The Spell Book Of Listen Taylor (41 page)

Extracts from the Zing Garden Shed (Burnt Fragments)

S
URVEILLANCE
E
QUIPMENT
—C
ONSIGNMENT

C
OVERT COLLAR CAMERA
: J
UST FIT COLLAR TO CAT/DOG/MOUSE, ETC
. C
OLLAR HOUSES
P
INHOLE
C
AMERA WITH CRYSTAL-CLEAR RESOLUTION & SUPER SHARP AUDIO
. P
INHOLE PLACEMENT IS A TINY 1/2 MM WIDE
. C
OLLAR IS PLAIN DESIGN
. A
LSO AVAILABLE IN
COLOR
AND WITH
BELL.

Cath Murphy (teacher, Grade 2B) stands at the carnival coffee table. Paper cups are set out in orderly rows, like a choir about to perform, and each has already been filled. How long has the coffee been sitting there, open to the breeze?

“Milk?” says Mrs. Nestle (tuckshop lady).

Too late,
thinks Cath.

The oval is almost empty. The last children are climbing onto buses and into family cars. Mrs. Nestle begins tipping coffee onto the lawn.

Cath heads to the staff room, which is empty and still. She glances at the corner kitchenette: the sandwich maker that she and Warren bought; the coffee machine, where Warren teased Breanna for self-consciousness.

She collects her mail and handbag, locks the staffroom windows, and imagines, for a moment, her evening: the new apartment with its bare linoleum and the fridge that beeps reproachfully when she opens the door for too long. She will rest her feet on her new coffee table and think about her broken heart; Violin, like a teasing scarf, will climb across her shoulders to sit on his side of the couch.

Outside again, in the school parking lot, Ms. Waratah sings, “Farewell, Cath!” Mr. Bel Castro straddles his motorbike and kicks aside the stand.

She drives toward the gate, but brakes slightly, as something in the rock garden catches her eye. It is the corner of a lime green schoolbook,
hidden underneath a rock. She puts her car in Park, opens the door, and pulls the book from under the rock. She waves it in the air, and smiles self-consciously at Mr. Bel Castro, who is waiting patiently, revving his motorbike behind her.

She tosses the book on the passenger seat and drives toward home.

Text copyright © 2007 by Jaclyn Moriarty

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Moriarty, Jaclyn.

The spell book of Listen Taylor / by Jaclyn Moriarty. — 1st ed.

p. cm.

Summary: Twelve-year-old Listen Taylor learns a great deal from the eccentric and secretive Zing family, as she fumbles her way through a new school, problems with old friends, and a spell book she finds soon after she and her father move in with Marbie Zing.

ISBN 0-439-84678-1 [1. Eccentrics and eccentricities—Fiction. 2. Interpersonal relations—Fiction. 3. Family life—Australia—Fiction. 4. Books and reading—Fiction. 5. Magic—Fiction. 6. Australia—Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.M826727Spe 2007

[Fic]—dc22

2006102881

First edition, September 2007

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E-ISBN: 978-0-545-23209-8