The Harriet Bean 3-Book Omnibus Read Online Free PDF Page B

singers and musicians.”
    Aunt Veronica explained to him that we wished to see one of the singers.
    “She’s my sister,” she went on. “And this is her niece.”
    At the mention of Aunt Harmonica’s name, the attendant smiled.
    “Well, well!” he said. “Now that you mention it, I can see the resemblance, although I must say you seem a bit … a bit more …”
    “Muscular?” interrupted Aunt Veronica.
    The attendant blushed. “Yes,” he said. “You see, she’s so much more … so much more …”
    “Large?” suggested Aunt Veronica.
    The attendant blushed even further.
    “Er, yes,” he said feebly. “I suppose that’s true.”
    He motioned us to follow him and we began down a dark corridor that seemed to bore into the very heart of the opera house. It was a lovely corridor, with doors opening off into brightly lit dressing rooms and dark, cluttered storerooms. At last the attendant pointed to a half-open door and nodded his head.
    “That’s where she’ll be,” he said. “But make sure you don’t distract her too much. The performance starts in less than fifteen minutes.”
    • • •
    “You go in first,” whispered Aunt Veronica. “Let’s give her a surprise.”
    I was reluctant to do this, but I was given a good shove by Aunt Veronica and soon found myself standing in a dressing room. There were several glittery dresses hanging on a wardrobe door and a bright mirror surrounded by bulbs. On a stool before the mirror, a comfortable-looking woman was applying lipstick to her fleshy red lips. I cleared my throat to attract her attention.
    I think I must have given her a bit of a fright, as she spun around sharply and looked at me with complete surprise.
    “What do you want?” she asked. Then, tossing the lipstick onto the dressing table, she asked me who I was.
    I drew in my breath to give my answer, but suddenly she stopped.
    “Don’t tell me,” she said, rising to her feet to peer more closely at me. “There’s something very familiar about your face.”
    She bent down and stared into my face from a distance of no more than a few inches.Then she drew back and narrowed her eyes. “You don’t have a father called Harold, do you?” she asked.
    It was at this point that Aunt Veronica popped her head round the door.
    “Yes, she does,” she said.
    When she saw Aunt Veronica, Aunt Harmonica burst out with a peal of triumphant laughter.
    “I knew it!” she crowed. “I could tell that she was my niece.”
    Then she hugged me, pressing me against her vast shape, making me feel as if I had been swallowed by a giant pudding. I struggled for breath and eventually broke away from her embrace. Aunt Harmonica was crying with emotion.
    “Oh, what a marvelous day this is turning out to be!” she crooned. “First, the chance to sing a lovely part tonight, and then the visit from you!”
    She sat down, weeping with excitement and emotion. Aunt Veronica helped her dry her eyes and then assisted her to squeeze intoher dress. As Aunt Harmonica dressed, she told us about her job.
    “I would have liked to be the leading lady in operas,” she said wistfully. “And I could sing well enough for that, couldn’t I, Veronica?”
    Aunt Veronica nodded her agreement and Aunt Harmonica went on.
    “But when they discovered I could throw my voice, they wanted me to do something else. They gave me a job as an understudy.”
    She paused, looking at me. “You may not know what an understudy is, Harriet. An understudy is the person who’s ready to take over if a singer gets a sore throat and can’t sing. The show has to go on, as you know, and it’s the understudy who steps in and sings. Anyway, they realized that an understudy who could throw her voice was one in a million. This meant that the first singer could go on the stage as usual and just pretend to sing. She’d just open her mouth, though, and I would throw my voice from the wings. The singers loved this. They got all the cheers and flowers