The Truth About Verity Sparks by Susan Green Page A

sorrow. That is all.”
    “What about you, Verity? Have you tried?”
    I put the lucky piece on my palm and closed my hand and shut my eyes and waited. Nothing. Nothing at all.
    “It is clearly a case for the Confidential Agents,” said Miss Lillingsworth. “Or for …” She turned to the Professor and whispered something in his ear. He turned to me with a serious expression on his face.
    “That is for Verity to say,” he said.
    “But of course, Saddy.”
    “Verity, Maria would like you to go to a gathering with her.”
    “What sort of gathering, if you please, ma’am?”
    “A seance.”
    Another word I didn’t know. I looked from her to the Professor.
    “A seance is a meeting of people who are seeking to communicate with the departed,” he said. “Spiritualists believe that–”
    SP broke in. “Please, Father. You promised.”
    I looked from one to the other. What were they talking about?
    SP turned to me. “A seance is a meeting with the dead.”

11
POISON-PENS
    I said yes. But that night when I was lying sleepless in my bed I began to wish I hadn’t. This was getting in too deep. How many times had I longed for a word, just one loving word, from Ma since she’d passed? But when it came down to it, did I really want to speak to her? As far as I understood it, when you died you went up to heaven. And stayed there, “peacefully resting”, as it said on Ma’s gravestone. But Miss Lillingsworth seemed to think that dead people were all around us in some kind of spirit world. Just floating around. It didn’t seem right nor natural.
    The seance was in a week’s time. I would have moped and fretted until then, and worn out the lucky piece with putting it on and off and staring at it as if it could talk. But that morning, the letters began.
    The first one came from “a friend”.
    Verity Sparks
,
    Who do you think you are? Get back to the gutter where you belong or something bad will happen. That’s a promise
.
    A friend
    No address. It hadn’t been posted, either – no stamp – so someone must have come up to the house and put it in the letterbox. But who? Miss Charlotte came to mind. She was the only person I could think of who’d bear me a grudge, and since I didn’t care two hoots about her, I just screwed it up and put it in the rubbish where it belonged.
    The next one came not to the Plush household, but to the Professor’s cousin, Mrs Honoria Dalrymple. We only knew what was in it because that afternoon at teatime there was the sound of a carriage coming down the drive.
    “Who could that be?” asked the Professor, looking up from the anchovy toast. “Have you invited anyone to tea, my dears?”
    Before any of us could answer there was a tremendous banging at the door, and instead of waiting to be let in, a tall red-haired woman rushed into the room, huffing and puffing like an engine.
    “Sit down, dear Honoria,” said the Professor, pulling up a chair for her. “You look close to an apoplexy.”
    “Explain this!” she cried, thrusting a letter at him. “It was hand-delivered this very morning, and I came as soon as I could.” She turned and stared at me with a most unfriendly expression on her face. “And this, I suppose, is the young person, Verity Sparks?” She said my name like a horse had done its business right under her nose. All I could do was stand and curtsey, while she stood there breathing heavily, one hand clutched to her huge bosom. “Read it, Saddington.”
    Shaking his head, he began.
    “Dear Mrs Dalrymple
,
    I am writing to you as one who holds family honour dear, and does not like to see RESPECTABLE people imposed upon by GUTTERSNIPES who are only out to feather their own nests and ensnare innocent and well-meaning people into entanglements which may prove DETRIMENTAL to their reputations
.
    Did you know that your cousin’s daughter, Miss Judith Plush, has as a constant companion AND LIVING IN THE SAME HOUSE, a common young person, Verity Sparks, who was until