Angola Gaffletter Chapter 3.

Chapter Three.

 

The Teenage Years.

 

Angola was one of the lucky ones. In Nether Wintle, most girls left school at eleven or twelve to help at home or go into service. But Angola stayed until she was thirteen. Her parents weren’t spoiling her, they simply recognised her ability. Even Miss Ganner, who rarely praised anyone, admitted that Angola had “a mind like a well‑sorted haberdashery drawer.”

When the time came for her Leavers Certificate, Angola didn’t just pass, she sailed through it.

Her handwriting was neat enough to impress a printer.

Her arithmetic was exact.

Her geography was crisp.

Her scripture was spotless.

The examiner, a stern man who didn’t hand out compliments lightly, wrote “excellent deportment” in the margin, though he wasn’t entirely sure how posture helped with long division.

Angola accepted the certificate with a small, satisfied nod.

Botswana clapped happily.

Sudan tried to eat the envelope.

Botswana, meanwhile, struggled, not because she wasn’t clever, but because she was Botswana. Her mind wandered like a warm breeze across a summer meadow.

She could read perfectly well, but sometimes forgot to turn the page.

She could write neatly, but only when she remembered she was meant to be writing.

She could do arithmetic, unless the numbers reminded her of beetles.

She could recite scripture, though she occasionally drifted into describing an interesting bird she’d seen outside the window.

Her teachers called her “easily distracted.”

Her mother called her “dreamy.”

Angola said she was “not applying herself.”

Botswana asked, “Oh, was I meant to be doing that?”

She did pass her Leavers Certificate, eventually. It took three attempts, two lost pencils, one hedgehog incident, and a stern talk from Miss Ganner about posture, purpose, and finishing what one started. The examiner finally passed her because she was bright enough to do so, and because he decided her “sweet nature” surely counted for something.

By fourteen, Angola was no longer just helping in the shop. She had quietly become her father’s right hand.

Corning Muppert discovered that when Angola handled the wool buyers, everything ran smoother. Customers left happier. The accounts balanced themselves as if by magic.

Angola did not believe in magic. She believed in method.

She judged wool quality with the same precision she used for scripture.

She negotiated prices calmly, making grown farmers stand straighter.

She managed stock as if the shelves were part of her own mind.

She kept accounts so tidy that even Miss Ganner admitted they were “commendably neat.”

Profits rose. Corning noticed. He began giving Angola a say in buying decisions, and eventually a small share of the profits. Angola didn’t spend a penny. She saved every farthing.

Yet despite her skill, Angola never visited the mills or the weavers’ sheds. That sort of travelling was for commercial men with boots made for mud, not for a young woman whose sense of propriety included staying within the parish unless absolutely necessary.

She didn’t need to tramp across the countryside to learn her trade. The countryside came to her.

Corning occasionally suggested she might like to see how cloth was made, but Angola declined politely. She saw no reason to visit noisy places full of machinery and men shouting over looms. She preferred the quiet order of the drapery, where wool arrived washed, sorted, and ready for her judgement.

It was one of her guiding principles:

Travel is unnecessary when information can be brought to you.

And so, despite becoming the village’s most reliable wool buyer, Angola never set foot in a mill. She never visited a weaver’s loft or saw a loom in motion. She didn’t need to. Her world was the drapery, the ledger, the counter, and the farmers who trusted her completely.

While Angola was quietly running her father’s business, Botswana left school, not in disgrace, but in gentle relief.

A difficult family discussion followed. It involved good intentions, raised voices, a misplaced pencil, and ended with Botswana bursting into tears. She fled the house, not dramatically, but with the hurt confusion of someone who genuinely didn’t understand what she had done wrong.

As she walked down the High Street wiping her eyes, she stopped outside the saddler’s shop. Mr Horsefeather stood in the doorway holding a broom and looking very hot and bothered. The broom was clearly winning.

Moved by instinct, Botswana gently took the broom from his hand and began sweeping. Not quickly, and not efficiently, but kindly.

Mr Horsefeather watched her for several minutes, leaning against the doorframe and breathing heavily.

At last he said, “Alright then.”

And that was it. Botswana had a job. She didn’t apply. She didn’t interview. She didn’t even realise she’d been hired. She simply swept, and Mr Horsefeather accepted it. It was the first of many things Botswana would learn entirely by accident.

Botswana didn’t train for anything. She simply lived, and learning happened to her the way weather did, quietly, without her noticing, and often while she was thinking about something else.

Her first skill came from standing too close to the counter. Customers spoke to her, and she answered politely. They asked for advice; she gave it. She learned how to greet people warmly, how to listen without interrupting, how to soothe tempers, and how to make strangers feel welcome. Mr Horsefeather noticed customers left calmer than they arrived. He never understood how, and neither did Botswana.

She never set out to tidy anything. She picked things up simply because they were in her way. In doing so, she learned sweeping (in wide, hopeful arcs), dusting (when reminded), wiping surfaces (if someone pointed at them), and opening windows (to let out the strong smell of saddle soap). Her housekeeping was never Angola‑level, but it kept the shop from descending into chaos.

The saddler’s horse adored her. She fed it, brushed it, talked to it, and occasionally confided secrets to it. From this, she learned how to calm nervous animals and recognise when something was wrong.

When Mr Horsefeather let her take payments, it resulted in two lost coins, one jam‑covered banknote, a ledger entry reading “Paid in feathers,” and a memorable incident involving a hedgehog and the cash drawer. But through it all, she learned how to give change, write down amounts, keep a basic tally, and notice if someone was underpaying.

She was never good at accounts, certainly not like Angola, but she possessed something Angola’s perfect ledgers could never measure: a shop full of contented customers and a horse that nickered softly whenever she walked through the door.

Her repair skills came from being asked to “hold this,” “fetch that,” or “don’t let go of this strap.” Soon she knew how to mend small tears, patch leather, sew simple seams, and improvise repairs with whatever was at hand.

Beneath her dreamy nature lay a quiet gift. She could tell instantly whether someone was kind, honest, or lonely. She knew who needed a cup of tea, and who was likely to forget their change.

Botswana’s cookery education began the same way everything else did: completely by accident.

It started with tea. Mr Horsefeather drank tea as if it were medicine. One afternoon, while wrestling with a stubborn saddle strap, he muttered, “Put the kettle on, will you?” without checking who was nearby.

Botswana obeyed. She filled the kettle too full, lit the stove with great ceremony, and warmed the teapot simply because she liked the idea. She poured the tea with both hands, her tongue tucked between her teeth in concentration.

Mr Horsefeather took a sip, paused, and said, “That’s actually not bad.”

Botswana beamed. She had no idea what she’d done right, but from then on, she made the tea. She learned its moods, its colours, and its secrets, eventually knowing it was ready just by the sound of the bubbles.

Toast came next. Mr Horsefeather believed toast could solve most human problems. Botswana made it because she liked the smell. Her early attempts were enthusiastic, one slice burnt beyond recognition, another pale and apologetic, but she soon discovered the exact distance bread needed to be from the fire to turn golden.

Soup arrived one winter when Mr Horsefeather caught a cold so dramatic it deserved its own chapter. Wrapped in a blanket, he looked like a disgruntled owl. Botswana, moved by compassion, decided to make him something warm.

She put into a pot water, carrots, onions, a potato, something she thought might be a turnip, and a sprig of a garden plant that smelled nice. She stirred solemnly.

The result was surprisingly good. Mr Horsefeather drank two bowls and declared himself revived. Botswana had invented soup. She made it again the next day, and the next, learning how vegetables behaved when chopped, how flavours changed when simmered, and how salt could be both friend and enemy.

Baking arrived through kindness. Travellers often brought small gifts, apples, eggs, flour, honey, and Botswana felt obliged to make something with them. She produced apple tarts that leaned to one side, honey biscuits that stuck together in friendly clumps, and loaves of bread that rose in unexpected directions. None of it was tidy, but all of it was delicious.

Timing was her final accidental skill. Botswana never used a clock; she cooked by instinct. She knew food was ready when the smell was right, when the bubbles looked friendly, or when the crust turned the colour of autumn leaves.

This method should not have worked.

It did.

By sixteen, Botswana could feed anyone who wandered into the saddler’s shop: travellers, farmers, lost children, and once, a vicar who fainted in the doorway. She never thought of herself as a cook. She simply fed people because they looked hungry.

Between the two sisters, though neither would ever admit it, the Muppert girls had the whole village of Nether Wintle completely covered.