Little Sister Read Online Free PDF

larger lake of the
Markermeer.
    ‘The horse!’ Kim cried. ‘I remember it now. The horse!’
    A tall white building nicknamed the
Paard van Marken.
A monumental lighthouse that seemed to be sprouting from a grand white wooden mansion, a stallion stretching its neck for the
sky.
    ‘When we were tiny,’ Mia said. ‘We went there. Remember?’
    Klerk switched on the radio. Pop music.
    ‘No!’ the girls shrieked in unison. ‘Not that.
Not that!
’
    He shrugged, turned it off then drove to the long dyke road crossing the water back to the mainland, past yet more wind turbines.
    They stared at the green dam wall blocking the view and the cyclists on the bike path. The place seemed so flat, so devoid of any form, they had to imagine Volendam to the north, past the
distant spike of another white lighthouse, much smaller than the
Paard.
    Then the sea dyke ended and they were on land proper. The 311 from Amsterdam meandered towards them.
    ‘There’s a bus!’ Kim squealed and her sister shrieked too.
    ‘Girls!’ Klerk cried from behind the wheel. ‘
Girls!
It’s just a bus.’
    ‘I know,’ Kim answered.
    ‘But we haven’t seen one,’ her sister added. ‘Not since . . .’
    They went quiet and Simon Klerk didn’t push it.
    The yellow SEAT stuck to the main road for half a kilometre or more. A single-track lane came up on the left with a sign saying, ‘Cars and bicycles, local access only’.
    Klerk turned in. The way ahead was so narrow he could only drive at a snail’s pace. There were drainage dykes on both sides, flat green fields of pasture beyond them, low, modest bridges
that led to sprawling meadows where scattered herds of cattle munched idly on lush grass.
    The sisters turned to the windows and stared up at the sky. It was a bright and beautiful day with puffy white clouds moving slowly east to west. Gulls hung in the air. As they passed a low
hedge separating one bare field from the next a grey heron, all puffy feathers, descended towards the green channel next to them, stuck its long legs in the water and stabbed down, looking for
prey.
    ‘We’ll never get there,’ Mia said. ‘Not at this rate.’
    ‘What’s the rush?’ Simon Klerk asked.
    About four hundred metres ahead lay a spinney of low trees, weeping willows by the narrow dyke next to a thicket of overgrown elder bushes. Behind stood what looked like a derelict farmhouse.
They got to the drive. The rusty gate was half off its hinges. Klerk climbed out.
    While he was messing around Kim tried the doors. They were locked. She patted her jacket. Mia did the same and smiled.
    Ahead of them Klerk pushed down the gate then dragged it to one side. He came back to the car and drove over the wooden bridge. The tyres made a rhythmic sound across the planks.
    One, two, three. One, two, three,
the sisters counted.
    He parked on the dried mud drive by the back door. Rotting furniture stood outside, fabric ripped, bare foam hanging out like torn flesh.
    The sisters sat and waited.
    Klerk leaned back in the driver’s seat then turned, a stupid grin on his face.
    ‘You remember what we agreed, girls? There’s a price. There’s a price for everything.’
    ‘
Ja
,’ they said together.
    ‘So who’s first?’
    The wind picked up. The weeping willows shifted under its breath. They were nowhere and knew it. No passing traffic down this remote lane. No one to see. No one to hear.
    ‘Me,’ Mia said in a quiet, flat voice. ‘But you have to open the doors.’
    He laughed at his own stupidity then found the button beneath the window. Something clicked. She stepped outside.
    This place didn’t smell like Marken at all. It had a rotten stink about it. Stagnant water. A blocked dyke. All the things you got on land, away from the lake that swept everything
clean.
    ‘I’m waiting,’ Klerk cried as she stood by the car door seeing how the abandoned farmhouse was hidden from everywhere by the spinney’s green shade.
    ‘Sorry,’ she muttered and