Chapter 1

The Birthday

It was eight o’clock, and the fans outside the hotel on Miniver Boulevard had been milling about behind the barriers for hours. It was a hot night and there were the first rumblings of a thunderstorm. The people at the front, who were squashed up against the crowd fences and actually had a chance of seeing the Minivers when they arrived, had been sprayed several times with water to keep them from fainting. The news helicopters, buzzing overhead, sent warm air gusting over the greasy pavements and swept their searchlights over the glass and chrome frontages of the surrounding buildings.

Walkie-talkies clicked and crackled. Security men in blue uniforms looked anxiously at the crowd barriers and stopped the fans who were silly enough to try and jump them. From time to time, limousines pulled up at the end of the long red carpet. Each time this happened, there was a flurry of excitement, but the people who got out were only guests, who passed quickly through the waiting news crews and went into the hotel. In the foyer, encased in perspex and surrounded by admirers, was a shoe box. It was nothing special, just a little red and blue battered bit of cardboard, but it had a security guard all to itself, and from the look on his face and the gun in his belt, it was clear that he meant business. Soon after eight o’clock, a roar went up at the far end of Miniver Boulevard. This time there was no mistake, for the car had a red flag with the sweeping initial M on the bonnet.

‘It’s them! It’s them! It’s the Minivers!’ cried the crowd. As the great black limousine crawled, bit by bit, towards the hotel, the fans swelled forward until the
barriers rocked and sent the security guards scurrying to hold them back. By the time the limousine pulled up at the red carpet, the screams were so deafening it was hard to believe they could get louder. But they did, as the driver got out of the car and produced a step; they got louder as he put the step beside the rear passenger door, and when he opened the door and Rosamund Miniver climbed out of the car, they echoed off the surrounding buildings until it sounded as if their glass fronts must shatter and the whole lot fall down in a heap.

Rosamund Miniver was wearing a red silk halterneck dress, covered with sequins that caught the flash of a thousand cameras. The rich colour made her pale skin look paler, and her dark hair and eyes even darker than they were. A smile broke over her lovely face, and she lifted a small white hand in acknowledgement.

Her sister Emily followed, dressed in shimmering green, with gold sandals on her feet and dozens of sparkling butterflies scattered through her hair. The fans roared, and the Minivers paused to wave again and blow kisses.

‘Rosamund! Rosamund! Happy birthday, Rosamund! We love you, Rosamund! Emily! Emily, we love you, too!’

The two girls linked hands and walked towards the building. Unable to see them, the fans at the back started jostling for position. Children and grown-ups alike were pushed forward, fainting and screaming, until the fences bulged and threatened to give way.

‘Rosamund! Emily!’ they sobbed, as the Minivers disappeared into the building. ‘Come back!’ A few people climbed on each other’s shoulders to catch one
final glimpse, but for most of them, it was hopeless. For Rosamund and Emily Miniver, though slim, dark-haired and beautiful, were not like any other girls alive.

The most famous people in Artemisia were only two feet tall.

…

‘Stupid old thing,’ muttered Rosamund Miniver, as she and Emily were escorted by Ron, their Chief of Security, past the perspex case in the foyer. ‘I don’t know why everyone gets so excited about it. It’s just a shoebox, after all.’

‘It’s your shoe box, Rose,’ said Emily. ‘Don’t forget,most people only get to see it once a year. Of course they find it exciting.’

Rosamund and Emily walked towards the ballroom. As its golden doors were flung open, there was a cascade of applause and a blinding battery of camera flashes. A floodlight swung down from the ceiling to highlight their diminutive figures and the band, which had been playing jazzed-up versions of famous Minivers songs, started playing ‘Happy Birthday’ instead.

It was Rosamund Miniver’s fourteenth birthday. Fourteen years ago she had been found on the steps of the Artemisia Hospital in the same battered shoe box that the fans were admiring in the foyer. The nurse who found the box had been in the very act of dropping it in the rubbish when a faint cry from inside caught her attention. When she removed the lid, she had discovered a tiny naked baby, so small she could have fitted into a child’s sneaker. That was why Rosamund, and later Emily, had been given the surname Miniver. It had been chosen for them by their foster father, Artemisia’s ruler, Papa King, because they were miniature versions of human beings.

Emily’s arrival had been less spectacular. She had turned up four years later in a rush basket on the steps of Miniver House, the miniature mansion Papa King had built for Rosamund to live in with her housekeeper, Millamant. Emily and Rosamund had been together, ever since. When Emily was unhappy, it was Rosamund who made her laugh again; and it was Emily who stopped Rosamund from getting worked up and upset.

Hand in hand, the Miniver sisters made their way through the adoring guests to a central dais. Here, raised above the floor so that they would be on the same level as everyone else, were their miniature dining table and chairs, and, on a separate table, Rosamund’s birthday cake. Millamant had made it, in three pink tiers, with real sugared roses falling in waterfalls down its sides.

The dais overflowed with presents, and in the midst of everything stood a very small woman, Millamant herself.She was wearing a blue dress and flat satin shoes, and her blonde plaits were pinned across the top of her head. She looked, as she usually did, like a tiny human bulldog.

‘Milly! What a beautiful job!’ Rosamund climbed the steps and kissed her. ‘Real roses, too! Look, Emmie, isn’t she clever?’

Millamant went pink. Emily guessed that she, too, had been pleased with the roses, though being Millamant, she would rather have died than admit the fact. Suddenly nother voice spoke directly behind them. Emily jumped.

‘Good evening, Rosamund, Emily.’

A pale woman with drab brown hair had walked, completely uninvited, up the steps. It was Papa King’s daughter Karen, known as Madame. She was standing extremely close and Emily edged protectively nearer to Rosamund’s elbow. Something about Madame always made the Minivers feel nervous, though there was no real reason why it should.

‘I didn’t realise you were coming, Madame,’ said Rosamund. ‘Did we send you an invitation?’

Madame’s plain face flushed unattractively. ‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘Papa King sends you his good wishes – and this present.’ She produced a small pink parcel from her handbag and handed it over with some reluctance.

Rosamund’s guard immediately dropped. ‘From Papa King?’

Ever since Papa King had become ill and Madame had returned from her mysterious exile, Rosamund and Emily had scarcely seen their foster father. Rosamund, who had always adored him, had gone to the palace once and insisted on visiting him. She had come home very upset. Papa King, she had told Emily, was attached to a machine that did his breathing for him, and he had not even recognised her. But if Papa King had remembered her birthday, perhaps he was getting better. Rosamund ripped the giftwrap off the parcel and eagerly opened the tiny box within.

It contained a key.

‘That’s a strange present,’ remarked Millamant.

Rosamund turned the key over. The back was perfectly flat, as if it had been sliced right down the middle.

‘Is this a joke?’ she asked suspiciously. There was noanswer. As unexpectedly as she had arrived Madame had departed, and her beige pants-suit was already beating a retreat into the crowd.

‘Charmed, I’m sure,’ said Millamant. ‘And to think I sent her an invitation.’

‘She’s seen that key before,’ said Emily thoughtfully. ‘Did you see her face? When you took it out, she looked almost sick. She wasn’t expecting it at all. I wonder what it’s for?’

‘If I need to know, Papa King will tell me,’ said Rosamund. ‘As for Madame, good riddance to her.She’s not a real relative, anyway.’ She dropped the key into her diamanté evening bag and snapped it shut.

‘Happy birthday, Rosamund!’ A group of fans, wearing Minivers T-shirts and badges, emerged from the throng of guests. The Vice-President of the Minivers Fan Club, a young man called Titus, went down on his knees before Rosamund with a bunch of roses. Rosamund smiled as she took the flowers from him and buried her face in their fragrant petals.

‘Mmmm. My favourites. Thank you, Titus. You always know just what Emily and I like.’ She handed the roses to an attendant, who was already holding several huge bunches of flowers. One of the women pushed forward a girl who was about Emily’s age.

‘Introduce Fiona, Titus, she’s new,’ she said.

‘Of course,’ said Titus, though for a moment Emily thought he did not look pleased. ‘Rosamund, Emily, this is Fiona Bertram. Her mum, Brenda has just joined our committee.’

‘How do you do?’ Rosamund smiled and reached up to shake Fiona’s hand. Fiona blushed furiously. Emily knew exactly what she was thinking. My goodness, she is so small! I mean, I knew she would be, but she barely comes past my knee. And look at her little hand – why, it’s just like a doll’s! If I shake it too hard, I’ll break it! Some people were actually rude enough to say things like this to the Minivers’ faces, but Fiona had obviously been told how to behave, because she merely asked for an autograph. Rosamund was signing her name with a flourish, taking care to leave room for Emily, when everything went horrendously wrong.

‘Of course,’ Fiona was saying (like a lot of fans, she was trying to sound cool, as if meeting a Miniver was something she did every day), ‘it’s not really your birthday today, is it? I mean, it can’t be, if you were found in that shoe box the way everyone says you were. I expect nobody really knows when your real birthday is –’

Rosamund’s hand stopped moving over the page. For a moment, her expression froze under her carefully applied make-up. Then her lower lip wobbled. A rush of tears welled up in her big dark eyes, the autograph book fell from her hand, and she fled across the ballroom without another word.

‘Rosamund! Rosamund!’ Emily dived into the nearest forest of giant adults. As she squeezed out the other side, she knew immediately that everyone had seen. People were turning this way and that, the shockwaves following Rosamund across the crowded ballroom. Rosamund was heading for a side exit, but at the last moment, she seemed to realise she was too small to reach the door handle. She veered, ran onto the stage where the band was, and vanished through the silver curtains at the back.

Emily hurried after her. ‘For goodness sake, start playing!’ she hissed to the guitarist as she passed him, for the band had stopped dead and the party had ground to a halt. As she followed Rosamund through the curtains, Emily heard their latest hit start up again behind her, and the terrible sound of Rosamund’s weeping ahead.
The backstage area was not large: just a dusty, dimly lit space draped with black curtains. Emily picked her way carefully over snaking ropes of cable. Rosamund was sitting on a plastic crate, her tiny shoulders convulsed with sobs. She had wrenched the heel off one of her diamanté sandals, and tears were streaming uncontrollably down her face.

Emily knelt beside her. ‘Rosamund, Rosamund what’s the matter?’ She reached out her arms and Rosamund clung to her hysterically. Her hot tears flooded over Emily’s bare shoulders, and they held each other close.

‘Oh, Emmie, I’m so unhappy.’

‘But Rose, why? She didn’t mean any harm. I mean, I don’t know when my real birthday is either –’

‘Emmie! Don’t!’

There was the sound of footsteps. Emily saw Millamant picking her way towards them. ‘Please Rose,’ said Emily. ‘Please try and stop crying. You can’t storm out of your own party. You have to let the guests know you’re all right.’

‘I’m not all right!’ Rosamund wailed. ‘This is the worst day of my life. Oh, Milly, my face! I must look like a freak.’ And indeed, there was so much eye shadow and mascara streaming down Rosamund’s cheeks that she looked as if she had two black eyes.

‘I said you were wearing too much make-up,’ said Millamant sternly. Rosamund choked and laughed through her sobs. Even Emily managed to smile.

‘Why don’t I tell everyone you’re sick? That you’ll be back in a few minutes.’
Rosamund shook her head.

‘I can’t go back,’ she said. ‘I just can’t. Please, Emily. Don’t make me. I just want to go home.’

Emily looked at her sister’s tear-stained face. She still did not understand what was happening, but she knew Rosamund must be really upset to have broken down in front of her fans. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘I’ll make an announcement.’

Emily walked back to the wings. In the darkness, she unexpectedly bumped into Ron.

‘Tell the band to stop playing,’ Emily ordered him. ‘Then help Rosamund to the car. You’ll need to have it sent to the back entrance so no one sees.’ She straightened her shoulders. The band was still playing, but at a gesture from Ron, they stopped. The lights in the ballroom dimmed. The guests, who had been milling around, gathered in clumps at the front of the stage.

Emily took a deep breath and walked out onto the stage. The ballroom seemed full of huge sweaty shapes, all staring at her, waiting for her to speak. Cameras flashed and news cameras zoomed in close, but Emily had been appearing on television all her life. She could not remember a time when she had not been in front of one camera or another, and it did not bother her that they were there. The band’s guitarist handed Emily a microphone. A spotlight swung down on her tiny figure and she began to speak.

‘Tonight is a special time for a very special person. My sister Rosamund is fourteen years old. I’m sure you’d all like to join with me in wishing her a happy birthday.’ Emily paused, and there was a warm scattering of applause. ‘Unfortunately, Rosamund has been taken ill. She has had to leave the party and will soon be going home. I know she is disappointed, but it will cheer her up if you can join with me in singing her ‘Happy Birthday’.’

The band struck up. Emily sang the first phrase into her microphone and, after a ragged start, the crowd warmed up and sang along with her. As she reached the last line, Emily started walking slowly back across the stage. Suddenly, in the midst of the crowd, in front of Rosamund’s forgotten birthday cake, her eyes caught sight of Madame. Of everyone in the room, she alone was not singing. She was gazing at Emily with an expression that was almost like hunger it was so intense.

A great fear, unlike anything she had ever felt before, took hold of Emily’s heart. The song ended, the spotlight went out. Emily fled the stage while it was still in darkness. The wind of change was in the air, but as yet she had no way of telling in which direction it was blowing.

Stay tuned for the second chapter next month!