A Charm of Powerful Trouble Read Online Free PDF Page B

and the thrill of an encounter with a handsome young man without his shirt in a woman's bedroom. She said, as casually as she could, ‘Are you in love with him?’
    Flora hugged her knees to her chest and laughed. ‘Love?’ she said, and kept laughing as if it was the funniest thing she'd ever heard. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I'm not in love, though I love some things about him.’
    Emma was ashamed of the way her voice had cracked when she'd asked. She kept her eyes on her page, glancing up at Flora from time to time as she worked. The room was silent, but for the sound of Emma's crayon moving swiftly across the paper.
    Though she hadn't admitted it to herself, Emma was intoxicated by Frank, by his gleaming muscled back and narrow hips, his smile, and especially his laugh; the way he looked at women as if he could consider eating them up. The indefinable but unmistakable smell of sex.

S O THERE were Stella and Paris, intruding on our summer holidays, filling up the house and taking our mother's attention and wandering endlessly in the garden. I was amazed how two people could fill so much space and be everywhere at once.
    Late in the afternoon, with the light seeping through the trees and into the darkened living room, Paris caught me looking at her. She turned her head slowly on her slender neck and then looked away again.
    I escaped to Lizzie's room. ‘When are they going to go home?’ I asked her, even though they'd only just arrived.
    Lizzie shrugged. She took very little notice of the visitors, and avoided them by going off to the shed where she could practise the guitar in peace, putting the amp up until there was a satisfying amount of feedback.

    Paris found plenty to interest her on that long summer holiday she spent with us. She took Chloe into the hills where they wandered on narrow paths made by cattle. They found a dead steer, black with flies. Chloe told me about it. ‘Paris poked it with a stick - poked it in the bum where all the maggots were.’
    They found a rotten wallaby carcass that had been gnawed by wild dogs. Paris managed to detach the head, and took it back to the kitchen where, unobserved by anyone but Chloe (hands over her mouth to suppress the giggles), she boiled it up to clean the meat from the bone. The stench brought everyone to the kitchen, exclaiming loudly. Paris told Emma she wanted to have a clean wallaby skull to take home with her, but Emma took the pot a long way from the house and tipped it out. ‘I think we'll let the ants do the rest,’ she told Paris.
    Paris, with her cool, appraising eyes, noted a pleasing side effect of what she'd done: Emma was annoyed with her.
    Later, when she and Chloe were helping Lizzie with the dishes, Paris deliberately dropped a dinner plate on the floor while Lizzie was bent over the sink. Lizzie turned immediately at the crash, her plait swingng behind her. ‘Stand back!’ she ordered, her arms held out to the sides to ward people away. Everything Lizzie did was done with solemn intent, and every shard of crockery and sliver of glaze was swept dutifully into the dustpan.
    With Lizzie back at the sink again, Paris took another plate and held it in the air. She motioned to Chloe to do the same, and the plates crashed to the floor at the same time.
    â€˜Sorry,’ said Paris. ‘It was an accident.’
    Lizzie began scornfully to sweep up the pieces of broken plate. ‘It has to be done properly,’ she said, when Paris insincerely offered to help. ‘I don't care,’ said Paris under her breath, but Chloe felt Lizzie's silent wrath acutely.
    â€˜We'd better behave ourselves,’ whispered Chloe.
    â€˜Not me!’ said Paris.
    Chloe giggled, and they ran to their room, where Chloe collapsed onto the bed hugging herself with delight. She'd found that it was much more interesting to be bad than to be good.

    One day Claudio and Stella talked in the dining room for hours