one thing I can’t figure out. Why did Aunt Sarah leave everything to me?” Mom wondered aloud, breaking into my thoughts. “I can’t understand it. There are lots of kin she could have named as her heirs.”
That was kind of puzzling. It’s not as though we were closer to her than the others. We didn’t even know her! I wondered if any of her relatives had ever visited or written to her or anything. Then an idea popped into my head.
“Maybe it’s because she thought I was named after her,” I suggested.
“You could be right. I hadn’t even thought of that. But I guess we’ll never know for sure.”
“Hi gals, how’s she going?” a man’s voice called from across the street.
When we looked over, we saw that the odd greeting had come from Stan, who had pulled his car up to the curb opposite to where we were standing.
“Oh, hello.” Mom gave a little wave.
“I was just driving along when I spied the two of you.” He nodded as if to prove what he was saying was true. “How’d you make out? Did you like what you saw of Chatham?”
“It seems very nice.”
“Good then, great.” More nodding. “If you’re ready to go back to Newcastle, I’m on my way there now.”
Mom hesitated for a second and then told him it would be much appreciated. We crossed the street and climbed into the car. We’d hardly pulled away from the curb when Stan asked a question that surprised us both.
“I guess you must be the pair who’ve inherited old Sarah Wentworth’s place, then, are you?”
“We are,” Mom said in surprise. “How did you know that?”
“Ah, you can’t keep nothing secret around here.”
“Anything,” Mom said automatically. I almost burst out laughing and just kept it in by taking a deep breath and holding it. Mom is so used to correcting my grammar that she sometimes slips and does it with other people too.
“Huh?” Stan had missed her meaning.
“Oh, don’t pay me any mind. I was just thinking out loud.” Mom gave me a warning look that suggested I keep my amusement under control. “Anyway, how was it that you heard we’d inherited my great-aunt’s estate?”
Rather than being embarrassed about admitting that he’d been listening to gossip about us, Stan seemed proud to have gotten the information. He launched into an explanation of how he’d been talking to someone who’d heard it from a neighbour who, in turn, had gotten the news from someone else. It sounded as if all the details of our lives had been passed about and discussed by the whole city. And we’d been there for less than six hours!
“I see,” Mom said coldly. Almost anyone should have been able to tell that she was annoyed to find herself the centre of so much attention from people she didn’t even know. Not Stan, though. He beamed and went on about how he’d put two and two together and concluded that we were the ones moving into the Wentworth house. I thought his pride over it was a bit ridiculous. After all, he’d dropped us off there that morning; it wouldn’t take a towering genius to figure out that we were the folks inheriting the place.
It wasn’t long before he switched from boasting about his powers of deduction to fishing for information. Mom was deliberately vague when she replied to anything he asked and I could see he was disappointed that he wasn’t getting any juicy details about us. I suppose the fact that he’d met us gave him a place of importance among the gossips and he was keen to have something interesting to add to the circulating stories. Well, he didn’t get anything from Mom!
She was obviously relieved to get away from his questions when we got back to the part of Miramichi that locals still called Newcastle. He offered to take us right to wherever we were staying but Mom is too cautious for that. Instead of letting him know what hotel we were at, she told him to drop us off downtown.
“We’ll look around a bit and get some dinner first,” she said casually. “We can walk back to our hotel later on.”
Stan nodded and smiled and recommended The Scoreboard as having good food and reasonable prices. Underneath his parting friendliness, though, I sensed a twinge of annoyance that he wouldn’t even be able to tell people where we were staying. It gave me a feeling of satisfaction to know that he’d completely failed in his quest for information.
“By the way, the last name is Reynolds,” he said as we got out of the car. “I’m in the phone book. You be sure to call if you need anything. Anything at all.”
Mom thanked him for everything and said she’d keep the offer in mind. She sounded so sincere that I’d have believed her if I didn’t know better. There was no way she was ever going to call Stan.
We’d seen the last of him and his nodding head.
CHAPTER SEVEN
It was actually the next Wednesday morning before we got to move into Aunt Sarah’s house. Well, it’s our house now, though I suppose it will take a while before I start thinking of it that way. Mom said I could have any bedroom I wanted and I picked one of the two with a fireplace. I chose the smaller of those (which is still huge compared to most bedrooms) because it has shelves built right into the wall. There was also a big old-fashioned desk and I could picture my computer sitting on it. My bed was enormous too! Even though we were busy, I couldn’t resist sprawling across it and rolling around for a minute. After years of having a narrow bed that was pretty cool.
It didn’t take much time to unpack the few things we’d brought with us. Then we did some laundry, mostly the sheets and blankets from our beds, and cleaned the kitchen and our bedrooms. Right after lunch Mom took me to register for my new school.
When the form was filled out we walked up the street to Dr. Losier Middle School, which is only a few minutes away from the office where we’d registered. The principal said I could start the next morning and gave me a booklet about school rules.
We did some grocery shopping after that and then took a taxi back to the house. I unpacked the food and nearly dropped the eggs when Rosie wandered through the kitchen. It was the first time I’d actually seen her and the sight of a skunk waddling along wasn’t exactly something I’d ever been used to.
She looked at me as if to say “what’s your problem?” and then continued on to her dish — the only one that’s not kept in the pantry. I must admit she’s beautiful, though rather chubby. Maybe that’s normal for skunks, I wouldn’t know, but she’s as round as a ball.
Rosie took her time eating and then wandered back off, probably to sleep off her food, as that seems to be her main daytime activity. I heard Stoolie tell her to mind her own business as she passed by him.
Mom and I cooked pork chops and potatoes and broccoli for dinner, which is one of my favourite meals. Once we’d eaten we did some more cleaning and then went to bed.
I had a hard time falling asleep that night. It was so strange to be in this huge house and to know it was really ours. So much had happened in the past two weeks. On top of that, I was nervous about going to a new school where I didn’t know anyone. It made me think of my friends back in Ontario, which caused a big lump to grow in my throat. As I lay in bed trying
