Mistletoe Mystery Read Online Free PDF Page A

the familiar pang, Philly asked, “What was
your idea, Puck?”
    “Oh yeah. I nearly forgot with all this romance in the air.
You remember my sister, Rachel? She just got a job as a presenter for a local
news station in this area. I phoned her this morning to ask if we could get a
spot on one of the programmes. She’s going to put it by her producers, but she
thinks it’s just the sort of thing they’ll love, especially in the run up to
Christmas.”
    “That’s brilliant!”
    “Rachel said,” Puck continued, “that sometimes these things
go national too, if it’s considered interesting enough. So I reckon we should
go looking in the attic, and get out some of the old stuff. Rachel said that
the more antiques we can show the better, as it gives the place atmosphere.”
    Philly clapped her hands together. “This is so exciting. I
don’t know what I’d do without you two, honestly.”
    Puck’s sister phoned the next morning to say that she would
be coming at the weekend to film the house, so to have as many details of the
mystery weekend as possible ready.
    The three friends spent the next few days searching the
attic for suitable furniture, paintings and ornaments. The nineteen seventies
orange and brown dralon suite in the drawing room had been artfully covered in
some chintz curtains to make them look more Victorian, and Puck had carried an
old chaise longue down from the attic to add to the atmosphere.
    They decorated the piano in the ballroom with old family
photographs, many of whom Philly did not know. Meg had thrown some patterned
scarves, which she found in the trunks, over the standard lamps in every room
to give each one a warm, comforting glow.
    By the time they had finished, the downstairs rooms, such as
the drawing room, sitting room and dining room, had a look of genteel clutter.
They swept out the ballroom, and polished up the crystal chandeliers, hiring a
polishing machine to make the wooden floor gleam. When they had finished, Puck
took Meg in his arms and swung her around the ballroom.
    “Ah,” said Philly, from the door, “It’s just like Beauty and
the Beast.”
    “Don’t talk about the woman I love like that,” said Puck,
earning himself a nudge in the ribs from Meg.
    “It’s a pity,” Philly said, as they all worked hard to get
the rest of the house ready, “that we could not have at least one room as a classroom.
You know, for the story. I wonder why there are no old desks in the attic.”
    “I suppose the people who ran the school took them with them
when they left,” said Puck. “Maybe we could hunt some down from a bargain sale,
or something.”
    “I don’t think I can afford it. We’ll just have to make do.”
    “We could ask some of our friends who work behind the scenes
in television,” Meg suggested. “There must be loads of desks left over from
Grange Hill.”
    “There’s no time to do it before the weekend,” said Philly,
“but we’ll look at that option before the guests arrive. It would be great,
because we want the story to be realistic. I know what to do! We could have the
guests as extra schoolchildren. Hunt down some old lesson plans from the
fifties. There must be some online. There’d be some fun in that and it would
fill in some of the plot, to give the story realism.”
    “I agree!” said Meg. “See, you are good at this.”
    “The only trouble is,” said Puck, “this was a girl’s school.
Might be difficult to know what to do with any male guests who come for the
weekend.”
    “Oh we could gloss over that and make it unisex for the
purposes of the story,” said Philly. “It doesn’t really matter too much, since
we’re making it all up anyway. But that does give me another idea. What if we
involve the guests properly? Not just as visiting sleuths, but as people in the
story. Once we know who’s coming, we could write a part for them. They won’t
have to remember any lines. We’ll just tell them who or what they’re supposed
to be