Starry skies and Gardenias

Chapter 2

"Are you ready?" her father called from the kitchen.

"Yes, almost done," Isabella cried back. 

"Well, you've got to hurry if you want breakfast before we go to the station," her father told her rather waspishly.

"Coming," Isabella groaned.

"If we get late, young lady, you are running after a train," her father said as Isabella trudged into the kitchen.

"That is not physically possible," Isabella shot back. "A human can run at a maximum of forty-five kilometres per hour and a train can run at a maximum of one hundred and sixty to two hundred kilometres an hour,"

"I know I'm considered a genius, but even I have a few limitations that come with being human," she said with a cheeky grin.

Her father snorted. 

"Look at you bragging," he said with a playful glare. 

"Do we go to the library after we return from London?" Isabella asked as she loaded the plates with eggs and toast.

"Yes, I thought that would be better," her father said as he removed the kettle from the stove.

"Hmm, sounds good," Isabella shrugged.

She descended the stairs after her father, who was talking merrily about the export of flowers from Norway, and how they needed a lot of care.

They had barely reached for a back door when there was a loud knock on the front.

"The shop's closed," Her father muttered with a frown.

"Maybe it's for something important," Isabella shrugged. "We can still wait for a bit. We should let them in. One bouquet can't take too much time. . .again, depends,"

Her father sighed. "Yes, depends,"

His hand left the doorknob and walked across the shop, before unlocking the door and pulling it open.

"Mr Jefferson, I presume," the man standing outside said.

"Yes, that is me," Isabella heard her father say. "You are?"

"Ah, I'm Albert McClivert. You can call me Albert," the man replied cheerfully.

The man peered inside, and his eyes found the ten-year-old girl standing a few feet behind her father and smiled at her. 

"Mr Jefferson, this is important," the man said. "I hope you received my letter, stating that I would be visiting today,"

Samuel blinked. He didn't remember getting any letter of that sort.

Then he remembered, he hadn't checked the mailbox for two weeks now.

"Come on in then," he said with a sigh. "I haven't checked the mail, but I suppose if you sent a letter to set the appointment. . ."

"It is about your daughter, Mr Jefferson," the man said entering the shop and following Samuel to the stairs and upstairs to the living room.

"About Isabella?" 

"Yes. And it would be best if she were here too," the man said. "And! The letters in the mailbox should be addressed too,"

Isabella who had followed the two men chirped up. 

"I'll get the mail," she said and hurried out.

"What about my daughter?" Samuel asked staring at the doorway the little girl had just run out of.