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I was taking Felix a mid-morning cup of coffee in the study where he was working on a tight deadline for one of his clients, when my phone rang in the kitchen. I clonked the mug down on the desk, slopping the coffee over the edge in my hurry to reach the phone before it stopped ringing. I snatched it up, checking the caller — the headmistress of Jimbo’s high school. My heart flipped over as any sister’s would.
“Is that Madame Munro, James Munro’s guardian?” she asked.
My mouth was so dry I could barely answer.
“Madame, I need you to collect your brother at once. I have suspended him for the rest of the school term for unacceptable behavior.”
“Oh, no! What has he done?” I bleated into the phone.
“Come at once and I will tell you,” she ordered in a no-nonsense tone and closed the call.
Jimbo in trouble for being unruly? That didn’t sound like him. Yes, he was mischievous from time to time as any healthy boy is, but he’d always been biddable and helpful. To hear that he’d been acting out at school was a shock.
“Enough guesswork,” I told myself. “You’d better get a move on and fetch him.”
Ignoring Felix’s Do Not Disturb note on the study door, I rushed in without knocking and gave him the news. He raised his eyebrows at me and was shaking his head in bewilderment as I hurried out into the hallway. That left Gwinny. Gwinny’s the biological mother of Sam and Jimbo, my younger brothers, and me, Mpenzi Munro, Penzi to friends and family. I stress biological because she’d bolted when Jimbo was a toddler, only returning to the family nest when we moved to the little seaside town of Beaucoup-sur-Mer in France. I’d filled in as surrogate mother for the seven years she was missing, while she was off finding herself with a group of druids in Brittany. Hence the headmistress’s call to me and not Gwinny.
Strangely for Gwinny, she’d not come downstairs to prepare breakfast for us that morning. I’d assumed she’d tired herself out gardening the day before and had let her sleep in. Now, I called up the stairs to her while I hunted around for my car keys, stepping cautiously over the five puppies from Zig’s latest litter, Zig being one of our pair of German shepherds.
Gwinny’s bedroom door opened. She appeared on the landing in her dressing gown and slippers, tousled and still half asleep.
“Sorry, oh, sorry,” she called back, rubbing her face with her hands. “I can’t believe I slept so late. Let me come down and help clear up the breakfast things.”
She took a couple of steps forward, tripped on the belt of her gown, made a fruitless grab at the banister, lost her balance and slipped over the edge of the top stair and fell headlong. I dashed forwards to break her fall but was a nanosecond too late. Fortunately, she landed with a bump, her legs screwed up beneath her. I say fortunately because she didn’t hit her head on the stone floor of the hallway, but that was the lesser of the two evils. I slotted my hands under her arms to support her. She screamed and clutched at her right leg where her shin bone was poking up under the skin.
I pushed her gently down as she tried to get up. “Stay down. It’s serious. You’ve obviously broken your bone.”
She’d turned pale and her breaths were coming short and fast as she panted from the pain. I dashed into the kitchen to dial for the emergency services and made the call. Ten minutes, they said. Jimbo would have to wait. He’d come to no harm with the headmistress whilst Gwinny needed me. I filled a glass with cold water from the tap and snatched up a cushion and hurried out to Gwinny, calling for Felix to help me.
“What now?” he asked in an uncharacteristically bad-tempered way as he burst out of the study. “Oh no,” he said, dropping his belligerent tone for one of great gentleness when he saw the state of poor Gwinny.
“Let’s heave her backwards towards the bottom step so she has something to lean on,” he instructed me.
We placed the cushion between her back and the step. I held the glass to her lips.
Gwinny took a few sips, then waved the glass away. “It’s shooting all the way up my leg. Do you think I’ve broken my hip?” she asked in a tremulous voice and burst into quiet sobs.
I fetched a damp tea towel and sat down on the step beside her to hold it to her forehead. She was shaking from the pain and the shock. Felix disappeared to find a blanket and returned to cover her.
“Why did you call me?” she asked.
Not wanting to add to her distress, I told her I’d wanted to warn her I was going out.
“You can go now, Penzi. Felix will keep me company until the ambulance arrives.”
Felix added, “Yes, go. You must fetch Jimbo.”
Gwinny tried to get up when she heard that. “What’s happened to Jimbo?” she asked.
Gwinny may have been an absentee mother for seven years, but she’d been making up for lost time with Jimbo since her return. Jimbo loved that he now had a real mother.
I didn’t have time to argue with her. The ambulance hee-hawed at the bottom of the street as it turned in off the Esplanade. Good, she’d soon be on her way to A&E and I could make speed for the high school. The paramedics bustled about with efficiency, giving Gwinny a shot to dull the pain, loading her onto a stretcher and taking her out to slide her into the back of their vehicle.
I gave her a pat on the shoulder, a kiss still being too intimate in view of our past, and promised I’d visit the hospital as soon as I’d sorted out the Jimbo problem, not realizing then how serious the problem was. Felix and I stood on the doorstep waving her off, forgetting to close the front door in the midst of the kerfuffle. Suddenly, a ball of fur dashed between my legs and ran out into the street right in front of the path of the ambulance.
“Close the door,” I shouted to Felix.
The driver of the ambulance was seated so high up off the ground, he wouldn’t be able to see the pup. Not the proverbial three bad things in a row? Adrenaline surged through me and I threw myself down the steps and ran over to the door of the ambulance. I knocked on the window, catching the driver with his hand on the gear lever and gave him the cut it off signal. He buzzed down his window.
“Puppy, puppy!” I shouted at him as I ran up the road after the adventurous little dog.
Felix joined me in the pursuit, both of us amazed at how fast the puppy’s little legs could carry him. We caught up with him halfway towards the Esplanade. He wouldn’t have stood a chance if he’d reached the traffic. I picked the rascal up. Felix and I made our way back to the house and waved the ambulance on its way.
“That was too close,” I said to Felix as we entered the hallway and Felix shut the front door firmly behind us. “With the Jimbo crisis and Gwinny’s accident, a dead or injured puppy would have made today even worse than it’s been so far. Now, I’ll have to face Jimbo’s headmistress and find out what he’s done to deserve being suspended.”

Jimbo’s high school is outside the medieval town walls in an area back from the coastline on the southern side of Beaucoup-sur-Mer. This was his first year. He’d been doing well until now, so I was perplexed at the headmistress’s action. Surely, if he’d committed some misdemeanor against the school rules, a warning would have been sufficient. Not a full-out suspension. I hoped it wouldn’t extend beyond the end of term because that was only two weeks away with the prospect of two months’ summer holiday to follow. That would give us time to find out what had gone wrong and set Jimbo back on the path of righteousness, ready for the next school year.
I swirled into the parking lot and stopped with a jolt. My actions still governed by the adrenaline from the puppy incident. Up the steps I ran, taking them two at a time and along the corridor to the headmistress’s office. I turned the corner to find Jimbo sitting beside the door. I ran up to him, alarmed at the sight. His clothes were adrift with bloodstains down the front of his shirt, telling of a nosebleed. His freckles stood out on his pale skin and his red hair was sticking up in damp spikes.
“It wasn’t my fault,” he said, getting slowly to his feet at my approach. “I didn’t start it, but the headmistress won’t listen to me.”
I put my arm around him. “Shush,” I said. “I’m sure it can all be worked out. Now, tuck your shirt in.” I pulled my comb out of my purse and handed it to him. “Use this. Tidy yourself up.”
I waited until he looked more presentable before knocking on the office door. On being bidden to enter, I opened the door and shepherded Jimbo in front of me.
“You called me, Madame Sukand?” I began.
“Yes, yes,” she said. “Please take a seat. James can sit over there in the corner.”
I waited while she looked me up and down and cocked her head at Jimbo. “James has been giving us trouble this term. I know it’s his first year at high school and his reports from primary school were excellent, but we cannot tolerate punch-ups in the playground.”
I caught Jimbo out of the corner of my eye. He was straightening up, ready to protest, but I shook my head at him and he sank back down.
“Perhaps you’d tell me what he’s done that merits a suspension, madame,” I said at last, breaking the heavy silence.
“James attacked another boy. Apparently, with great aggression. Witnesses say he beat up on the other boy. In fact, James broke the boy’s nose. His parents are furious and threatening to sue the school. You do understand we have to administer a severe penalty. So, James must stay away until the next school year. Maybe that will give you time to modify his behavior.”
“Of course, I’ll do what needs to be done. I have no alternative but to accept your ruling, Madame Sukand. However, I would like to ask you if you investigated the cause of the fight between the two boys.”
“The cause is irrelevant. Breaking another boy’s nose is not acceptable conduct here on the school grounds.”

Apart from Jimbo saying several times, “I told you, Penzi. She wouldn’t listen,” we didn’t speak on the way home. The question of why Jimbo’s behavior had changed nagged at me. Jimbo fell silent, cowed in his seat, staring at his feet.
“Where’s Mum?” he asked as we entered the hallway. “Perhaps she’ll be on my side. No one else is.”
I gathered him in close, ignoring his attempts to shake me off. “Gwinny’s at the hospital receiving emergency treatment. She fell down the stairs and broke her leg. Anyway, it’s not that I’m not on your side. I wanted to get home quickly so that I can visit Gwinny and see if she’s allowed to come home yet.”
Jimbo drew back from me. His lips quivered. He took a deep breath. It didn’t work, and he collapsed into soft sobs and ran off into the garden. I knocked on Felix’s study door, braving his displeasure again, but this was serious.
“Can’t a man get any peace in this house? This project has to be finished today, Penzi. You know that. What is it now?”
Felix is my assistant, friend and bodyguard. He was sent to me by my father, Sir Archibald Munro, a famous anthropologist who was reported to have been killed in the Middle Congo. A beautiful Savannah cat when he arrived, Felix frightened the life out of me when he shifted into a man. Yes, he’s a shifter and not only can he be a cat or a man, he can also turn into a leopard. In this case a leopard can change his spots when the occasion calls for it. Usually he is helpful, calm and considerate, and so I put down his irritability to the pressure of work. However, I needed the helpful Felix with Gwinny in hospital and Jimbo in disgrace and distress.
“Felix, please, I need your help. It’ll only take a few minutes. I’ve collected Jimbo from school. Unfortunately, he’s in such a state, he’s treating me as an authority figure in league with the headmistress. I need you to come and be a chap. Give him some support. We need to get to the bottom of his untypical behavior.”
Felix’s expression changed at once from one of displeasure to one of consideration, the hard lines falling away from his face and a soft smile taking their place.
He clicked save on his computer and hurried round his desk to put his arm around my shoulder. “Lead me to the naughty boy. Let’s see what a touch of male camaraderie will do for him.”
I left Felix to make his way out onto the verandah at the back of the house while I made up a tray of cool drinks and a plate of Gwinny’s excellent chocolate chip cookies, always a favorite with Jimbo. Felix and Jimbo sat on the steps down into the garden, talking earnestly. I didn’t want to break their rapport, so I placed the tray on the table and pulled out a chair. I sat down to wait for them to include me in their conversation. I hadn’t had time up till then to appreciate the beauty of the July morning. Summer in the south west of France is a magical time. The sky a clear Madonna blue. The sea a deep navy and dotted with a pleasure craft closer to the shore with the larger fishing vessels out on the horizon. It was beautiful, but anything but quiet. Seagulls squawked, smaller birds peeped and twittered, and the bees were humming up a crescendo as they went about their business pollinating the flowers of the garden and making their delicious honey.
It had been a terrible morning so far, but I knew in my heart that we would solve the problems it had thrown up. We’d have to install a safety gate near the front door to keep the puppies from harm, Gwinny was in the caring hands of the excellent French health system and would recover the use of her leg, and we would find out what had upset Jimbo so much that he’d started a fight at school and broken a fellow pupil’s nose.
However, I’d forgotten about the outside world and the horrible things people can do to each other.