The Distant Home Read Online Free PDF

strange-looking poison wand, but that didn’t explain why the weeds gave off a little puff of smoke before they went black and died. Sally once suggested it was a kind of laser gun, but Bobby told her not to be silly—little old ladies who lived in Middle Street didn’t carry laser guns. Even he knew that much.
    Anyway, this morning, Mrs Webster came out with her gift-wrapped parcels and her weed zapper, put the parcels on the rocking chair on her front porch, and began dealing with the dandelions in her lawn.
    For a little while, Bobby and Sally did not notice Mrs Webster working away quietly zapping weeds with her weeder, but when they did see her, they coasted up to her fence to show her their rollerblades.
    ‘Pretty cool, eh, Mrs Webster?’
    ‘Radical,’ said Mrs Webster. Mrs Webster liked to keep up with what she called ‘changes to the language’. She leaned over the fence and examined the blades on Sally and Bobby’s feet. ‘Why didn’t they come up with them sooner? The wheel may have been invented late, but it’s been around some time.’
    ‘I heard some ice hockey player had them made up for him so’s he could practise off-season,’ Sally said.
    ‘I didn’t know that,’ said Bobby. ‘How come you knew that?’
    ‘I read it somewhere,’ said Sally.
    ‘That’s cheating,’ said Bobby, his eyes devouring the gift-wrapped parcels on the rocking chair.
    ‘Oh, I nearly forgot,’ said Mrs Webster. ‘I must be losing my marbles.’
    ‘That’ll be the day,’ Bobby said to Sally as Mrs Webster strode over to her porch and picked up the parcels.
    ‘Sally … and Bobby,’ Mrs Webster said on her way back to them, a parcel held out to each of them.
    As they took the parcels Sally held hers up on the palm of one hand as if she were trying to guess its weight.
    ‘Don’t tell me, let me guess, it’s a book about a girl like me who has to go off on some quest and kind of grows up while she’s doing it.’
    ‘That’s what all proper books are about,’ said Mrs Webster.
    Bobby grinned. This was a game the three of them played every year. ‘And mine’s, ah … let me think. A computer game where the trick to winning is you have to sacrifice the thing you really want to keep.’
    ‘Sure thing,’ said Mrs Webster. ‘That’s what all proper games are about.’
    Bobby and Sally now chimed in together, beating Mrs Webster to it. ‘Because that’s what life’s about.’
    All three of them were laughing, Mrs Webster a little ruefully. ‘I must’ve said that a lot of times, uh?’ she said.
    Sally smiled. ‘A few thousand.’
    ‘Was your life about that?’ said Bobby.
    Mrs Webster looked at him indignantly. ‘“Was”? I’m dead? I’m pushing up daisies?’ She leaned in, glaring at him fiercely. ‘Let me tell you young man, that is precisely what my life’s about.’
    ‘Crusades? Tasks? Monsters?’ Sally’s question was interested, not challenging the truth of what Mrs Webster was saying.
    Mrs Webster looked off across the fence to where Jim and Maria had stopped their work in order to listen, and when she spoke she seemed to be speaking to them as much as to Sally and Bobby. ‘Monsters aren’t all scales and fangs and green slime you know. They can be aching joints. Tasks can be as tough as getting up in the morning and baking cookies.’ Then she smiled directly at Sally and Bobby. ‘Now get on with you. You can leave those here if you like. Since you already know what they are.’
    ‘Thanks, Mrs Webster,’ chorussed Bobby and Sally and handed back the presents and coasted away.
    Afterwards, it was not possible to work out quite how it happened. The twins, as they often did, seemed to get the same idea at the same time, and now it was to rollerblade across the street to the footpath on the other side.
    They hit the concrete drive at the same moment, neither one leading, but when they started to cross the road, Bobby, with his greater experience on borrowed blades, drew ahead