The Listmaker by Robin Klein Page B

though. She was chattering away to Aunty Nat like an old village gossip.
    â€˜â€¦ no need to go all the way down to Moreton. The local cinema gets all the new movies at the same time they do.
Plus
there’s a half-price double feature every Monday.’
    â€˜Really? Well, I’ll certainly take advantage of that.’
    â€˜And the best video shop is the one next to the newsagency. It’s got a bigger range than the arcade one.’
    â€˜Thanks, dear. Next time we hire videos, I’ll check it out.’
    â€˜The Wilkinsons own it. They live out near the reservoir, and Dad’s going to landscape their backyard when they get around to deciding what they want. Mr W. likes traditional gardens and she likes bush ones. Tim Wilkinson – that’s their kid – delivers the local paper in this street. He’s in the archery club I belong to.’
    â€˜Sarah, wouldn’t
you
like to try archery? It would be a nice hobby for the holidays,’ Aunty Nat said, but I just made a sound that could mean yes, maybe, or no way.
    â€˜There’s plenty of other things to do up here as well as archery,’ Corrie said, still waffling on about Parchment Hills. ‘They’ve got canoes for hire up at the lake this year. The Quigleys run the kiosk up there. I take their dog for a walk every afternoon, because they don’t get home till late in summer. They live down the hill in Number Eleven. Oh, and I’d better tell you the best place to park if you ever have to go to the hospital in an emergency. That hospital car park’s only tiny, so it’s always full up. But if you drive further round the corner into Ganan Street, there’s a …’
    None of it interested me; Parchment Hills wouldn’t even be part of my life very soon. I gave my pillow a good thump, thinking how easily Corrie Ryder seemed to slot into everything, as though the whole area was just an extension of her own house! Perhaps she saw the whole world like that, too. If she ever found herself adrift on a raft, no doubt she’d feel completely at home
there
, and probably just look forward to the experience of eating raw fish! And the way that prize traitor Horace had been slurping up to her from the moment she’d set foot in Avian Cottage, you’d think
she
was raw fish!
    â€˜Well, I’d better let you girls get some sleep,’ Aunty Nat said, tucking in my bedspread, brushing back my hair, kissing me on the forehead, then giving me a little pat on the cheek.
    For as long as I could remember, that had been a kind of ritual whenever I stayed with the aunts. Aunty Nat’s hands always smelled of jasmine lotion. She kept jars of it all over the house, so she could pamper her hands every chance she got. (Eileen Holloway made the lotion as a ceramics sideline.) It was babyish, but being tucked into bed last thing at night was something I quite often missed when I was back at school. Once, I’d secretly taken a jar of that hand lotion back with me, and when I felt miserable at night, I’d take off the lid to smell the jasmine.
    â€˜Night, Sarah. And thanks for letting me stay at your place,’ Corrie said, after Aunty Nat had switched off all the lights and gone away upstairs.
    â€˜That’s okay,’ I said politely, though it wasn’t anything to do with me and had just happened because Aunty Nat was being neighbourly over the fence. Horace, who’d parked himself on Corrie’s mattress, stirred at the sound of my voice but was too lazy to jump back to where he rightfully belonged. (Which was in his sleeping basket next to
my
bed.)
    â€˜You’ll have to come over and sleep one night at our house. Only if you
want
to, of course. Mum reckons you probably get sick of being around other kids all the time because of boarding school.’
    As soon as she came out with that, I knew they’d been talking about me behind my back.
    â€˜Not really,’ I said