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The children had gone to bed, Simone and Jan had retired to their suite, and most of the adult visitors had gone home. Only Jinnie, Paolo, Nigel, and Jinnie’s parents remained in the lounge, having a final drink, when Jinnie said, “I have something important to discuss, and I want all your opinions before we make any decisions.”
Jinnie explained how Professor Sanchez had been impressed with the twins’ Spanish language skills and had suggested that Dirk should talk to them and discover just how good their German was, hence why she had invited Dirk and Big Willie to the party. She talked about Dirk suggesting the twins were near genius level and were being held back at school, not progressing as fast as their abilities should allow. Jinnie told them about the Cambridge program, and Nigel grunted and said, “I set that up for just this reason, brilliant children who were in ordinary schools and not encouraged to develop their talents, and so the country lost a genius.”
Jinnie asked, “Should we enrol the twins in this program, or should we let them just be kids and go to the park and play football?” Nigel was the first to speak, saying, “But this is the whole point of the program. The Cambridge lecturers come to the school in normal school time and sit with the kids at the back of the class. There is no pressure on them, they learn at their own pace, which is far above the rest of the class. They go to break with their friends, they have lunch with their friends, and the lecturers can help the class teacher. There are six schools currently in the program, and I hear nothing but good reports. Of course, most of the children are a little bit older than the twins, but I say grab the opportunity with both hands. I bet your two sail through their school exams, get First Class Honours degrees before they are 18.”
Mr Walsh said, “We always thought the twins were exceptional, but we would, they are our grandchildren. But if the two professors are right, then this seems to be an ideal way to get them an advanced education without them missing out on their childhood. If their teachers agree, we say go for it.”
“Thank you,” said Jinnie, “Paolo and I have had a chat, and we are basically of the same opinion, that if the teachers agree, we go for it. Dirk tells me that the program will follow the twins to upper school and virtually guarantees them access to a degree course at Cambridge. I don’t want to tell the twins what could be in store for them, they already think they are special. I don’t want them getting big-headed.”
Larry lay on the floor, apparently sleeping, but in his years at Number Ten he had perfected the technique of pretending to be asleep while listening intently to every word spoken. Larry liked the idea, it meant the twins would be staying in Hadley for years yet, probably more years than he had left. It just meant he would have to work harder on his plan for the family to commit to getting a Maine Coon to replace him when he died.
***
The twins were having a fantastic half term with their visitors. They went to London on the train with Jan and Izzy a couple of times and went to the Science Museum. They had tea at the Ritz, which Willie said was not as good as Ennio’s Worthing. The boat trip down the Thames had been ace, but by far the best had been the visit to the Emirates to see Arsenal Women play and beat Real Madrid Women.
As the last time they had been to the Emirates, they were in the Italian Embassy Box. They had arrived well before kick-off and had what the twins called a “posh” dinner in the box before the game. Once again, Jinnie thought the catering was adequate but was certain that Bearcat Catering (UK) could have done better. She and Sir Nigel rated the experience 8.5 out of 10 but reckoned they could make it 10 out of 10.
But it was all about entertaining the visitors and the twins, and they loved the experience, especially Juliette, who played junior women’s football for a team in Nice and told the twins, “One day I will be playing here for Arsenal, and you will be my guests in the directors’ seats, and I will introduce you to all my teammates.”
Jinnie smiled and thought that would be almost impossible, but Simone whispered, “She is really very good and is playing above her age level, but she is only young and not thinking about boys yet. But I would love to see her play for PSG or Arsenal. I keep telling her, listen to the coaches, play your best, but don’t ignore your schoolwork. You may not become a famous footballer, and then you will need your certificates.” The conversation reminded Jinnie that on Monday, the first day back at school, they were going to the open evening.
***
Jinnie, Paolo, and the two professors walked back to the Lexus from the twins’ school. Dirk said, “Well, I thought that went rather well. Mr Excel confirmed the IQ results and that the twins were way ahead of their age group. They are either top of their class or nearly top in every subject. In fact, he told us the school’s management committee were concerned that they were not capable of giving the twins the education they needed because of the disruption it would cause for the majority of the class.”
“Well, I thought the conversation with Miss Manson was enlightening,” said Jinnie, “I just didn’t realise how frustrated the kids are at school. They always seem so happy to go. I guess it is because they are meeting their friends. Miss Manson seemed to think they are coasting through school and could be doing much better if they were pushed. I was surprised she had not heard of the Cambridge scheme but seemed relieved when you explained it.”
“I was not really surprised,” replied Dirk. “It is not widely advertised, as it is still experimental and expensive. Although I understand Sir Nigel is pressing the Education Secretary to put more money into the scheme and to advertise it to head teachers. The only problems I foresee are getting the agreement of the Hertfordshire County Council Education Committee, I think I might write to all the members, and the fact that the school no longer has the ability to teach German.”
“Yes, she seemed quite enthusiastic when you mentioned that there was no cost to the school budget,” said Paolo. “The fact they have the help of the loanees seemed to bring her on side. I know the university has a rather strict acceptance policy that the twins have to pass to be accepted to the scheme,” he continued, “but both Carlos and I think the twins will sail through any interview the university can throw at them. The interviews are informal, rather like my chat with them, and it will probably be in school and involve maths, English, and maybe French and Italian.”
***
The next day, when the twins were picked up from school by Izzy, Willie said, “I think we are having a school inspection.” “Why is that?” replied Izzy, who knew about the Cambridge scheme but was sworn to secrecy. Millie chimed in, “When we went to Miss Manson for Spanish, there were two men in suits. One talked to us in Spanish and asked us lots of questions, then he had us read out loud from a Spanish newspaper and write a little story.” Willie added, “The other man spoke to us in Italian and kept switching to French. We answered in Italian or French, whichever he asked the question in. Then they asked questions in one language and asked us to reply in another.”
“Did you find it difficult?” asked Izzy. “No,” chorused the twins. Millie added, “It was fun. We often do that with each other.” Willie then said, “When we did reading this afternoon, there was another man in a suit in the class, and he went round the class getting them to read out loud from the book the class is reading. Then Mr Excel told him about the advanced readers and that four of us were allowed to pick our own books and write a diary about what we read and what we thought of the books.”
“He came over to us and looked at our book diaries,” continued Millie. “Then he asked what we were reading currently. We showed him we were reading Alex Rider Book 3, and we both read some for him. We like Alex Rider, he is a teenage spy, and we told him we are going to be spies.”
“I bet there are more men in suits tomorrow when we do maths,” said Willie. “But we also have double PE and art. I wonder how men in suits do PE.”
***
That evening, Jinnie took a phone call from Dirk to update her on the preliminary report from the “inspectors”. Dirk said, “The language lecturers were highly impressed, especially with the twins’ ability to hold a conversation in one language and immediately switch to another almost mid-sentence. The English lecturer was impressed by their essays and said they were way above their age standards, and he loved their book diaries. Only maths to go tomorrow, I don’t for a moment think that is going to be something they fail on. Miss Manson said they were already doing algebra and complex geometry, things that are only normally taught in secondary school.”
“A word of warning,” said Jinnie, “the twins have realised there is something going on but think it is an unannounced school inspection.” “Well, only one more minor inconvenience for them tomorrow,” said Dirk. “The ‘inspectors’, Carlos, and I have already started our report to the university authorities, and we are strongly recommending we enrol the twins in the programme. There is still the minor problem of the school not teaching Italian, French, or German, but I am certain we can overcome that little hurdle.”
Jinnie had no sooner put her mobile down and started to relay the conversation to Paolo than it rang again, with “Unknown Caller” displayed. Jinnie hit the “Talk” slider and said, “Hello.” The voice on the line said, “Good evening, Dame Jinnie. It is Miss Manson. I apologise for ringing in the evening, but I have just had a meeting with the council education committee, and I thought I should tell you the conclusion. The county has its own programme for especially ‘talented’ pupils at a special school in Stevenage, and it was suggested that they should go there. But I pointed out that it was for day students aged over 14, and the twins are only 8 and are considered in the genius category.”
“I further pointed out that the Cambridge programme would cost the county absolutely nothing and would follow the children to their secondary school. I had spoken to the head of Dame Alice Owen’s, and she is more than happy to guarantee placements for the twins. It is an excellent school and has won School of the Decade, but admission is not simple if you live outside its immediate catchment area.”
Miss Manson paused, and Jinnie took the opportunity to say, “I would be delighted if the twins could go there. I know the school very well, both my sister and I, and her husband, went there, and my sister was Head Girl.” “I didn’t know that, Dame Jinnie, that is excellent,” said Miss Manson. “Now I don’t have to sell that part of the emerging plan to you. They have a wonderful language department.” “I know,” said Jinnie, “I got A levels in French and German and went on to Cambridge, where I got a First Class Honours in German with French.”
“Really?” said Miss Manson, “it is no wonder the twins are so good at languages. Anyway, with support from Mrs Nemko, the headmistress at Dame Alice Owen’s, we have won the agreement of the education committee. We only need to get the agreement from Cambridge now.” “I don’t think that will be a problem,” replied Jinnie, “I have just been talking to Professor Shultz, he is the German language inspector and tells me that, even before tomorrow’s maths test, the committee is recommending enrolling the twins in the programme.”
“I am so pleased,” said Miss Manson, “not just for you and the twins, but after that horrible incident with the German gunmen, it will give the school a huge boost.” “There is still a lot to be settled, but the path for the twins’ education is looking very positive,” said Jinnie.
***
Jinnie’s intensive Spanish course was finished, and she was sure she could pass as a Spaniard from Madrid when speaking. Her reading of Spanish was getting better, it was only her written Spanish that still needed work, and Professor Sanchez had left her with a number of exercises to improve this aspect. The twins were disappointed that they were no longer going to see the professor, they realised just how much their Spanish had improved under his tutoring. Jinnie did not tell them that he had volunteered to do two mornings a week in their school. She was still waiting to hear from Alan about helping the Americans or when the twins’ programme was to start, so she buckled down to her daytime job of running TT SuperBurger.
Sir Nigel had agreed to accept the nomination to be the next chairman in February, when Alberto retired, but that left a vacancy for a development director. Nobody could name an internal candidate, so reluctantly she, Alberto, and Sir Nigel had agreed to employ headhunters. The problem with that was that they did not have the slightest idea who, as they normally promoted internally.
Brian had come to the rescue by reluctantly suggesting his brother Neal, who had a small and exclusive agency in Crawley. Neal had driven over to Potters Bar and had immediately struck a rapport with Jinnie but had no one suitable on his books. He suggested placing a carefully worded advert in the Daily Telegraph, confident it would bring in a number of applications. Alberto was reluctant to reveal that SuperBurger was looking for a development director.
Neal assured him that they had done this many times before, and the advertisement would be in the agency’s name and simply say something along the lines of “We have been contracted by a major British-owned international catering company to recruit a development director. The suitable candidate should have ‘xxx’ years’ experience in a relevant senior position and be willing to travel worldwide to develop the business. The remuneration will be in line with the industry norm and agreed following a successful interview.”
Jinnie and Alberto had agreed that this sort of advert was acceptable, but there should be no hint in it as to who the company was, or even a clue such as location. Jinnie then said, “I think this is important, so please word the final approved advert to say, ‘the remuneration will be above the industry norm’, we pride ourselves on paying above average.” The agreed advert would be in Thursday’s paper, and Jinnie hoped she would be able to sit in for the final round of interviews.
Sir Nigel was making good progress with his spreadsheet but was worried that it was coming out to be more than the company could afford. Jinnie ran her eye over the numbers and said, “I think you are forgetting a few things. Yes, it is a lot of money if you just add up the expenditure over the five years the spreadsheet covers. But we are only planning to invest about 20% of the total each year. OK, some of that spending, like an expanded computer room in Potters Bar, is lost money, but look at this line, 57 Auntie JoJo’s in California in year one at $200,000 each. That is the cost of a wholly owned branch. I doubt we have more than 10% company-owned, the rest will be franchises. So convert that into two lines, one with six owned branches at the original $200,000 and 51 at the $10,000 it costs to set up a franchise.”
Jinnie continued, “Then make the same alteration for all the years. A similar thing applies for SuperBurger outlets in California. I do not know what their equivalent numbers are, check with Clive, but I bet they are something similar. Together, that will make a huge difference to expenditure, and do not forget the year one outlets will be turning a profit from year two onwards, year two should be profitable in year three, and so on.”
“Now the winery in California,” said Jinnie, “the vast majority of expenditure is in year one, with not much in year two. We could even get a tiny bit of sales, it is year three when we get enough grapes to make a lot of wine, but do not forget we have acquired a working winery, there will be some income to set against expenditure. Of course, setting up corporate regional offices in California is going to cost, but it is a one-off.”
“Gosh, I have a lot to learn,” said Sir Nigel. “Don’t worry,” replied Jinnie, “just so long as we get these numbers right before we present them to the board. Please don’t think I am being critical, pointing out the mistakes. It is much easier for me to see what is happening when we have it down on a spreadsheet, and I don’t have the time to do it. Oh, it has just struck me, have a look for the same problem in the Auntie JoJo’s expansions in the Caribbean and Latin America, and of course the UK and Europe. I bet just those changes make a huge difference to the proposed annual expenditure.”
Jinnie phoned Andy to check up on how Anderson’s was going. They now had four restaurants, a fifth under construction, and two dark kitchens. “Business is wonderful,” she was told by Andy. “I never dreamed things would happen so fast,” he continued. “We are beginning to think about becoming full-time managers. I am only cooking a couple of nights a week in Worthing now, so I wonder if I should become the group executive chef.”
“I think the answer to that is simple,” replied Jinnie. “Of course you should, it is basically what you are doing now. You sort out the menus, you oversee the head chefs in all your kitchens, you are responsible for quality, preparation, and presentation everywhere. Hand over Worthing to your head chef there, he is very good, and move full-time into your Crawley office. I know your first love is doing the actual cooking, but sooner or later, as the business grows, you are going to have to move to management, and I feel that now is as good a time as any. We really need you in that management position, where you have an overview of everything.” “You have convinced me,” said Andy. “I will start making the arrangements right now.”
***
When Jinnie got home, the twins greeted her and told her another inspector had visited the class that morning during the maths lesson. They had come to the conclusion that the inspectors were looking at Mr Excell and Miss Manson in particular, as they had only spoken to people they were teaching and had not visited other classes. Jinnie smiled internally, they had not realised it was them who were being tested.
Willie said, “The woman looked at some of the class’s sums while they were doing them on a worksheet, then asked why Gordon Deakin, Millie, and I were doing a different worksheet, and Mr Excell explained it was because the one the rest of the class were doing was too easy for us.” Millie added, “She asked us questions about what we were doing, and I told her algebra. She then asked about geometry, and I told her that was our favourite. Then she asked the class who knew what Pythagoras’ theorem was, and only Gordon and us put our hands up.” Willie continued, “She asked about graphs, square roots, and powers, all the special things Mr Excell had been showing us, all the interesting things.”
“Did she say anything else?” asked Jinnie. “Not really,” answered Millie, “she did say she hoped to see us again soon as she said goodbye to the class.” Willie added, “We thought she was nice. I hope Mr Excell and Miss Manson are not in trouble for teaching us different things to the rest of the class.” “I doubt it,” said Jinnie, “it is what teachers do, they teach you, and if you are ahead of the rest of the class, that is good, not bad.”
The twins had gone to bed when Miss Manson rang. “I just wanted to let you know the programme starts a week on Monday,” she said. “We will have loan lecturers in every day helping with English, maths, Spanish, geography, and history. We have a bit of a problem with French, Italian, and German, but in those subjects the twins are so advanced that we have agreed they only need to concentrate on the written side, so it will only be a lesson, maybe two, a week. Your friend Dirk is going to take the German lesson himself on a Wednesday afternoon. I understand it is sports afternoon in Cambridge and Dirk is not teaching. It is also ‘country dancing’ they will be missing, so I expect the twins will prefer German.”
“When will you tell them?” asked Jinnie. “I have been thinking about that,” replied Miss Manson. “I think I will announce it to the class on Friday afternoon before we start the programme. I will tell the class we are going to participate in a test programme, where the top of the class, in certain subjects, will have a special teacher to help Mr Excell. That way kids like Gordon and Archie can benefit from advanced learning as well as the twins. Mr Excell and I are quite relieved, the twins are beginning to strain our teaching abilities.”
***
The call Jinnie had been waiting for came on Friday afternoon just as she was clearing her desk for the weekend. Sir Alan said, “Good afternoon, Jinnie, I am not sure if you will take this as good news or bad news, but the mission has been postponed for a few weeks. Two reasons, the weather in the Caribbean is not good at the moment. It has been wet and stormy, but I understand the Yanks have discovered that they have a batch of bad explosive ammunition in their arsenal. Something about it getting damp, so they are having to manufacture a whole new batch, and that will take them a couple of weeks minimum.”
“Are we looking at November or December for the mission?” asked Jinnie. “I have a Caribbean cruise booked for Christmas and the New Year.” “I am pretty sure it is going to be the last week in November,” replied Alan. “If it looks like running into the Christmas period, I will postpone it. Penny has already told me she and Dan have booked leave over the holidays. I suppose this is your annual family Christmas cruise.” “Absolutely,” replied Jinnie. “If I were to cancel it, the twins would make my life not worth living.”
“I am sure they are practised at that by now,” said Alan. “They are not bad kids really,” replied Jinnie. “In fact, they are a bit too clever, and it has been causing problems at school as they are so far ahead of the rest of the class. They start in a new test programme on Monday, with additional support from a Cambridge University scheme.” “I have heard of that scheme,” said Alan, “but I did not know it included primary school children. I thought it was an accelerated programme for very bright GCSE and A-level students to get them into university quickly.”
“In fact,” Alan continued, “we have just taken on a boy who went through the scheme and got a First Class Honours in Master of Mathematics and is going places.” “I had better not tell my two that,” said Jinnie. “At eight and a half they have already decided they want to be the world’s first restaurant reviewer-spies and are already fluent in Italian, French, German, and now Spanish. It is hard keeping up with them.”
“Who are you dealing with at Cambridge?” asked Alan. “Well, so far it has all been through Dirk and Professor Sanchez,” replied Jinnie. “Excellent,” said Alan. “I can talk to them about the twins’ progress. With those language skills they could be very useful to us in the future.” “Well, that is years and years away,” said Jinnie. “True,” replied Alan, “but we could steer them in the right direction. Do not forget we did it with both you and Penny.”
***
Willie and Millie could not wait to tell their mother about the new scheme starting at school on Monday and were waiting for her as she came in the front door. Between them they told her how Miss Manson had come into the class shortly before home time and told the class about the new experimental scheme starting on Monday, when there would be special “expert” teachers in the class to help Mr Excell with the top pupils. Millie asked, “Mummy, do you think we will be in that top group?”
Jinnie thought for a moment before saying, “I really do not know, you are already having special Spanish lessons. So, if the scheme includes Spanish, I expect you would be in the top group. Then you are ‘advanced readers’, so I would expect the advanced readers to be in the top group.” “I hope you are right, Mummy,” said Willie. “Some of the lessons are too easy and are boring. We like maths, Mr Excell has been teaching us algebra and geometry while the others are doing easy-peasy long division.” “Well, you will know on Monday,” said Jinnie.
Chapter 29 – The Polish Plan
© WorthingGooner 2026
