Page 112 of Just Watch Me
“But my dad can afford them,” Scarlett said. “Hmm, what a coincidence.”
Zane stood up. His fists were on the table, and he was holding onto his temper with a major effort. “That’s enough,” he said. “If you can’t be polite, you can go to your room.”
“I’meating,”Scarlett said.
“Take your plate, then.”
“You don’t evencare!”she burst out, throwing down her bit of scone in dramatic fashion. “You don’t care that your kids are here, and we only get to have you here for fourdays,and next week you’re going to South Africa for weeks and weeks! You just want to be withher!And to have her kids here likethey’reyour kids!” Shouting now, the tears standing in her eyes.
Zane was about to say something he might regret, but Finlay spoke first. “Like we even want to be here! We want to be at our own house. Don’t put this on us.”
“I don’t want to be at our house,” George said. “I like it here, because Georgia likes to play the things I like, and there’s a swimming pool.”
“Also, the TV is much bigger,” Olive said. “I like both places, though, especially the cozy spot in our storagecupboard at home where I read. That’s one thing that’s better than here.”
“You read in acupboard?”Scarlett asked. “Why?”
Zane sat down. Seemed like the wisest choice. He should at least hear what the kids had to say, since he wasn’t much chop at deciphering unspoken resentments.
“Because it’s small and dark and secret and my special place,” Olive said, “since I have to share a bedroom with George. You have to climb up on a chair and then sort of crawl in, but Mum made me a little mattress thing that goes all across and got me a lamp, so I can close the door and be hidden if I want to.”
“Weird,” Scarlett said.
“I’d like a cupboard like that,” Duncan said. “It would feel cozy, I think. I can’t read as long of books as you can, but maybe if we were at your house, I could sit at the other end of the mattress and read too. If you could tell me a good book to read.”
“That would be OK,” Olive said. “If you really wanted to be quiet and read. Except that we’d need another lamp. You could readThe Chronicles of Narnia.I could lend it to you. It’s about kids who find a secret land on the other side of a wardrobe, and it’s got heaps of books so you can keep reading the adventures. There’s fighting, and boys like fighting in books, but it’s also very good for imagining. Imagining is better than reading sometimes, because you can imagine even when you can’t read, so it’s not so boring when your mum drags you on errands. When Granddad’s over at your house, we have to go with Mum every time she goes to the supermarket or the pharmacy or anywhere.”
“Us too,” Duncan said. “We always used to have to go with Nan, because Dad usually isn’t home until dinnertime, even when he’s in Auckland. Errands are boring. When Mr.Bulstrode is here, sometimes only one of them does the errand and we get to stay home, so that’s better.”
“Can I go in the secret cupboard too?” Georgia asked.
“When you can read enough, I guess,” Olive said. “It’s a reading cupboard. But maybe it could be a talking cupboard sometimes, too.”
“We could make secret plans!” George said. “If you let me come into it. We could have a secret club and be spies and sneak around to see what people are doing.”
Finlay said, “Not me. Scarlett and I are too old for secret clubs.”
“Thankyou,” Scarlett said.
“That’s OK,” George said. “We can spy on you instead.” Scarlett rolled her eyes.
“Nobody asked you to be in it, Finlay,” Olive said. “I like my cupboard the way it is, but maybe I’d like having other people in it sometimes, if they wanted to come.”
“Excuse me,” Scarlett said. “This isn’t the point?”
“Oh,” Olive said. “I thought it was, though. We were talking about whose house we like better, and I like both houses.”
“I like both houses too,” George said.
“I do too,” Georgia said.
“You’ve been in their houseonce,”Scarlett said. “For about fifteen minutes. How do you even know?”
“It has a cat in it,” Georgia said, “and I like cats.”
“You don’t evenknowany cats,” Scarlett said.
“I do too,” Georgia said. “Because I know Snowball, and he likes to get pats. Real animals are better than stuffies, because they sit in your lap and are alive.”
