wings | bbc ghosts

4 | settling in

So how has life been going for Violet since she settled in with everyone? Well the other ghosts soon came to accept her, and she did forgive Robin.

"This one go dooka dooka," he pointed out to her. Sometimes Violet would play chess with Robin when Julian was preoccupied and when Alison wasn't around to play.

"Hmmm ok, I'll move my knight here..."

"Aha! Checkmate!"

She really wished the others played chess with Robin too, she never won against him. Sometimes Humphrey's head happened to be in the room to listen as they played. This was mostly because Violet would often call one of the ghosts to bring Humphrey in so he could feel more involved, she felt bad that he was excluded, accidentally of course.

~~~~~

Violet soon became integrated into the morning routine of the ghosts. By the time she got out of bed, there was already music playing for Thomas and she would be greeted with his excitement of the song. It was normally a solo activity for him to enjoy on his own but Violet liked to test his reactions.

She started dancing alongside him but doing big exaggerated movements with her arms, shaking her head to the music.

"You dance much less gracefully than dear Alison," Thomas pointed out, judging her whilst making more distance between them to let his creativity flow.

"Not this Berk again!" Julian said as he walked past, rolling his eyes.

"Just because you don't have taste!" Violet called after him whilst now imitating the same moves as Thomas.

Mike walked out after having a shower to see Violet dancing on her own and talking into thin air.
"I will never get used to it..." he muttered.

"Oh hi Mike! Alison went that way!"

~~~~~

Violet was happy when she found out she was in the same room as Kitty. Although she could be quite emotional, her easy going demeanour and positive outlook on things was quite refreshing to be around. Violet would say to anyone that asked, you couldn't help but like Kitty. Of course there was a wariness at first...

"Just so you know, Alison is my best friend." Kitty said, turning over in bed to face Violet.

"We can be best friends too you know, you can have more than one."

"Oh yay! Me, Alison and Violet, all best of friends! That's so lovely!" Kitty beamed.

And onwards from there, when it was lights out for bed in Button House, Kitty had a sleepover to look forward to every night.

On occasions Kitty would join Mary and Violet on Lady Button's etiquette class. She'd easily be distracted by something else however, normally leaving the three to it.

"Now, Mary, Violet, I expect the posture of a lady from the both of you."

Violet's back clicked as she straightened up and held her head high.

"There be little people ins your body making strangest noises Violet," Mary looked at Violet curiously.

"Ladies don't mumble!"

"That's just my back clicking Mary,"

"Oh I supposes that makes sense."

"Now for how you walk gracefully..."

And believe it or not, the posture lessons from Lady Button would actually help Violet. After a long day of helping out Mike and Alison with the gardening or doing some maintenance work on the house, practising her posture was the one thing that was helping massively. From time to time she'd even get a compliment:

"I see I have taught you well, Violet,"

Violet took that on and it only motivated her further. She needed all the motivation she could get sometimes, especially with particular residents in the house.

"Well Patrick, I just don't see why I would participate in such horseplay as a game of Twister."

"Horseplay? Get over yourself, have some fun pal!"

"Excuse me I do have fun, from time to time I recite Churchill's speech-"

"Mate forget about that, and let's see which ones you land on."

"Forget? One does not simply forget about the war Patrick. That attitude will get you nowhere I'm afraid."

Violet had had enough.
"Right, shut it! Captain, Pat just wants everyone to get involved and have a fun game of Twister. There is no harm in that at all. Pat, the Captain can't just forget unfortunately, just like you cannot forget about all of your different scouts activities. You both have things in your lives that you find fun and that are important to you, you've just got to understand that they can be different things.

Now, make up with each other."

And then she'd walk away and leave them to it, might as well.

~~~~~

The most stand out experience of getting to know the ghosts was probably when there was a special club meeting to formally introduce Violet to everyone. One by one they went around saying their names, but when it came to a particular ghost, she couldn't help but recognise them.

"Hello I'm Julian Fawcett. You've probably not heard of me I don't think I was in your time but I was a very credible-"

"Julian Fawcett?"

"Yes that's my name, I did just say that. Anyways back to me being a-"

"Aren't you that politician that died in a sex scandal?"

Some of the other ghosts wince at the word 'died'.

"How did you know that?" Julian was embarrassed that someone who wasn't even alive during the time he was in parliament had known about his fate. Stupid Viki Pedia telling everyone about him.

"Oh well my Gran-
Someone I knew told me about what had happened, they were not the biggest fans of the Tories and so the situation came to light as a... bad example, you could say?" Violet explained, feeling a bit bad for Julian due to him being a bit subdued in this conversation.

"But if it makes you feel better you're not the only one who's had scandalous things written about them,"

Julian's ears perked up.

"There was the Prime Minister David Cameron, apparently he had sex with a dead pig during his university life. And if that's what he was getting up to in university, well it makes you think, what happened behind closed doors?"

Julian was horrified.

"It must be the Tories..." Violet ended the turning awkward conversation.

She was settling in just fine.