After by Sue Lawson Read Free Book Online Page A

turned her back on us.
    Luke winked. ‘No shit, Sherlock,’ he whispered.

CHAPTER 9
    How was school, Callum?’ asked Nan, driving out of the school car park.
    ‘Okay.’
    She grimaced. ‘A trip to Millington to buy a school uniform will cheer you up.’
    And afterwards, I could stick a pencil in my eye to top off a sensational day.
    ‘I don’t need a school uniform.’
    ‘Your grandfather insists you do.’
    Nan drove through Winter Creek, which took a nanosecond, and along the highway. ‘See those pine trees,’ said Nan, pointing to a stand of trees on a hill. ‘Pony club’s held there every week.’
    Pony club? There was no way, absolutely no way, I was going to pony club.
    ‘Every Saturday, Maeve and I would hook up the horse float, load Floss and all the gear and trek across to The Pines.’ For the first time, Nan sounded almost human.
    I turned to look at her. ‘Mum did pony club?’
    ‘She’s never mentioned it?’
    ‘Nuh.’
    ‘Does she say anything about her childhood?’
    Mum never spoke about life before me. And I’d never thought about her having a life before me, until now. ‘Not really.’
    That killed any trace of Nan the human. She squeezed the steering wheel and stared straight ahead. After a few minutes, she turned the radio on to a talk station. I slid down in my seat, wishing I’d remembered my iPod. An old guy, his voice as crackly as old leaves, raved on about melaleucas, whatever they were. The lines around my grandmother’s eyes and lips softened. At least cellophane-man and the mela-whatever-they-were had distracted her from talking about Mum.
    I didn’t want to talk or even think about Mum—not Mum as a kid and definitely not Mum as an adult. Thinking about Mum made the hollow ache I’d had in my chest for the past eight months even worse. That ache, a feeling that a clawed beast had wrenched my heart out, wasn’t healing at Marrook. It was just getting worse.
    I leant back against the head rest and closed my eyes.
    On the way back to Marrook, my silence had nothing to do with the ache in my chest but everything to do with Millington.
    Mum had warned me that life in the country was different. Different? Well, try just plain weird.
    When Nan, Mrs Gray, Grandpa, even Mr Agar spoke about Millington, the word sounded weighty, impressive, as though Millington was an important place. But Millington was ... small. Unspectacular. Just the same as the small towns Chris, Mum and I drove through on the way to Yarrawonga or Lakes Entrance for holidays.
    There were no traffic lights or pedestrian crossings, just roundabouts at every intersection. Not that anyone knew how to use them. Everyone drove like Nan—slow and near the centre of the road.
    New car dealers didn’t sell one brand, like Holden or Ford or Mitsubishi. They sold two and three different kinds. There was no cinema, no Flash! game arcade, no undercover car park and no outdoor seating outside the café. The shops were on the street, not in a plaza or a shopping centre, and most of them, except for a burger place and the smallest Just Jeans in the world, had names I’d never heard of.
    Bourkey’s Butcher.
    Crowley’s Shoes.
    Quinn & Sons’ Hardware.
    Millington Bakery was my favourite. It had a life-size baker out the front with a basket of fake bread over his fake arm. Among the white loaves were cigarette butts, a pizza crust and something brown I didn’t want to think about.
    Possibly the weirdest thing of all was that people stood right in the middle of the footpath talking. At home, people hated it if the footpath was blocked by chatters. Not in Millington. They just smiled and said hello to each other as they passed. When I asked Nan if they all knew each other, she glared and led me into Dobson and Sons.
    Dobson and Sons was kind of like Myer or David Jones, only not. It smelt of old paper and floor polish. Wooden signs hung on silver chains from the ceiling showing each section. There was a women’s section,