shrugged. “You can move their dishes somewhere else if you want, I guess. I don’t think they’re particular about where they eat.”
Mom stared at him blankly, but a sudden highpitched cry of “ Knock it off! ” from down the hallway startled her back to awareness.
“That’s Stoolie,” David explained. “He’s always telling someone to knock it off — and saying other bossy things. Anyway, did you want to have a look through the house now? I have to get back home to watch my kid brother when my dad goes to work.”
We did a quick tour, trying to push aside the thought that our inheritance included this unbelievable menagerie of pets.
Stoolie told us to knock it off again as we passed him. He also commanded us to feed the pretty bird, though his dish was brimming.
I have to say that the house was beautiful. There were two rooms off the kitchen, the pantry we’d already seen, and what David referred to as the back kitchen. Who ever heard of a house having two kitchens?
Most of the floors were hardwood and a lot of the furniture was fancy-looking wood stuff too. A fireplace stood in what David called the sitting room downstairs. I’d never heard the names he used for some of the rooms before, being used to a kitchen, living room, bedrooms, and a bathroom, though of course I’d heard of dining rooms, too. But our house contained rooms that David referred to as a parlour and a den. Upstairs there were four enormous bedrooms and two smaller rooms that David identified as a sewing room and a quiet room. Two of the bedrooms also had fireplaces.
“You can check out the attic another time,” he told us, gesturing toward a square set into the ceiling of the upstairs hallway. “This is the entry to it. A ladder comes down when you open it.”
“What’s the other building attached at the back of the house?” I asked when we’d gone through the place.
“Used to be servants’ quarters,” he said, “but Sarah used it for storing things. There are two entrances to it, one outside and one from the back kitchen, but both are kept locked. The lawyer will have the keys for those doors.”
I’d never heard of servants’ quarters. Mom explained that years ago very rich people had wings built on their homes for the hired help to live in.
“You seem to have known my great-aunt quite well,” Mom remarked to David.
“I helped her out when she needed something done. She was a nice old lady.” He looked away then and I could see that he felt sad about her dying. It was weird that we were her family and we didn’t even know her or feel particularly bad that she’d died, but this person who was no relation to her did.
Before we left the house, David gave Mom a slip of paper with his phone number on it. “You’ll probably need a hand when you move in,” he explained, not realizing that all we had was four suitcases with our clothes.
“I guess we’ll have to find out the pets’ names,” Mom sighed, tucking the paper into her purse. “All eleven of them.”
“Where are we going now?” I asked as we stepped back out onto the sidewalk.
“The lawyer’s office is apparently nearby,” Mom said. “She told me when I spoke to her that it was only a few minutes’ walk from Sarah’s house. We have an appointment with her right after lunch.”
We found the place, which was in a house that had been converted to lawyers’ offices. Five names appeared on a sign hanging above the door, and our lawyer, Nicole Standing, was listed among them.
Neither of us was hungry after a late breakfast, so to kill time until our appointment we just walked around for a while. Not too far from Aunt Sarah’s house there was a nice little park and we sat on a bench there for a bit. In one corner of the park was a low, red brick building, which we discovered was the library. I thought it was a bonus that the library was so close. I like to read but we’ve never been able to afford books. Or, at least, we couldn’t before.
A young woman ushered us right into the lawyer’s office when we returned there for our appointment. Ms. Standing stood to greet us, shook our hands, and told us she was sorry about our loss. That confused me for a second until I realized she was talking about Aunt Sarah’s death. Mom thanked her solemnly.
“It took a little while to locate you,” Ms. Standing told us, “which gave me time to get everything pretty well in order. We’ll just get this paperwork out of the way and then you can go ahead and take possession of your home.”
“Today?” Mom asked.
“Well, not quite that fast, but I’d say by Monday. Where are you staying in the meantime, in case I need to contact you?”
Mom gave her the name of the hotel. She sounded worried. Then Ms. Standing looked at her closely and asked if we were all right for money.
“I guess we can manage for a few days,” Mom said, but her voice was unconvincing. I knew that four nights in a hotel, plus meals, would cost more than what we had left but she didn’t want to admit that.
“Well, let’s just make things a bit simpler.” Ms. Standing pressed a button on her desk and a moment later the receptionist appeared.
“Angela, would you call the Gilmores’ hotel and have them bill their room to my office?” Then she assured Mom it was no problem and she’d just add the cost to her bill.
“Your bill,” Mom echoed, looking very uncomfortable. “Will it be very much?”
“Don’t worry about that.” She smiled. “It will just come off the money that’s been left to you, along with the house.”
“You haven’t clarified that, I mean, how much money is actually involved?”
“Of course, I won’t have an exact figure for you until everything is settled,” Ms. Standing said. She was smiling, which was no wonder since she was about to deliver very good news. “I can tell you, however, that it will be somewhere in the neighbourhood of thirty-seven thousand dollars.”
Mom started to cry.
CHAPTER SIX
Thirty-seven thousand dollars! After all the years of watching every penny, it sounded like a million to us. When we left Ms. Standing’s office we were both practically in shock. We walked slowly along Wellington Street, stopped to admire our house again, and then went back toward the park. Every so far we paused and looked at each other and said that we couldn’t believe it. That wasn’t quite true; we did believe it, but it was going to take a while to totally sink in.
“Are we rich?” I asked as we went by the park.
“Not by a long shot. But it will certainly keep us going until I can find work. Still, we’ll have to be careful with it just the same.”
“Will we get a car?” We’d never had a car and I’d always thought how wonderful it would be to be able to go wherever you wanted whenever you wanted to.
“Yes, we’ll have a car. And you’ll have a computer.”
As we continued walking I couldn’t help thinking that a few weeks ago all of these things
