Read Alice-Miranda on Vacation for Free Online Page B

me if you can’t eat all your dinner.” Mrs. Greening busied herself clearing the teacups and plates into a stack on the sink.
    “We won’t,” said Alice-Miranda, folding her napkin too.
    “Thank you for tea, Mrs. Greening.” Jacinta pushed her chair out and carried the cake tray to the sideboard, where she placed it down carefully.
    “It was my pleasure, dear,” Mrs. Greening replied. “Now you’d better get a move on or the phone will start ringing any moment.”
    After much tickling of ankles in the garden (to Jacinta’s disgust), the girls finally tore themselves away from Betsy. They headed back toward the Hall with the sun low in the sky and casting shadows over the driveway.
    “I can hear Birdy!” Alice-Miranda stopped to listen.
    “Do you mean your helicopter? You must have bionic hearing, because I can’t hear a thing—except that cow over there,” Jacinta replied.
    Alice-Miranda surveyed the skies around them. “There he is.” She pointed toward a
very
small dot a
very
long way off.
    “Come on, let’s go and see Daddy.” Alice-Miranda set off at a gallop.
    By the time the girls reached the paddock directly in front of the house, Cyril was maneuvering Birdy in to land. Alice-Miranda and Jacinta waved furiously as they waited for the rotors to shut off. Chocolate curls flying, Alice-Miranda ran to greet her father, who was out of the chopper and charging toward her. Hugh Kennington-Jones scooped his little daughter into his arms and gave her a smacking great kiss. The high-pitched whine of the rotors suddenly gave way to silence as Birdy shuddered to a halt.
    “Hello, Jacinta, it’s lovely to see you again.” Hugh put Alice-Miranda down and gave Jacinta an affectionate hug. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here this morning, girls, I had some urgent business in town. But now that’s all done and I’ve brought someone home with me I’d like you to meet.”
    “Who is it, Daddy?” Alice-Miranda peered back toward Birdy.
    A tall man emerged from the helicopter. His tousled black hair matched his piercing dark eyes. He wore an emerald-colored jacket, well-fitting jeans and an extraordinary ruffled shirt that made him look a little like a pirate—albeit a very stylish one.
    “Goodness.” Jacinta stared. “Who’s that?” she whispered behind her hand to Alice-Miranda.

T he man strode toward them, a chocolate leather overnight bag slung casually across his left shoulder. He placed it on the ground when he reached the group.
    “Lawrence Ridley, this is my daughter, Alice-Miranda, and her friend Jacinta Headlington-Bear,” said Hugh.
    “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Ridley.” Alice-Miranda offered him her tiny hand.
    “And you too.” He nodded.
    He offered his hand to Jacinta as well, and she shook it vigorously.
    “Your father has told me quite a lot about you,Alice-Miranda. It seems you are something of a matchmaker.” Mr. Ridley smiled, revealing a picket-fence row of dazzling white teeth.
    “Daddy does go on,” Alice-Miranda replied. “I just helped Mr. Grump find his true love again. He was lost in the mountains—well, not really lost, but he was lost because he didn’t know what he wanted to do anymore and then he told me all about his wife and how she was killed so tragically and then his daughter, Amelia, went to my school and he met Miss Grimm, my headmistress, and they fell in love but then Amelia got sick and it was all so sad—”
    “Goodness, darling, you can take a breath,” her father interrupted.
    “It’s all right, Alice-Miranda—your father did mention something about you being quite the world champion talker too,” Lawrence joked.
    Alice-Miranda rolled her eyes and grinned.
    “Anyway, apparently I look just like Amelia and that was part of the reason Miss Grimm was so cross with me all the time but then Daddy sent Birdy to get Mr. Grump and he and Mummy helped him get all cleaned up and then he came back to school and it was so romantic. They got married