Little Sister Read Online Free PDF Page A

looked at Klerk. He nodded. So there, watched in silence by the gardener, the security men, four nurses
and the cooks, Kim and Mia sang the one they were always asked for.
    Draai het wieletje nog eens om.
    Turn the wheel around again.
    A silly ditty for toddlers but they performed it beautifully, did the dance, clapped their hands when it was called for.
    Everyone applauded and wept a little more.
    ‘We haven’t said goodbye to Dr Visser,’ Mia pleaded. ‘Or Director Veerman. Or—’
    ‘They’re busy,’ Klerk told her.
    ‘Or any of the patients,’ Kim added. ‘Kaatje. We’ve got to say goodbye to Kaatje—’
    ‘We think it’s best the patients stay inside. It might upset them, seeing you leave.’
    Kim frowned and stamped her feet but, to her sister’s relief, stayed quiet.
    ‘They could be jealous,’ Klerk added.
    He picked up the bag. Now they saw it had Disney characters on the side.
    ‘We need to go, girls.’
    The sisters dried their eyes and went outside to stand in the car park next to the lime trees and the rubbish bins, taking one last look around.
    ‘We won’t come back, Simon,’ Mia asked. ‘Will we?’
    ‘Not if you do as I say.’
    The pair of them gazed at him.
    ‘You will do as I say, won’t you?’
    ‘We promised, didn’t we?’ Kim replied.
    ‘Promised,’ her sister agreed.
    The Marken sanatorium had been their home for so long. Its grey walls, the high wire fence, the wood by the water, branches swaying in the warm lake breeze . . . all these things had served as
their world as they grew from children to teenagers to serious, introverted young adults.
    Leaving the place meant entering a universe without boundaries, real form or substance, a mysterious destination they only knew from a distance. Through television, through the carefully
monitored Internet connection the communications room provided. From the gossip and stories, some true, some fantastic, of the other inmates there. Not that Kim and Mia talked to them much. They
were different. Even Kaatje Lammers, who could so easily get them into trouble. Unlike them the others were
sick.
    They waved back to the buildings as Klerk led them to his car, a shiny bright yellow SEAT parked behind the residential block.
    ‘Sit in the back,’ he ordered.
    ‘How far?’ Mia asked.
    ‘How long?’ Kim added.
    ‘A while.’
    ‘You said we could have watches,’ Kim reminded him.
    ‘I did.’
    He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out two cheap digital ones. Both pink. Kiddy things.
    ‘Also,’ Mia went on, ‘you promised—’
    ‘No more favours for the moment,’ Klerk said curtly, opening the back door one side, then the other. ‘Not until you’ve earned them.’
    He held up the bag. Kim took it and they climbed in.
    They didn’t really know what the village was like. They’d been there a couple of times when their parents and Jo were alive. Fun visits wandering round the narrow streets. But the
institution never let them out, not even when some of the other patients were allowed controlled, supervised walks. They weren’t, Veerman always insisted, sufficiently
‘normalized’.
    Klerk got in the front and drove slowly down the long gravel drive to the gate. The man on the barrier knew they were coming. The nurse had to give him some paperwork all the same. He stared at
the form and the signature of the director.
    The blue-and-white pole went up. The car nosed out onto the single-track lane. They didn’t say anything for a while. All this was so new.
    In a minute they were crawling through the narrow streets of Marken, noses to the glass. Tourists wandered round taking photographs. A woman was posing for them in traditional dress. Black
skirt. A striped red blouse. A white mob cap. Black clogs.
    The girls giggled. Simon Klerk drove on.
    Past the houses, leaving the centre behind, they remembered something and turned to look back at the eastern finger of land at the edge of the island, pointing out into the