Dream a Little Dream (The Silver Trilogy) (F) Read Online Free PDF

Frognal Academy students had struck me as unpleasant, and even the teachers seemed to be okay. I didn’t have the feeling that I wouldn’t be able to keep up in any subject, the French teacher had praised my good accent, the classrooms were bright and pleasant, and even school lunch had been quite good. The girl who sat next to me in French had taken over from Persephone, entirely unasked, in showing me around, took me to the cafeteria at midday, and introduced me to her friends. I learned from them that the mushy peas were better avoided and that the Autumn Ball would be cool because after the stuffy, official part of it there was going to be a band playing that unfortunately I’d never heard of before. Anyway, as first days at a new school go, mine had been pretty good. Mia’s too.
    So we really ought to have told Lottie all that, but it was nice to have her so sympathetic and concerned for us—especially as the day wasn’t over yet. The worst still lay ahead of us: dinner at Ernest’s place, when we were going to meet his son and daughter. They were seventeen-year-old twins, and if you believed what Ernest said about them, they were models of talent and virtue. I hated them already.
    Lottie seemed to be thinking of this dinner date as well. “I’ve hung up your red velvet skirt and white shirt for this evening, Mia. And I ironed your mother’s blue tea dress for you, Liv.”
    “Why not go the whole hog and make it the little black dress with fake gemstones all over it?” I said sarcastically.
    “Yes, worn with kid gloves and all,” agreed Mia. “Oh, come on, this is only a stupid dinner. On a perfectly ordinary Monday. I’m wearing my jeans.”
    “You’re doing no such thing,” said Lottie. “I want you two showing yourselves in your best light.”
    “What, in Mom’s blue tea dress? What are you wearing, then, Lottie—your Sunday-best dirndl?” Mia and I giggled.
    Lottie looked majestic. She wasn’t taking jokes about traditional dirndl skirts and dresses any more than she’d have us go against Christmas customs. “I would, because you can never go wrong in a dirndl. But I’m staying here with Buttercup.”
    “What? You’re making us go on our own?” cried Mia.
    Lottie didn’t say anything.
    “Oh, I see—Mr. Spencer hasn’t invited you,” I concluded after working it out, and I suddenly had a sinking feeling inside me.
    Mia widened her eyes indignantly. “That stupid, snobby…”
    Lottie immediately began defending Ernest. “It wouldn’t be the right thing to do. After all, you don’t take the nanny to a … a family occasion like this.”
    “But you’re part of our family!” Mia was crumbling up a vanilla crescent, and Buttercup hopefully raised her head. “Talk about arrogance!”
    “No, that’s not it at all,” Lottie contradicted her. “Mr. Spencer’s behavior toward me is always perfectly correct. He’s very nice, a real gentleman, and I’m sure his feelings for your mother are genuine and honorable. He really did his best to find a solution when it turned out that the cottage wouldn’t do. We wouldn’t have found this apartment without his help, and you’d never have been accepted by the Frognal Academy—it’s said to have a waiting list miles long. So you’d better start liking him.” She looked sternly at us. “And you’ll dress properly this evening.”
    The trouble was, Lottie couldn’t look stern any more sucessfully than Buttercup could look ferocious. They both had such cute brown eyes. I loved Lottie so much at that moment, I could have burst with it.
    “Okay,” I said. “If you’ll lend me your dirndl.”
    Mia had a fit of giggles. “Yes, you can never go wrong in Lottie’s dirndl.”
    “I didn’t say you can’t go wrong in my dirndl, I said in a dirndl.” Lottie turned up her nose, threw back her brown curly hair (it looked just like Buttercup’s), and went on in her native German. “I don’t want to disillusion you, my loves, but