Adrian Mole and The Weapons of Mass Destruction Read Free Page B

annotations and exclamation marks in red ink. But Mr Carlton-Hayes intervened and offered the woman £15. Sometimes I feel as though I work in a charity shop rather than Leicester’s oldest-established second-hand and antiquarian bookshop.
    However, just as we were about to close a young woman came in and asked if we had a copy of
Soft Furnishings for Your Regency Doll’s House
. As far as I could make out, she had a passably good figure and a not-bad face. She had the thin wrists and fingers I like in a woman. So I spent some time pretending to search the racks.
    I said, ‘Are you sure such a title exists?’
    She said that she had once owned a copy but had lent it to a fellow doll’s house hobbyist who had emigrated to Australia, taking the book with her. I commiserated with her and listed all the books I had loaned over the years and had never seen again. She told me that she had a collection of eighteen doll’s houses and that she had made most of the soft furnishings herself, including upholstering the tiny chairs and hanging the tiny curtains. I mentioned that I would need some curtains making when I moved into my new loft apartment and asked her if she would be interested. She said the longest curtains she had ever made were only six inches in length.
    Her hair could do with a colour-wash to brighten it up a bit, but her eyes are a pretty blue behind her glasses.I told her that I would search the Internet tonight when I got home and asked her to call back tomorrow.
    I asked for a name and telephone contact number.
    ‘My name is M. Flowers,’ she said. ‘I haven’t got a mobile, because of the health risk, but you can contact me on my parents’ landline.’ And she gave me the number.
    Mr Carlton-Hayes said, ‘She works in Country Organics, the health food shop in the marketplace.’
    We went into the back. I counted the takings; Mr Carlton-Hayes sat behind his desk, smoking his pipe and reading a book entitled
Persia: The Birthplace of Civilization
.
    I asked him what had happened to Persia.
    He said, ‘It turned into Iraq, my dear.’
    When I got home to Ashby de la Zouch, I hurried to my room, switched my laptop on and typed ‘Soft Furnishings for Your Regency Doll’s House’ into Google. It came up with 281 sites. I clicked on Wood Books.com and they offered me a title,
Making Period Doll’s House Furniture
by Derek and Sheila Rowbottom, but they didn’t actually mention Regency, so I tried McMurray’s Books, who offered me two which might be suitable,
Soft Furnishings for Your Doll’s House
at $14.95 and
Miniature Embroidery for the Georgian Doll’s House: Queen Anne, Early and Late Georgian and Regency Styles
at $21.95.
    I immediately rang the telephone number given to me by M. Flowers.
    A man answered. He boomed, ‘Michael Flowers here. To whom am I speaking?’
    I said I was Adrian Mole from the bookshop and would like to speak to Ms Flowers.
    The man shouted, ‘Marigold!Chap from the bookshop.’
    So her name is Marigold Flowers. No wonder she didn’t give me her full name. She took some time to come to the phone. While I waited I could hear Rolf Harris singing ‘Jake the Peg’ in the background. When that came to an end, ‘Two Little Boys’ started up. Was it possible that somebody in Marigold’s family had a long-playing record, cassette, CD or video of Rolf Harris singing and was actually
playing
it?
    Eventually Marigold said quietly, ‘Hello. Sorry I took so long. I was at a tricky stage with the shepherd’s pie.’
    ‘Eating it or making it?’ I joked.
    ‘Oh, making it,’ she said gravely. ‘If one doesn’t distribute the carrot rings evenly, it throws the whole thing out of kilter.’
    I agreed and said that she was obviously a perfectionist, like me. I told her about the titles I had tracked down. She said that she already had a copy of
Soft Furnishings for Your Doll’s House
, but she sounded enthusiastic about the
Miniature Embroidery
book and asked me to order a