Tea with Jam and Dread Read Online Free Page B

indistinguishable from the Baptists in Hernia, except that Agnes doesn’t drink. She is also extremely bright. Why, just look at the advertisement that she eventually placed in a British tabloid, and also on the website that she set up on the internet. I, on the other hand, am a bit of a twit, and a dressmaker’s dummy, when compared to my friend, and I must confess that I didn’t see her advertisement until it had garnered results. More’s the pity.
    FOR PEERS ONLY. You are herewith invited to spend your holiday at The Heiristocracy Haven, in Hernia, Pennsylvania, USA. It is a place where lords and ladies of gentle birth may loll about and lollygag to their hearts desires, far from the prying eyes of telescopic cameras. In fact, toe-sucking is mandatory every Sunday before tea! Hunt to the sound of the hounds – even at night! (This is the land of bear and moose.) If it’s more thrills that you desire, then ride the area’s longest zip line and still be back in time for high jinks, Pennsylvania style. Details upon request.
    The clever and demonstratively worldly woman that she is, it wasn’t long until Agnes managed to snag the Earl of Grimsley-Snodgrass and his wife, Countess Aubrey of Grimsley-Snodgrass, and their three almost grown-up children: Lady Celia and the identical twins, Viscount Rupert and Mr Sebastian. Given that our game plan was to be our ordinary, lackadaisical, overly familiar American selves, Agnes sent them information about how to hire a motor car in either Harrisburg or Pittsburgh and drive themselves down to Hernia and the PennDutch.
    ‘It’s only a two-hour drive,’ she wrote, ‘through the bucolic Pennsylvania countryside. What better way to see the USA?’ She neglected to mention that both cities experience major rush-hour traffic situations, and that the Pennsylvania Turnpike, which connects Hernia to either city, is so rough in places that tyres have been known to burst upon hitting the so-called ‘potholes.’ One family of visiting Canadians managed to launch their teensy foreign car into the abyss of a pothole and, according to that one news channel that Agnes favours, they surfaced again in Harbin, in the far north of China.
    Another challenge that motoring tourists would have to face (which Agnes did
not
mention) was the Allegheny Tunnel. This is where my parents were killed almost thirty years ago, squished to death between a tank truck carrying milk and a semi-trailer loaded to the gills with state-of-the-art running shoes. This tunnel is so long that it is rumoured to have given birth to the Chunnel.
    What came as a total surprise was that the sleek black sedan carrying the party of bluebloods sported
Maryland
plates. Maryland is the state directly to the south of us, the state which is shaped like an open-mouthed, bushytailed rat that is fighting off a winged squirrel. Since one has to use one’s imagination to picture this in the first place, one should then flip the image over on its head to see what I mean. At any rate, it seemed that Agnes’s ‘nobs’ (as she called them) had minds of their own, and had found a better rate flying into Washington, D.C., which is to our southeast. Who could blame the dears?
    ‘Talk about cheeky,’ Agnes muttered as the black stretch limousine rolled to a stop. ‘I even sent them my American Automobile Association maps and highlighted the worthwhile overlooks, and noted which rest areas maintained clean lavatories.’
    ‘Not now, Agnes,’ I said. ‘I forget what you told me. Do I curtsy to the daughter as well, or just the mother?’
    ‘Neither,’ Agnes said. ‘They aren’t royalty, for heaven’s sake, and even if they were, we are not obliged to curtsy because they are not
our
royalty – not anymore, and
more’s the pity
.’
    ‘Agnes,’ I hissed, and properly at that. ‘You’re not only an anglophile; you’re a monarchist!’
    ‘I am not.’
    Nonetheless, Agnes’s eyes fairly bulged as she watched my noble guests