was Pernickety Boo, a well-educated umbrella with unexplored magical powers. And by then he knew what pernickety meant: finicky, finickety and particular. Which the umbrella thought described him perfectly.
P ernickety Boo made many friends at the Lost Property Office, especially among the umbrellas and walking sticks. As he was a sorcerer’s umbrella, he was able to hop about and ask questions.
‘Where do you come from?’
‘How did you get here?’
He was disappointed to find so few of the lost items were given to talking. He had a great liking for the gloves, who never spoke a word. On grey days, he often found himself nibbling away at the fingers of a lost glove. No one ever came looking for lost gloves.
Pernickety Boo soon realised that lost property could be divided into three groups: the Long Lost, the Just Lost and the Truly Loved. The owners of the Truly Loved always came looking for them. Designer handbags, briefcases, watches, jewellery, even books fell into the Truly Loved group and so did quite a lot of toys.
Their owners would arrive in a flap and on spotting their Truly Loved would cry, ‘Oh – thank goodness!’
And, ‘I thought it was gone for good.’
And, ‘I don’t know what I would have done without it.’
And, ‘Thank you very much for finding my bear.’
Hats and coats were nearly all Just Lost and were happy to see their wearers again, but the Long Lost sadly turned out to be mainly umbrellas and walking sticks of all shapes and sizes. Thousands of them were handed in to the Lost Property Office every year.
One day, Pernickety Boo found that if he took a deep breath and then opened his jaws, sparks flew out.
A bowed walking stick, amazed to find he now had a voice, said, ‘You need an owner – someone who will look after you and not leave you behind. Or,’ he added sadly, ‘lean on you too heavily.’
‘Where do I find this owner? What does an owner look like?’ asked Pernickety Boo, who wasn’t too worried about being leaned on. After all, he could bend his head and touch his tips if needed.
‘Usually,’ said the bowed walking stick, ‘they have two legs and two arms and a round thing at the top called a head. It’s good the round thing at the top is glued on to the body, otherwise they’d lose that too.’
Pernickety Boo hadn’t come across any heads in the Lost Property Office, though he’d seen a few legs.
‘A rubber ferrule on the bottom helps,’ said the bowed walking stick gloomily. ‘I don’t have one.’
Pernickety Boo bent down to see if he had a rubber ferrule. He didn’t, but he was beginning to have a fizzing, tingling feeling. It wasn’t unpleasant. It made him feel special.
The walking stick was watching him. ‘Aren’t you worried you might snap in two when you do that?’ he asked.
‘No,’ said Pernickety Boo. ‘It’s making me tingle. Perhaps it’s because my owner was a sorcerer.’
‘Maybe,’ said the walking stick, ‘maybe not. As I’ve never felt any tingling, I can’t say.’
‘F leetingly’ was a word Pernickety Boo liked, and fleetingly he’d made friends with a designer handbag. To begin with, the handbag hadn’t said a word. All Pernickety Boo could do was stare at her, admiring her beauty.
It was one afternoon when he had nothing better to do that he hopped up to her and took a deep breath. He breathed out, and again sparks flew from his jaws. The designer handbag jumped into the air. And then she started to speak.
It turned out his new friend was the most interesting of handbags.
‘I will only be here fleetingly,’ she said. ‘I was sooooooo expensive, my owner will come for me at any moment.’
This turned out to be true.
‘Here,’ said the handbag,
On the front was a picture of an odd-looking animal with a very long nose. Above it was a word: Jumbo.
‘What does it mean?’ asked Pernickety Boo.
‘Jumbo?’ said the designer handbag. ‘It’s a word for elephant.’ And she vanished into the sunshine of a Truly Loved smile.
Pernickety Boo kept the postcard. He remembered the elephant and forgot the handbag. What was the point of clinging to the memory of something you’d never see again? What he needed was not a handbag friend but a brand-new owner, with a head firmly glued to its body.
One day, he heard that a collection of the most interesting umbrellas and walking sticks were to be taken to a Jumbo Sale at a place called Turnbury. Pernickety Boo knew that no umbrella was more interesting than him in the whole of the Lost Property Office.
Show me another well-educated umbrella, he thought. And I’m the only one who can breathe sparks.
A full-size mirror had been left on a train and handed in to the Lost Property Office, and so, for the first time, Pernickety Boo was able to take a look at himself.
He saw a most handsome umbrella. His canopy was a sombre black, but his handle was an elegant grey with just a hint of purple. He had a long snout with a shiny nose, sparkling eyes and a wide mouth that opened and shut. This was handy when he felt like speaking or nibbling a glove. Round his neck was a gleaming gold collar.
Yes, he thought, an umbrella such as me belongs with a herd of elephants, not an owner with a wobbly head.
He could see himself having tea with the elephants, going for walks with the elephants, shading the elephants from the sun, protecting them against the rain. He would be their all-weather friend, their one-and-only, never-to-be-lost-or-left-behind, best umbrella. Yes, things were going to be all right.
And with the postcard tucked neatly into his inner canopy, he went to sleep for what he hoped would be the last time on the green metal racks of the Lost Property Office.
All night he dreamed of elephants. In the morning, he felt as fresh as a newly rolled umbrella.
P ernickety Boo had a big shock when he arrived at Turnbury Village Hall. There were no Jumbos – just a jumble of clothes and lots of things that could easily be found in the Lost Property Office. All of Pernickety Boo’s dreams and hopes melted away. He had never felt blue before, not once in the five years at Baker Street. He had always seen the sunny side of life in the Lost Property Office.
At the Jumbo Sale, a woman tied a label to him, then put him in an umbrella stand with several other umbrellas – all of whom had nothing to say for themselves, nothing at all. Around him, tables were piled high with lost, unwanted objects. This sale was not what Pernickety Boo had imagined it would be.
When no one was looking, he hopped out of the umbrella stand, bent over and sat under a nearby table. Here Pernickety Boo had a good view of the legs of the people passing by. He hoped they had heads too, but if they did he couldn’t see them. He knew he wouldn’t like to be owned by any of the legs he saw. Perhaps he’d been better off at the Lost Property Office where at least he had lived in hope of one day being found.
He was wondering what to do next when a little girl wearing fairy wings and a clown hat crawled under the table and sat next to him. She was out of breath.
‘Are you all right?’ asked Pernickety Boo.
The little girl looked round to see who had spoken.
‘Were you talking to me?’ she said.
‘Yes,’ said Pernickety Boo. ‘Hello.’
‘I’ve never, ever, ever seen a talking umbrella before. Are you broken?’ she asked.
‘No,’ said Pernickety Boo. ‘Why?’
‘You look as if you’re broken,’ said the little girl.
‘I would have you know I can bend right down and stand up straight and hop about if needed,’ said Pernickety Boo.
‘Amazing,’ said the little girl.
‘And you look amazing. I’ve never seen a little girl close up,’ said Pernickety Boo. ‘Never, ever. Are you an owner?’
‘What’s that?’
‘I’m trying to find out,’ said Pernickety Boo. ‘What are you doing under the table?’
The little girl straightened her clown hat and said, ‘I thought I might be safe here. I’m hiding from Billy Turpin.’ Pernickety Boo liked this little girl. She had blonde hair, a sweet face with a button nose and eyes the colour of the blue lino on the floor of the Lost Property Office.
‘Billy Turpin is out to take my clown hat,’ she explained with a sigh. ‘He’s a pain in the big toe.’
‘Do you have a name?’ asked Pernickety Boo.
‘Of course I do. It’s Sylvie Moonshine. Do you have a name?’
‘I am Pernickety Boo, a well-educated umbrella from The Time Traveller’s Book of Spells.’
‘Georgie would love to meet you.’
‘Who is Georgie?’
‘A prop buyer some of the time and one of my mums all the time.’
‘You have another mum?’ asked Pernickety Boo.
‘Yes, I have two. Georgie is a prop buyer, and Mum makes fairy wings.’
Pernickety Boo wanted to ask what a prop buyer was, but this interesting conversation was rudely interrupted by the freckled face of a boy who squeezed himself under the table.
‘You can’t hide from me,’ he said with a snarl, showing a big gap where his two front teeth should be.
‘Now I’m for it,’ said Sylvie Moonshine.
‘Go away,’ said Pernickety Boo.
‘What did you say?’ said Billy Turpin in a menacing kind of way.
Pernickety Boo didn’t much like this boy. His face was wide and his eyes a little too close together.
‘Go away,’ repeated Pernickety Boo. ‘Go away and bother someone else.’
‘Wow – a talking umbrella! I don’t want that silly clown hat,’ said Billy Turpin, ‘I want THIS.’ And, without so much as a ‘please’ or a ‘would you mind?’, he tried to grab the umbrella.
‘Leave Pernickety Boo alone,’ said Sylvie Moonshine. ‘He’s not yours.’
‘Not yours either,’ said Billy. ‘One pound fifty pence,’ he read from the label tied round Pernickety Boo’s shiny gold collar. ‘I’m going to get Dad, and he’ll buy it for me. So there.’
Pernickety Boo was not the kind of umbrella to put up with being carelessly handled, especially not on a day when he had been bitterly disappointed about elephants. He’d waited five years to find an owner and had just met Sylvie Moonshine, an owner who was well worth waiting for. Sparks shot out of his mouth. They shimmered, then – with a POW! – headed straight for Billy Turpin.
Billy laughed. ‘That’s great! What else can it do?’ And he snatched Pernickety Boo from Sylvie Moonshine’s hands. ‘Does it need batteries? Where do you put them?’ he said, poking his finger into Pernickety Boo’s mouth.
He crawled out from under the table, clutching Pernickety Boo, who slowly straightened himself up as Billy ran into the crowd.
‘Dad, Dad!’ he shouted. ‘Look what I found!’
Billy’s dad was a builder, and he lived next door to Sylvie Moonshine’s granny.
Pernickety Boo wiggled round so he could see Sylvie Moonshine, who was now standing by the table. ‘I’ll be back!’ he shouted to the little girl.
‘No, you won’t. You’ll be mine,’ said Billy Turpin. At the far end of the village hall was a huge man. ‘Dad,’ said Billy, ‘buy me this umbrella. It talks and . . .’
Pernickety Boo took the deepest breath ever and showered Billy Turpin with sparks. Billy was so surprised he let go of Pernickety Boo, and his words were lost as he began to rise into the air.
Mr Turpin stared up at his son, who was now spinning on the ceiling fan. ‘What are you doing? Stop playing about.’
‘Get me down!’ shouted Billy Turpin. He saw Pernickety Boo had hopped back over to Sylvie Moonshine.
‘Hey, that’s my umbrella,’ said Billy Turpin as he spun round and round.
Sylvie Moonshine’s two mums were watching.
‘How did he get up there?’ asked Georgie.
