I Am Not Esther Read Online Free PDF Page B

to their skins. Aunt Naomi frowned and lectured me. The boys were sent to change and I had to help cook dinner. I had to make a plum pudding with a sponge top and my aunt didn’t have an electric beater. Rebecca was doing the ironing and Rachel was kneading bread dough. There was an embroidered text on the wall that said, ‘the devil finds work for idle hands’. When Uncle Caleb and Daniel camehome, my uncle sat at the kitchen table and asked, ‘Wife, have the children upheld the Rule, this day?’
    Maggie was sitting at the table shelling peas and she whimpered. I grinned at her but my heart was beating faster and that made me mad. I would be me, not some dorky drip called Esther. Aunt Naomi told him how I’d brought the boys home soaking wet.
    He didn’t look at me, just told us all to go to his study. I hoped the dinner would burn. We knelt and I suppose they all shut their eyes, but I didn’t, although I bowed my head so Uncle Caleb couldn’t see my eyes were open.
    I tried not to listen, but couldn’t help it. He went on about how my lack of discipline was a sad lapse and how with the help of the Lord I would learn to uphold the Rule so as not to grieve the Lord. I learned during that session that this stupid rule they kept on about meant you couldn’t do anything a normal kid would do.
    ‘Help our beloved daughter Esther to guard her tongue so that her speech may be seemly. Help her to speak without shortening her words. Help her to be Godly.’
    ‘Praise the Lord.’
    ‘Help our beloved daughter Esther to discipline her thoughts and deeds. Help her to set an example of Godliness and seemliness that the younger children may learn by her example.’
    ‘Praise the Lord.’
    My knees were burning, I clenched my jaw shut and my fingernails dug into the palms of my hands.
    The Lord was going to be busy. He had to help me be modest, unassuming, dutiful, obedient, chaste. He had to help me keep my thoughts on Him. I wasn’t to be selfish and consider my own wishes and desires.
    ‘That is all, family. Go about your duties.’
    ‘Holy cow,’ I breathed.
    Uncle Caleb heard. Down we went for another ten everlasting minutes. My state of mind was not exactly calm, holy or reverent. But I kept my mouth shut. Just as well he couldn’t read my mind.
    The dinner didn’t burn. I reckon Aunt Naomi had it planned so she could leave it while we prayed.
    Mum, why did you abandon me? Why did you turn me into a refugee?
    After dinner and after prayers that night I asked Aunt Naomi, ‘Please, Aunt, could I look at my mother’s luggage?’ She’d only taken two bags to Africa — the rest of them had to be here somewhere. There probably wouldn’t be any clues in her stuff, but it was somewhere to start looking.
    ‘It is nothing to do with me,’ said Aunt Naomi, so I took a deep breath and asked my uncle.
    ‘It is nothing to do with you,’ he said and he was just as closed off and determined as Mum had been when she wouldn’t tell me anything. If I argued with him, he’d probably haul everyone into his study for another prayer session.
    Daniel might tell me something. I managed to ask him when I went out to pick some sweet corn for tea the next afternoon. He was weeding along a row of carrots. ‘Daniel, do you know what happened to Mum’s gear?’
    He sat back on his heels and stared at me. ‘My father does not want you to have it.’
    ‘It isn’t his. And I don’t want to have it. I just want to look through it.’
    He stared at me some more. I’d dumped a weighty problem on him. ‘It is in the garage,’ he said at last. ‘In the cupboard beside the workbench.’
    I could’ve hugged him. ‘Thanks, Daniel!’
    The next problem was, when could I look through it? Aunt Naomi kept me busy all day. She was horrified that I couldn’t cook, or clean a stove, or iron the ghastly blouses properly. Maggie was my constant companion. If it hadn’t been for her, I’d have gone bananas, but she seemed to need me. She