Tidings of Great Boys by Shelley Adina Read Free Book Online

typically used. Oh,
     no. Instead, he pushed open one of the huge double front doors and stood aside. I led the way in, breathing deep of the smell
     of home—old stone, wood, furniture polish, and wet wool.
    “No elevator, you lot.” I picked up my suitcase and began to haul it up the grand staircase. “Grab your bags and use your
     knees.”
    Thirty steps up, I looked back to see them in a ragged diagonal, turning in place, looking at the echoing entry hall, at the
     black marble compass rose set into the floor, even examining the massive portraits of my long-dead ancestors. “I promise the
     five-quid tour once you’re all settled.”
    The guest floor is the third, technically, but this was no time for spreading people out. I wanted them close to me so we
     could talk late into the night and plan things. “This is the family’s floor. The master suite is there, and I’m down at the
     end of the corridor. In between we’ve got four bedrooms, so feel free to pick whichever one you like.”
    “This blue one’s mine.” It was certainly Lissa’s color.
    “Ohmigosh, Mac. Who is this?” Carly’s voice came out of the room next to it. I tossed my things in my room, which was so tidy
     it was obvious I hadn’t been there for three months, and went to find out what she meant.
    Carly stood in front of the fireplace, gazing up at the five-foot portrait hanging above it. “Oh, that’s the, er…” I counted
     in my head. “The fourth Countess. Frances Arbuthnot MacPhail. Gainsborough painted it. Isn’t she lovely?”
    “Look at the lace on that fichu,” Carly breathed. “You can see every detail.”
    I had no idea what a fichu was, but if it made her happy, I was happy. “I take it you’re going to keep her company?”
    “We were made for each other.”
    I found Gillian and Shani in the Twins’ Room, so named for my grandfather and his brother, who were born six minutes apart.
     That six minutes, though, meant my grandpa and then my dad got the house, though it would go to my cousin Roger when—when
     Dad didn’t live here anymore. So, two generations later, the younger twin would keep things going.
    “You can have your own rooms, you know,” I told them. “You don’t have to share.”
    “It’s all good,” Gillian told me. “You had Shani all term, so I’m going to have her now.”
    “Don’t you guys get in each other’s faces?” I never met two such outspoken people. Other than myself, of course.
    Shani raised her eyebrows at me. “Sure. That’s part of the fun. I always know where I stand with this girl. Besides, I have
     to suck up to her. Otherwise the care packages her Nai-Nai sends me will stop coming.”
    I couldn’t argue with that. “Meet you down in the hall in half an hour, okay? I’m dying for tea. We’ll do the tour after.”
    “She means supper,” Gillian told Shani before she could ask.
    “I know, ye numpty,” Shani said in a dead-on impression of… me.
    “Ye wee rascal,” I told her. “We’ll make a Scots lass out o’ ye yet.”
    Laughing, I left them to it. Those two were a total match for each other; far be it from me to get between them. Back in my
     room, I left the door open a couple of inches in case anyone wanted me. Hmm. It looked like Dad had had the walls plastered—the
     crack above the window was gone. The quilt on my bed had been swapped out with another of Grannie’s quilts. I had a third
     one on my bed in Mummy’s flat in Eaton Square. It felt a little odd to have my stuff scattered in three places on the globe.
     My clothes and shoes and school clobber were in California. Recent acquisitions like my stereo and books were in London. And
     here, it was like stepping back into my childhood. I hadn’t been much of a child for dolls. Instead, books lined the room
     on white shelves three feet high—Elizabeth Goudge, Tove Jansson’s Moomins series, Enid Blyton’s Adventure books, all stuffed
     in haphazardly as I’d read them again and again.