“Of course it’s not like London,” said Luti in her quiet little voice.
“Only kidding,” said Gordon.
The car pulled up in a curved street with some pleasant-looking houses on each side. The house where we were going to live had a lawn that came down to the pavement, and as soon as we opened the car door, a dog came rushing to meet us. I could feel Cameron’s mood changing. He just couldn’t help himself.
“Here comes Spajer to say hi to you!” said Gordon.
Spajer was a golden cocker spaniel with long, silky ears. He jumped all over us. He was a lovely dog and Cameron couldn’t resist patting him, but I sensed he felt a bit disloyal to Bubbles.
“Is Spajer an Indian name?” asked Cameron.
Gordon roared with laughter, but Luti said, “We had another dog before him called Jasper.”
“Oh, I see! An anagram,” said Cameron.
Both the Laines stared at him.
“Smart boy,” said Gordon, sounding surprised.
Mummy and Uncle Arthur arrived and there was a kerfuffle as we got the luggage into the house. There suddenly seemed to be an awful lot of it, and Gordon made a joke about “You folks planning to stay awhile?” which I don’t think any of us got.
Mummy was very quiet and tense and stuck close to Uncle Arthur. He kept his arm around her whenever he could. I knew they’d never met before, but already they seemed to love each other. I know now that Mummy felt close to him because he was family and everybody else in this whole city was a stranger.
The house was pretty, though not like an English house – very new-looking with lots of windows and polished wooden floors and modern furniture, all clean and shiny. There were gardens on three sides. The curved street was wide and not too busy, with trees and front gardens without fences. We all wanted to see our bedrooms and I wanted to have a bath – Mummy kept sort of picking at her dress where it was sticking to her – but Gordon wanted to talk.
“You kids’ll soon learn the neighbourhood,” he said. “See that li’l park across the street? You can go there by yourselves and play and find pals. In the winter they turn the whole park into a skating rink. Bet you can’t ice skate!”
We agreed we couldn’t.
“I just can’t wait to teach you! Bet you’ve never seen snow like we get here! Two, three feet at a time! That’s not counting the drifts!” He held his hand right over his head to show how deep the ‘drifts’ got.
Snow higher than a man? Cameron gave me a look. He was thinking what I was – we could make forts and tunnels, crawl in and play amazing adventure games. From then on I started looking forward to winter. And not just because of the heat now, which was the worst I’d ever felt.
Luti excused herself and went into the kitchen while Gordon offered us drinks – Coke for us (ugh! – but at least it was cold) and iced water for Mummy and Uncle Arthur, after they’d both refused ‘a li’l snifter’. I didn’t know what that was, but then Gordon opened a shiny cupboard in the corner and brought out some bottles. Mummy looked amazed to be offered alcohol so early in the day, but Gordon had one. It didn’t look so ‘li’l’ to me.
Gordon stopped talking to sip his whiskey and we just sat there on the chintz armchairs. There was a long, difficult silence. Finally Uncle Arthur said, “You know, I think my folks might like to see their rooms and maybe clean up before breakfast.”
“Luti!” Gordon called. She came almost running in. “What are you thinking of, honey? Take these folks up to their rooms, huh? I’ll bring the bags up.”
“But I’ve just put the bacon on,” she said.
Cameron and I looked at each other. We’d suddenly remembered Hank’s tale.
“So we don’t have to ride out on the prairie to shoot our breakfasts?” Cameron said.
“Whaaaat?” Gordon shouted.
Luti gaped at us, her blue eyes staring.
Their faces! We suddenly realised we’d been had!
Cameron and I laughed until we choked. We couldn’t stop. Mummy had to calm us down.
“Please can we go to our rooms?” she begged.
Uncle Arthur left us. At the door, he said, “I don’t like ‘Uncle Arthur’. Sounds Victorian. Why don’t you call me O’F?” Then he kissed us all goodbye.
Mummy seemed to cling to him. Luti led us upstairs and showed us our rooms. One for Mummy and me with two single beds and a dressing table with a frill round it. The window overlooked the back garden. I went to look out, and noticed something funny. The window had netting on it, like our meat safe at home.
“We have screens on the doors too,” Luti said, following my gaze. “The bugs get in anyhow. We say our mosquitoes are as big as cockroaches and the cockroaches are as big as gophers.”
“What are the gophers as big as?”
“Beavers, I guess!” she laughed. “Tell me if I’ve forgotten anything you need.” She stared at Mummy for a moment. “You’re real pretty,” she said suddenly. “Everyone’s going to love you.”
I decided I liked Luti. I liked her saying Mummy was pretty. Although she wasn’t pretty. She was beautiful. Even tired out and stressed and with her make-up sweated off.
Cameron had a smaller room. He looked round it bleakly, but then he saw it had a desk with lots of drawers, and a bookcase with some books in it.
“In her letter, your mom told me you like to read, Cameron,” Luti said. “I chose some books for you. I hope you like them.”
“Thank you very much,” said Cameron, sounding really grateful.
“We only have one bathroom,” she went on, “so it may get a bit crowded. But for today it’s all yours. I’ll delay breakfast. Come down when you’re ready.”
Mummy went first. She said she was desperate to get clean and asked us to wait, which we did, in Cameron’s room. He started off by going through the books Luti had bought, but then there was a scratching at the door, and Spajer joined us, and after that no reading got done. I think Spajer decided round about then that he was at least half Cameron’s dog.
Mummy came out of the bathroom at last, in a dressing gown, smelling lovely.
“Bubble bath. That Luti,” she said to me quietly, “has thought of lots of little kind things.” Then she said one of her favourite phrases, “The little more, and how much it is. The little less, and what worlds away!”
Cameron went next. I watched Mummy start doing her face.
“Gordon talks a lot, doesn’t he?” I asked.
“Lindy.”
“What?”
“Shut
