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thirty.’
    â€˜Thanks,’ I said gratefully. ‘I’d like that.’
    As he was getting into his Merc he said, ‘There’s lots of other people you could ask. About your parents, I mean. Your neighbours on that side, the Kennedys, they’ve been there forever, and they were good friends of your mum and dad.’
    I blushed at the thought. After the encounter with the boy on the horse I didn’t want to go near them.
    â€˜Who else?’
    â€˜There’s the Slades, in Christie. And Dr Li. But ask your aunt. She’ll know them all.’
    â€˜My who?’
    â€˜Your aunt. Mrs Harrison. Your Aunt Rita. Your great-aunt. You know.’
    It was kind of funny. He was adding information each time, like dealing new cards in a game of blackjack. It was because he could tell by my expression that I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. Actually it wasn’t that funny.
    He got out of the car again. ‘You know. At Bannockburn. Just down the road there.’
    He pointed towards Christie. I remembered noticing the name ‘Bannockburn’ on an impressive white gateway, when Mr Carruthers drove me into Christie for the shopping.
    â€˜I’ve got an aunt?’
    â€˜A great-aunt, yes. You mean you didn’t know?’
    â€˜The Robinsons told me I didn’t have any close relatives except them.’
    â€˜Who are the Robinsons?’
    â€˜Well, Mrs Robinson’s my mother’s half-sister. So she’s half an aunt.’
    â€˜And you didn’t know about your Great-aunt Rita? That’s astonishing. I can’t believe no-one’s told you.’
    â€˜I can’t believe she’s never got in touch with me.’
    â€˜Well I’m pretty surprised myself. But she is eccentric. And strong minded. Like all the women in your family.’ He grinned at me. ‘Mind you, I’ve only met two of them, and now you. That makes three. But I think I’m pretty safe with my generalisation.’
    Slipping back into the driver’s seat, he added, ‘Maybe you’d better go and introduce yourself to Mrs Harrison. You could walk it from here.’
    â€˜Thanks. I might do just that.’
    â€˜OK. I’ll see you Saturday night then, and you can tell me all about it.’

CHAPTER SIX
    I went back to the homestead in a state of confusion. I felt almost . . . frightened. I know that seems ridiculous, when you’ve just gained a new relative, a new member of your family. But I guess those words didn’t have much meaning to me. My ‘family’ only really had one member, and I was it. My last two grandparents, my father’s parents, in Adelaide, had died within a year of each other, four years ago. That seemed to be a pattern in our family.
    My mother’s parents had died yonks ago—as far as I knew: I was suddenly starting to doubt everything I’d been told—and both my parents had been only children themselves, except for my mother’s half-sister and half-brother. The Robinsons were officially related to me, but they’d never seemed like ‘family members’ in the way that my friends had families.
    I’m not sure why the Robinsons took me in the first place. Sorry for me, I guess. And I was grateful. Seriously grateful. I mean, if they hadn’t, where would I have ended up? In some sort of orphanage? Did they still have places like that? I had a feeling that most kids with no families were fostered out these days. That didn’t sound like a great option.
    The Robinsons never abused me or anything dramatic. They just seemed indifferent. Maybe that is a kind of abuse. Maybe that’s the worst abuse of all. I mean, what would I know? They went on with their lives, almost like they were determined not to let me make any difference to them.
    I tiptoed around the house, year after year, thinking that if I made too much noise, if I wore clothes that were too bright and