Little Eden Read online

  “What level of spiritual consciousness are you on Mr Fortune?” Miss Huggins asked Jack, as she took some photos of the shop from the top of the ladder.

  “Oh, I’m not sure what to believe.” Jack smiled. “It’s much simpler just to think there is one life and this is it. And, that we should enjoy it as much as we can.”

  Miss Huggins smiled down at him from her vantage point. “Well, that is one way to cope with life’s trials and tribulations, I guess. Yet, it puzzles me that you are surrounded by so much esoteric knowledge but you are not interested in it?”

  Jack grinned. “Just because it’s written in a book doesn’t make it true, now does it?”

  “Gee, I can’t argue with that!” Miss Huggins laughed as she came back down the ladder. Jack took the opportunity to hold her hand as she stepped back onto the balcony floor. “I find the written word is very powerful indeed, don’t you?” Miss Huggins said. “For good or bad! Look at some of the philosophies that have taken hold through literature - Nazism, Communism, Existentialism - to name but a few. Written and spoken words create spells and beliefs that can take us over like a virus in the mind. One has to be very careful not to find oneself brainwashed by fear.”

  Jack shrugged. “Meditation, praying - all this spiritual stuff - that’s brainwashing too though, isn’t it?” he suggested.

  Miss Huggins nodded in agreement. “Of course it is! Everything is brainwashing when you think about it! Whether it’s watching television, listening to the radio, surfing the net, or even reading a newspaper or a magazine.” She looked out of the window across the square to a 19th Century illustration painted on the side of one of the old buildings, depicting a monk holding a bucket full of suds, advertising Friars Soap. She nodded towards it and Jack glanced over. “Advertising can capture you very easily, play on your desire to be better thought of by others. Does it matter which brand of soap you use if it gets the job done? No, of course it doesn’t! But we humans make it matter, and we spread that belief through words and images every day. We cannot escape brainwashing. We wash our brains with information every day and we don’t even think about what we are washing it with. Most people just go with the flow, never thinking about what they are hearing or seeing.” Adela looked at the books around her and caught sight of the Dalai Lama smiling on the cover of one of his books. “I would rather wash my brain with love and compassion.”

  “Well!” Jack laughed. “I can’t argue with that I suppose!”

  Back down on the ground floor, the friends were sitting on the sofas in the window, enjoying their hot drinks and some of Devlin’s handmade chocolates. He, handily for them, had his Chocolaterie just across the square, in Rose Walk.

  “Jack is a smitten kitten!” Minnie giggled, lifting her feet up into a moon-shaped easy chair and hugging her mug of ginger tea.

  “I don’t think he stands much of a chance though,” Linnet said, as she sank into some large cushions scattered on a deep pink leather Chesterfield sofa.

  “Why not?” Lucy asked. “She would be the first woman to say no to Jack in a very long time!”

  “She is too intelligent!” Linnet replied.

  “Jack isn’t exactly a dunce!” Lucy rebuked her.

  “I am not saying he is!” Linnet said. “But, she is…” Linnet paused for a moment whilst she thought of the right way to describe her new acquaintance. “She is one of those women who needs an exceptional man - you know - a really confident man! Not arrogant, but who is intelligent and caring. One who knows how to share his life without taking more than he can give in return.”

  “Well, that explains why she’s single!” Minnie laughed.

  “What about Robert? She might fancy him!” Lucy suggested.

  “No! I know! What about Devlin?” Minnie giggled, sampling one of his delicious chocolates. “He’s very intelligent and good-looking too; if a little younger than her perhaps?”

  Linnet protested. “I don’t know why we always presume everyone is straight and in want of a man!”

  “That is true!” Minnie agreed. “She may prefer you, Linnet!”

  “Don’t be silly Minnie!” Linnet replied. “Why do you always have to suggest I may not be faithful to you when it is much more likely it’s you who would go elsewhere?”

  “Oh, Linnet!” Minnie said, kissing her. “You are so insecure it’s kind of sweet! I wouldn’t worry! I think with a figure and a face like that, Miss Adela Huggins may break a few men’s and women’s hearts during her time in Little Eden!”

  “Shhh,” Linnet said. “They’re coming back down!”

  “Did you find them?” Lucy asked Adela as she came to join them on the sofas.

  “Yes, thank you,” Adela replied, smiling. “I sent my brother the pictures. He will think this is the British Library!” She sat down, and looking around again said, “I think I bought a book from here once. It must have been about eight years ago, online. I am sure I did! Do the books come wrapped in brown paper and string with a label that says:

  Thank you for purchasing your wisdom from Daisy Place

  “Yes!” Lucy replied with a grin. “We still wrap them all up like that. Oh! How much fun that you have already been here in spirit!”

  “How could I not remember?” Adela said. “How small the world really is! I remember the brown paper because it seemed so old-fashioned and traditional.”

  “You may find most of Little Eden a little old-fashioned and traditional for your taste!” Linnet said. She couldn’t help wondering if Minnie did fancy Adela after all, and now felt a tinge of suspicion about the new addition to their party!

  “But that’s what I like about this whole place!” Miss Huggins replied. “I felt a sense of deja-vu the moment we stepped off the underground at Eve Street.”

  “Robert likes to blend the best of the past with the best of the future, together,” Lucy said.

  “Robert is almost a revolutionary in the way that he sees the world! I think he must have been Benjamin Franklin, or some such person, in a previous life,” Adela said. She looked around at the friends. “Sorry, I’m presuming you believe in reincarnation?” They all nodded - except for Jack, who just shrugged.

  “He came here apparently.” Minnie said.

  “Who?” Linnet asked.

  “Benjamin Franklin!” Minnie replied. “They say he came to the Café here in Daisy Place to discuss the politics of the day. Or, so the stories go. Forward thinking is a thing Little Eden is used to, and equality too. Suffragettes used to meet in this very Café, and in fact, this was the first coffee house in London that didn’t exclude women. Although, I do have a sneaky feeling that when it was the old coaching inn in the 1400’s it may also have been a brothel!”

  “This is why I am going to love it here!” Miss Huggins said.

  They all looked at her in surprise.

  “Oh, not because it was a brothel!” She laughed. “But because of the history and the legacy of Little Eden. I believe we need to build a future on firm foundations. Not on the foundations of a brothel of course!” She laughed again. “We must build on the best parts of the past. US history shows us that it is not a good idea to just sweep the past away without regard or understanding. But, it is also time for a new start. I feel it, don’t you? 2012! There is something exciting in the air. Something big is about to happen.

  Chapter 6

  ~ * ~

  The friends sat around talking, in the Bookshop, for the rest of the afternoon. They had decided that they liked Miss Huggins very much, and she felt as if she was one of them already. They quizzed her about the new school that she’d come to set up in Little Eden.

  “It’s exciting to think that we’ll have the first Star Child Academy in the world here in Little Eden,” Lucy smiled, “The old school has lain empty for thirty years and now it’s coming back to life again.”

  “You have a huge task
ahead of you!” Linnet told Miss Huggins. “When will the school be ready?”

  “I hope to have the new staff settled for the Easter intake,” Miss Huggins replied.

  “I’m rather sceptical about this star child stuff myself.” Linnet professed. “Too far-fetched if you ask me! I’m going along with it because of Lucy and Lilly really. I don’t see that Alice is much different from any other child her age. But they tell me that she is a star child, or crystal child or indigo; whatever the fashionable labels are these days. They say she needs a different type of schooling if she’s to flourish. I admit she struggles with aspects of her schooling, but who doesn’t?”

  “There is a lot of nonsense written about such things, this is true!” Miss Huggins admitted. “One must be careful not to be dragged into wild conspiracy theories. Star children are only different from other people because their consciousness vibrates at a higher rate than others. Instead of feeling human, they feel the Earth is a foreign place, and often they want to ‘go home’. But they don’t always know what they mean by ‘home’. They can get lonely and confused in a human body. To some of them it can feel like being trapped in a very small, dark room, which is full of evil words and violent deeds; and they cannot get out!”

  “Alice says that sometimes,” Linnet nodded, “That she wants to ‘go home’. But I think she means where we lived before, in Hampstead.”

  “You know she doesn’t mean there!” Minnie said, a little impatiently. “She doesn’t even remember where you lived before - she was too young. She’s said to me a few times that home is up where the stars are; and she says that everyone is green where she comes from, but most other people from the stars are blue. She thinks humans can be very mean to each other; and she doesn’t understand why.”

  “Earth is a scary place for some star children,” Miss Huggins agreed. “Their chakras and meridians do not fit their physical bodies as they should do. For them, it can be like being a round peg in a square hole - and they can really feel like aliens sent to Earth.”

  “You’re not going to tell them all they are little green men are you?” Linnet said, rather horrified.

  “Of course not!” Miss Huggins replied. “If the children at the school need to talk about ‘home’ they can, and if not - then they do not need to. And besides, not all the children at the school will be star children. We welcome any sensitive souls. That’s why the philosophy behind Little Eden Star Child Academy is: ‘nurturing, compassion and confidence’. I believe happy children learn better than unhappy ones, and everyone should learn to get along together - no matter where their soul might have come from originally. We all need to stick together for the common good, to think globally and to be inclusive. It’s not a new philosophy. It’s as ancient as Moses going up the mountain or Buddha sitting beneath his tree. Compassion and respect are at the core of everything, or at least, they should be.”

  Linnet frowned. She had imagined the Star Child Academy would just be for sensitive or gifted children and not be quite so ‘out there’. She looked around the Bookshop and felt as if she was the alien there!

  “How do you know what type of soul someone is?” Jack asked, confused by the whole idea. “Isn’t a soul just a soul and that’s that?”

  “Why should it just be so simple?” Miss Huggins replied and smiled. She looked at Jack quizzically and then added, “You, for example, are a white knight soul, that is obvious.”

  “Is it?” Jack said, not sure if she was serious or not. He wanted to ask what a white knight soul was but wasn’t sure he really wanted an answer.

  Miss Huggins elaborated for him anyway, “A white knight soul is a cross-breed of angelic and elemental mixed together.” She interlaced her fingers to illustrate the point. “They were created to fight evil, and when necessary, to go to war with other humans who have been taken over by evil. Of course, the whole ‘knight thing’ got corrupted, just like everything else does down here. It lost its true purpose and became an excuse to slaughter people in the name of God.”

  “Oh, I see,” Jack replied.

  He didn’t really see at all, but when he thought about it later on it made sense to him that he would be a white knight. He felt as if his purpose in life was to protect others from harm, and he felt an affinity with the idea of fighting evil.

  “Well! I am excited about teaching the children arts and crafts,” Minnie said, trying to change the subject, as she could see Linnet was getting more agitated and unhappy with the way the conversation was going.

  “I don’t suppose you would like to be a teaching assistant would you Lucy?” Adela asked her. “I need two more before term starts.”

  Lucy shook her head. “Too busy I’m afraid.”

  “What about Sophie?” Jack suggested. “She would make a great TA. If we can get Sophie some work here in Little Eden she may consider staying here with us permanently.”

  “She can’t work full-time though, and we mustn’t push her into thinking she has to work at all,” Lucy replied.

  “Yes,” Linnet agreed. “But you know how proud and independent your sister is. Even if she thought she could contribute to her keep, even a little, she would be more comfortable with staying.”

  “It’s criminal that she can’t get any Disability Living Allowance for chronic fatigue. There’s no help out there.” Minnie sighed, feeling very sorry for Sophie, and a little afraid of what might happen to her should she fall ill as Sophie had done. Her shop was all she had, and all her shop had, was her!”

  “What did your sister do before she became ill?” Miss Huggins asked.

  “She trained as a lawyer, but her ill health meant she couldn’t work full-time, so she never really got a career going. Every time she was getting somewhere she would get a severe bout of chronic fatigue; and a few months ago she had to give up her job and her home completely and come and live with us. It comes and goes, you see, the fatigue. It’s like a virus that just never goes away. She’s an empath and she’s a bit psychic too.”

  “I look forward to meeting her!” Miss Huggins said.

  “Sophie would be an asset wherever she was,” Jack said. “Although, don’t go into any crypts with her! I learnt my lesson last night.”

  “And Mr Fortune, are you interested in teaching our children something?” Miss Huggins said, turning to him.

  Jack grinned. “All I know about is antiques, I’m afraid, and not much about that really!”

  “Antiques?” Miss Huggins asked. “You mean old tables and chairs?”

  “Jack has the antique shop across the square. Fortune Antiques. It was his mother’s,” Lucy told Adela. “He doesn’t sell tables and chairs; although he can get those things if you need anything like that. He gets us our vintage china and plates for the Café. But mainly he sells ancient things, like Roman figurines and Greek pots, even fossils and dinosaurs.”

  “That sounds perfect for children!” Miss Huggins exclaimed.

  “Oh! I am not that good with children really,” Jack replied, grinning and leaning back in his chair.

  “Nonsense!” all the girls said in unison.

  “Don’t listen to him!” Lucy said. “He is like an uncle, big brother and best friend to my Tambo, and he has taught both Tambo and Alice to climb, swim, dive, fish and goodness knows what else. That’s when he is with us, mind you! He goes all over the world looking for treasures. He’s quite the Bear Grylls of Little Eden.”

  “Well, I would rather teach the children how to survive in the wilderness than about antiques,” Jack said, smiling at Miss Huggins. “How about I take you out for dinner sometime? Perhaps we can discuss it?”

  “Oh, I don’t mix business with pleasure Mr Fortune,” Miss Huggins said, smiling. “I will send you an application form and I hope to see you at the general meeting in a few weeks’ time!”

  The girls couldn’t help smiling too!

  ~ * ~<
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  Just as it was getting dark, about three o’clock, the kids all came back from their snowy adventures. Miss Huggins said her thank yous and goodbyes, and ventured out into the frosty white air again.

  Adela and Joshua made their way through the snowy streets to their new house, which Robert had provided for them. It was just a few streets away on Accoucher Lane, behind the varied collection of old school buildings which had once been a foundling hospital.

  Joshua had already fallen in love with Little Eden, the snow, and his new friends. He didn’t stop talking about his afternoon all the way home. He talked incessantly from Daisy Place, all the way down Dovecote Street. He kept pushing snow off the tops of walls and railings as he trudged. When he found a particularly deep patch, he would jump into it with both feet. He was so intrigued by the coloured street lights and all that was around him, that he didn’t even care about his soaking wet trainers and jeans. He kept checking if there really were cars buried under the piles of snow by pushing it off their bonnets. Their noses and cheeks were burning red and huge snowflakes started to float out of the almost invisible sky, but it didn’t faze Joshua who just kept on talking! This is a snippet of what he had to say:

  “Momma! You should have seen the size of the Christmas tree! There’s a huge lake with a massive turtle-shaped island in the middle. Tambo says you can take boats out in the summer and go and sit on it. He said it’s a god called Atishu.”

  “I think you might mean Vishnu?” Adela smiled.

  Joshua shrugged and continued, “There’s a big open-air theatre. Tambo says they have awesome concerts there and he sings in them sometimes - in public! He’s like a real pop star! How sick is that? Can I have a new drum set this week? Tambo says we can start a band. Can I Momma? Oh, Momma, you must come and see the big house. It’s epic! There were people in orange robes, like at Long Beach. They gave us lemonade but I couldn’t have the cookies ‘cause they had wheat in them. They’d made a big Buddha out of snow. Alice said that the little boy, Blue, can’t eat wheat. He’s a Tulku. What’s a Tulku, Momma? Is that someone who can’t eat wheat?”