Mostly Sunny with a Chance of Storms (5 page)

‘Okey-dokey then, I’m out of here,’ I said, turning to go downstairs. ‘I think I’ll go for the room opposite Saskia’s. It’s a girl thing. It’s also closer to the kitchen, ’cos I’m planning on
having
midnight feasts, not
being
one. I’ll tell Carl to bring your bed up to the turret, shall I, Lyall?’

‘I haven’t
decided,
Sunny. We’re finalising it at dinner, like Dad said.’

You’ve got to admit that’s just the sort of answer someone would give who wasn’t as keen as he had been when he started.

At dinner, when we were all sitting around one end of the kitchen table, Carl said, ‘Well, I take it by the peace and quiet around here that you guys have made a decision?’

‘I’m having the room overlooking the front garden!’ said Saskia.

‘And I’m having the one across the hall from Saskia,’ said Lyall.

‘Great,’ said Mum. ‘And you Sunny?’

‘Well, I did want the one opposite Saskia, but since nobody wants the turret, I’m thinking I might go for that.’

Lyall gave me
the eyebrow
and said, ‘What about the
bats,
Sunny?’

But I just gave him
the eyebrow
straight back and said, ‘I used to think the turret was kind of spooky, but now I’m thinking it’d be pretty cool …

All that Reverse
Psychology meant I had forgotten to collect the firewood for the library fireplace.

‘Sunny, I’m sorry but you’ll just have to go and get some now. It won’t take long,’ said Mum, screwing pages of old newspapers into balls. ‘Saskia didn’t have any trouble remembering to gather the kindling.’

‘But it’s
really
dark, Mum.’

‘Well, perhaps that might help you remember next time, Sunny. Now go on. There’s a head-torch in the laundry cupboard; you can use that.’ Mum clapped her hands like some type of a school mistress, so I made a point of making my way out extra slowly, just in case the hand clap was something she was thinking of adopting.

I put the head torch on and adjusted the angle of the
lamp so that it threw a circle of light in front of me. The grass was already wet with dew as I made my way down to the woodshed. Willow circled around me. ‘Stay close, Willow,’ I said. ‘It’s cold and dark and we’re not going for a walk, okay.’

Once the wheelbarrow came into view, Willow started barking furiously and growling as though it was some type of strange animal.

‘Shhh, Willow! It’s just a wheelbarrow, silly,’ I said. ‘Come here and sit.’

But she continued barking and pacing so she’d be ready to pounce the moment it started moving. Meanwhile, I stacked it full of logs from the top of the pile. I clicked my fingers next to my side and Willow did a wide arc around the wheelbarrow and sat up tall next to me so I could give her a pat.

‘Good girl,’ I said bending down a little to reach her. ‘You’re such a funny dog, Willow. You don’t like the big mean wheelbarrow at all do you. You’re just a—’

‘
That dog no good
!’

‘Jeez!’ I yelled, turning around to see Settimio’s feet right behind me. I adjusted my lamp until it shone square in his face. ‘Do you always go around sneaking up on people? You frightened the heck out of me
and
Willow ‘

Willow barked at him, because dogs are really good at sensing bad people, even if her next step in dealing with
the bad person is usually to bolt and leave me alone to possibly get murdered.

Settimio leant back on one of his crutches, freeing the other one to wave about in a warding-off kind of way, towards Willow.

‘No dogs here. Dogs no here.
Understand?
’ Settimio actually roared. All the veins in his neck throbbed out and even his bald patch had gone red with rage. Willow hid behind me and buried her nose in the back of my knees. I glanced over my shoulder to see if anyone might be watching from the house, but I was completely out of view.

‘Come on, Willow,’ I said calmly, making sure I had hold of her collar. I turned back towards the house. ‘We’ll come back for the wood later.
With Carl,
’ I shouted backwards at Settimio.

‘You keep that dog tied up.
Comprendere?
’

We were almost at the back steps when I heard Settimio call out, ‘You keep dog away or you be sorry, little girl! You be very sorry!’

I double-checked that neither Mum nor Carl were in the kitchen or anywhere in earshot. Then I yelled at the top of my voice, ‘You’re a mean old man, Settimio, and do you want to know what’s worse? You’ve got hairs growing out of your ears! Understand? HAIRS!’

Willow cowered, as if she thought perhaps I was angry with her.

‘It’s all right, girl,’ I said. ‘You just stay away from him a while, okay?’ I ushered Willow inside and slammed the back door as hard as I could behind me, even though Settimio was probably deaf and wouldn’t be able to hear me.

‘Well, thanks, Mum,’ I said, safely back inside. ‘Settimio creeps around in the night and who knows what else. I couldn’t even get the wood because he frightened me so much, and he said Willow has to be tied up or else I’ll be sorry. That’s a threat Mum, a
threat
! And I’m going to make a note of it because I bet he does heaps more creepy stuff, and in the end the police are going to be asking all sorts of questions about Settimio, and I’ll be able to tell them the exact times and the exact dates because I’ll have a creep-list about ten miles long, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he broke his leg doing something completely wrong-town like stealing people’s washing and—’

‘Calm down, Sunny,’ Mum said. ‘Settimio has every right to be out in his own garden, and I doubt very much his intention was to sneak up on you, darling.’

‘Yeah, well, I don’t want wood-collecting to be my job anymore.’

‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ said Carl. ‘Maybe you’d like a chamomile tea?’

‘No thanks, Carl,’ I said. ‘It’s my first night in my new room. I kind of want to make the most of it.’

I couldn’t possibly
list all the good words that described my first night up in the turret. Apart from the word
victory
of course.

The
only
problem (besides the possibility of a bat through the window – ha ha, as if) was that because of the all-around, curtainless windows I was early-bird awake at the first light of day. I lay there and looked at all the parts of my official new bedroom, which didn’t take too long on account of it being a rather small room. The ceiling was all panelled and slanty with white painted boards and there were shelves built right around the doorway, where I’d already unpacked my books and ornaments. On my bedside table I had two lamps: my old lighthouse lamp that Dad gave me for my second birthday and my hippie
lava-lamp that Auntie Guff gave me when I turned ten. The lava-lamp was impossible to read by, but perfect for creating atmosphere. When it was on, the whole room glowed dusky pink and I felt like I was inside a genie bottle.

Outside, the sky was white with fog and clouds, but I was all snuggled up in my new double bed, like a bird in a nest. That’s when I had the idea to spy on Settimio with Granny Carmelene’s telescope. I mean, what else was there to do at that hour? I leapt out of bed, pulled off the lens cap and swung the telescope towards Settimio’s cottage and twisted the focus to home in on the window that faced the turret. Would you believe I could see straight into Settimio’s kitchen? I could see him making coffee and reading the paper. I could even see what paper he was reading. It was all written in Italian.

Suddenly I felt a bit guilty, which should have been a signal for me to stop, but with Settimio being a confirmed dog-hater and all, I kind of felt entitled. Just then, Settimio stood up from the kitchen table in his huge old-man underpants. And I mean huge. It was enough to put me off spying forever. At least until after breakfast.

Mum was already up. ‘Here she is,’ she said, as I walked into the kitchen. ‘How did you sleep in your new big bed? Were you warm enough up there?’ She gave me a kiss on the side of the head.

‘Warm as toast, thanks, Mum,’ I said, looking about for Willow. She wasn’t keeping warm by the heater panel. ‘Where’s Willow?’ I asked.

‘Oh, I haven’t seen her this morning,’ said Mum. ‘I presumed she’d snuck upstairs with you.’

I ran and opened the back door. ‘Willow!’ I called. ‘
Willow!
’

It was freezing outside. There was no way she’d be out there for long by herself. Maybe she was curled up with Lyall or Saskia? I went to the bottom of the stairs and called out, but she didn’t come.

‘I wouldn’t worry about it too much, Sunny.’ Mum said. ‘She’ll show up. She’s probably just off exploring. You know what she’s like when she’s chasing a scent. Deaf as a mute. At any rate, you better have some breakfast and get a move on or you’ll miss the bus.

Mum spooned some hot porridge into a bowl and put it on the table in front of me, and I poured on way too much honey and quickly mixed it in while she had her back turned making the lunches. I could hear Lyall and Saskia thumping about upstairs.

‘Come on, you two!’ Carl called up the stairs. ‘If you want a lift to school we have to get moving! Oh, morning, Sunny,’ he said, looking about for the coffee Mum had poured him.

‘Morning, Carl. Have you seen Willow anywhere?’

‘Not since last night, now you come to mention it,’ said Carl

‘Mum, can you text me when Willow turns up. Otherwise I’ll be worried all day.’

‘Sure, sweetheart. I’ll be here trying to get my workspace set up. I’ve got clients this afternoon and the place is still so disorganised.’

Living so far from school all of a sudden sure meant having longer wintry mornings. I was standing at the bus stop in my brand new red fingerless gloves, puffing out dragon breath and thinking how if we were still living in Elwood, I could lie in bed until a quarter to nine and still get to school on time. Luckily, it was only going to be until the end of the year that I would have to take the bus, and soon it would be holidays anyway.

I pulled my favourite old stripy socks as far as possible over my sticky-outy knees. The rest of my legs were goose-bumpy blotches of pink, blue and red. I wouldn’t blame you if you’re wondering why I didn’t wear long pants (or woolly tights at least) instead of a short denim skirt and a hoodie. It’s a wonder Mum let me out the door at all. I guess she knew that insisting I wear something warmer and actually
finding
something warmer were two very different things. We were still rummaging through boxes to find everything from the remote control to a pair of jeans.

I was trying my best not to worry about Willow, and to make matters worse, the bus was so crowded that I had to worry standing up. I tried to distract myself by thinking about the school holidays and how I was going to be spending more time with Flora over at Dad and Steph’s.

To cheer myself away from thinking something horrible might have happened to Willow, I thought of all the cutest things about Flora. That’s when I noticed there was a spare seat next to some random boy knitting a scarf. I squeezed in next to him and pushed my bag under the seat in front.

‘Oh no!’ he said, as a whole row of stitches slipped clean off one of his needles. ‘Don’t move.’

‘Sorry,’ I said sheepishly, watching him follow the line of wool down to my bag and unhook it from the zipper. ‘It must have just latched on.’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ he said, carefully threading each dropped stitch back onto the needle. ‘I think I got them all.’

‘Cool scarf,’ I said. ‘I love everything stripy.’

‘I noticed,’ he said, looking down at my socks. Then he read the label on my school bag. ‘Sunny Hathaway, huh?’

‘As in Sunday.’ I said, not really knowing what to say next. Asking what his name was just seemed so tit-for-tat.

‘My dog’s missing,’ I said, at exactly the same moment that he said, ‘I’m Finn,’ and held out his hand for me to shake.

‘Hi, Finn,’ I said, right at the same time that he said, ‘That’s awful. What sort of dog is it?’

I suddenly wondered if it was bad manners to shake someone’s hand while wearing fingerless gloves, but considering Finn was a knitter, maybe it was okay.