Winter Read Online Free PDF Page B

colourful, I wouldn’t just disturb the universe, I’d send it spinning into a different dimension.
    So I’d adopted my friends’ families as mine, kind of, and over the years attached myself to quite a number of their relatives. I spent most of my weekend leaves from boarding school at their places. It had never been a very satisfactory way of getting a family. But beggars can’t be choosers, and when it came to rellies I was a beggar.
    Sylvia was up at the homestead, fussing around, cleaning the kitchen. I never asked her to do stuff like that, but I wasn’t going to stop her either. I mean, I’m a teenager: like I’m really going to tell an adult to stop doing my cleaning for me? A lot of people think I’m crazy, and maybe I am, but I’m not that crazy.
    At the same time I wasn’t too comfortable about it. There was something irritating . . . a bit unnerving . . . like she was sticking her nose into my territory. Trespassing. Spying on me even. The last thing I wanted was to take her into my confidence. But there was no-one else to ask, and besides, she’d lived here so long that it would hardly be news to her that I had a great-aunt.
    â€˜Do you know my great-aunt? Mrs Harrison? Rita Harrison?’
    â€˜Sure.’ She squeezed the mop into the bucket, then paused and looked up at me. ‘Everyone knows Mrs Harrison.’
    â€˜Everyone except me.’
    â€˜How do you mean?’
    â€˜I don’t know her. I’ve never heard of her before. I didn’t even know I had an aunt until five minutes ago.’
    â€˜You didn’t? Well, that’s strange. I just thought you’d always been in touch. Mind you, she is . . . well, she’s a law unto herself. If she decided she didn’t want to do something, an army of wild horses couldn’t make her. A lot of people around here are terrified of her. She is, what can I say?, a powerful lady.’
    She started mopping again. ‘I guess you don’t remember too much about your mum and dad?’
    â€˜No, not a lot.’
    â€˜Well, I never met them myself, although I’ve lived in Christie all my life. Everyone always talked about them though. They were very popular in the district.’
    â€˜Oh, thanks,’ I said. I knew she was trying to be nice, but somehow it didn’t quite work. It didn’t feel genuine with her. If anything, I felt a bit violated by having her talk about my parents. More trespassing.
    â€˜It was a tragedy that they both died. Everyone was devastated. Sometimes life is just so unfair.’
    â€˜Mmm, I guess so.’
    I was impatient for her to finish now. I wanted to get the homestead back to myself, so I could think about all this stuff, this news about my great-aunt.
    Sylvia carried on, unconcerned. I don’t think she was too sensitive to anyone else’s feelings.
    â€˜I remember my mother coming back from your mother’s funeral. She had clay halfway up her shins. It had been raining for weeks, and the ground up there around the lookout is all clay.’
    I stood there trying to process what she’d said. I could hear my brain going like a computer, when you give it a heap of functions and it makes that clicking sound, as though you’re winding up a clockwork toy as fast as you can. Sylvia was mopping away. She hadn’t even noticed. I knew I had to say something. Finally I opened my mouth.
    â€˜Do you mean my mother’s buried near here?’
    I suppose the thing that I’d really shocked myself with was the realisation that I’d never considered where my parents were buried. How come? I was disgusted that I’d been so thoughtless, and ashamed that I’d never gone looking for their graves.
    Sylvia was pretty shocked too. She stood there holding the mop and gaping. Her cheeks, normally so red, were white now, but there was a little burning spot in each one.
    â€˜You mean you