Mostly Sunny with a Chance of Storms (16 page)

‘Get
out
of here!’ said Lyall. ‘Is Dad, like,
proposing
?’

If
we
were the ones who were being spied on right then, instead of Mum and Carl, you would have seen three kids all in a row, with their jaws dropped and their mouths wide open.

‘Turn it off!’ I said, but at the same time I really didn’t want to, and it was too late because Carl was taking a ring out of the box and you could tell Mum said something like,
It’s just beautiful
.

‘Oh my god, he actually
is
proposing!’ I said.

‘Ewwww!’ squealed Saskia. And then, ‘Turn it off!’ And then, ‘Bags be flower girl!’

For a few moments I was frozen still. What were the odds of seeing that, right in the middle of trying to prove the existence of angels? Who would have thought? We just sat there staring, all three of us.

Until – you guessed it – Mum and Carl started kissing! Can you imagine? It was enough to have me on my feet in an instant pulling the plug to that surveillance monitor clean out of the wall.

When I got
back up to bed I found that my pillow had become a Willow. She was lying on it, fast asleep.

‘Willow!’ I said, clapping my hands. ‘Off!’

She jumped down, looked at me guiltily for a moment and flopped onto the floor with a groan. She was asleep again in seconds.

I turned my pillow over to the other side and lay down. I was feeling a little strange, not that Mum marrying Carl would change anything much; we were already a blended family. There was just something about it being made
official.
Lyall and Saskia would by my
official
stepsiblings and Carl would be my
official
stepfather. You can’t blame me for feeling a little uneasy. I mean, what if my stepfather turned bad? You read about it all the time in the paper.

And don’t parents understand that kids might need things to be a little more gradual? Like how you grow out of your favourite jeans so slowly that you don’t even notice. And what if Saskia
does
get to be the flower girl? This is
my
mother we’re talking about, not hers.

I wasn’t exactly jumping for joy, I can tell you, and really not looking forward to doing fake jumping for joy when Mum and Carl broke the news (probably at breakfast), and we had to pretend we had no idea. Or, worse still, if they acted all considerate and concerned and asked how we all
felt
about it, as if what we thought was actually going to change anything anyway.

By morning, Willow had snuck back up on the bed and was curled into a greyhound-ball at my feet. I had a panicky feeling that I was missing out on something. It was only when I caught a waft of cooking smells that I knew it was true. Pancakes!

‘Come on, Willow,’ I said, sweeping off the covers. ‘Pancake frisbee, your favourite thing!’

The problem with Willow sneaking up to my room at night wasn’t just that she got on the bed. It was also that she was still scared of going downstairs. I’d pulled my slippers on and thumped down to the landing before I noticed Willow hadn’t followed me.

‘Come on, girl!’ I called, but she didn’t appear. All I
heard was sulking from the top of the narrow stairs. I ran back up, taking the stairs two by two.

‘Willow,’ I said, standing at the bottom of the turret stairs. ‘You’ve got down there heaps of times.’ But she just made a whiny noise and barked at me.

‘Willow, you have to
learn
how to get downstairs. What if there was a fire?’ I said, climbing back up to the top. ‘I’ll do it just this one last time, but that’s it. Promise?’

I promise,
said Willow by the way she wagged her tail, along with her whole bendy body.

It wasn’t so easy to carry a greyhound down two flights of stairs, I can tell you. Especially as I had to keep one arm on the hand-rail. I reached around under Willow’s chest and she held her legs straight down, all stiff, like a wooden rocking horse. I had to put her down halfway and readjust my grip. ‘I mean, seriously, Willow,’ I said heaving her up again, ‘this is just not dignified.’

But Willow didn’t seem to mind at all. It was like when she was a puppy and I used to push her around in my old pram. She loved it, and didn’t mind one iota if other dogs were watching.

‘Seriously, Willow, imagine if any of your dog relatives could see you now.’

‘Here she is,’ said Mum, when I finally made it to the kitchen.

I suddenly remembered that she and Carl might be
going to make some type of cringeable announcement about
the engagement
. I managed to shoot a glance over Mum’s left hand to see if there was a new piece of jewellery on her ring finger, but there wasn’t.

Lyall and Saskia were sitting at the table eating pancakes, and they both gave me
the eyebrow
as if to let me know I wasn’t the only one to think of doing a ring check.

‘Morning, Sunny,’ said Carl. He was looking at the answers to yesterday’s cryptic. ‘Well, whoever this DA person is, I just don’t like him.’

He was talking about the initials that the crossword author signs under each grid. Mum and Carl were sadly so addicted to crosswords that they even had their favourite crossword authors, even though they knew nothing about them other than their initials.

‘Really,
parmesan
, what’s that got to do with
plateau
? Seriously, darl, if you and I actually met DA I can tell you right now, he’s just not our sort of person. Oh, and for crying out loud, look at six across.
Dead Reckoning,
how is
anybody
meant to get that?’

‘Morning, Carl,’ I said, checking if there was enough pancake mixture left for me. ‘Can I go next?’ I cut a splodge of butter and watched it sizzle in the pan. I was planning on making a super-thin one for me and a good thick one for Willow. I was also planning on making sure there were no awkward silences, just in case Mum and
Carl tried to fill one with their
announcement
.

‘Sunny, I thought we could sort through some of Granny Carmelene’s things today. It would be nice to get that room set up for guests, and we can store anything you like up in the attic.’ Mum helped me adjust the flame on the stove.

‘What about you two?’ said Carl to Lyall and Saskia. ‘How about giving me a hand in the garden? We’ve got to get all those vegie beds mulched so they’ll be ready for spring.’

‘Um, I’m going to a friend’s, Dad,’ said Lyall.

‘So am I, Dad, honest,’ said Saskia. ‘What did you two do last night?’

Both Lyall and I gave Saskia a look, while Mum and Carl smiled coyly at one another and looked all embarrassed. Then Mum started clearing the table without even telling me it was my job.

‘Oh, we just relaxed in the library,’ replied Carl. ‘Didn’t we, darl?’

Willow was under the table, resting her head on my leg as I finished my pancake (with butter, brown sugar, cinnamon and lemon), because she knew that hers would be coming next. I got up and sizzled some more butter in the pan.

Willow’s pancake was thick and fat and I let some extra butter soak into it before making a dash for the back
door with Willow right behind me nudging my bum. She ran down the back steps onto the grass.

‘One, two, three!’ I said, and flung the pancake frisbee as far as I could without making it break. Willow darted out and circled around and around, looking up in the air, until she heard it land in the middle of the frosty grass. I don’t think Willow’s eyesight is too good, even though she belongs to a class of dogs called sight hounds. She pounced on the pancake and it disappeared in two swift gulps. Then she ran straight back to me and sat up tall at my feet, hoping to have another turn.

‘That’s it, Willow. Sorry. Pancake frisbee is the world’s shortest game.’

I’d successfully managed to avoid Granny Carmelene’s bedroom since moving to Windermere. It was spooky as, and all still set up just as though nothing had ever happened. It made me feel as if she could walk back in at any moment, in one of her perfectly co-ordinated outfits.

I tell you, it was lucky I’d managed to summon Bruce and Terry up to the turret just beforehand, because if I hadn’t just been heavily doused in grief repellent there was no way I could have been in that room at all.

Even so, when I looked at Granny Carmelene’s big old bed all I could think about was her lying there all alone after writing me that letter, knowing she was about to die
and not even being one bit scared about it.

Which got me thinking again about the topic of somewhere and nowhere and exactly
where, where, where
a person passes
to
, when they pass away. Away
where
?

‘Come on, Sunny,’ Mum said, sweeping open the curtains. ‘Let’s make a start.’ She opened one of the windows to let in some fresh air.

‘Do you believe in heaven, Mum?’

‘Oh, Sunday, let’s try and stay focused. I thought we could start with the dressing room.’ She pulled back the sliding door. ‘It’s like a vintage clothing store in here.’

‘Just asking,’ I said, stepping inside.

Granny Carmelene’s dressing room was long like a corridor, but a lot wider. On one side there were two levels of hanging racks, and the other side was floor-to-ceiling shelves, drawers, and pigeon holes for shoes and bags, which made me think of Finn and whether his pigeons made it home.

At the far end was a huge mirror all carved and decorated around the edges, which Mum told me was made of Venetian glass. To the right of the mirror was a door to Granny Carmelene’s bathroom, which had a huge French porcelain bath that Carl said none of us were ever allowed to use, because of the water crisis.

I was flicking through a rack of summer dresses. ‘Mum, I don’t want to get rid of anything, ’cos when I’m older all
this stuff might be in fashion again, and even if it isn’t, I’m going to wear it anyway.’

‘I agree,’ said Mum. ‘That’s why we’ve got to store it all properly. I’ve got lots of boxes and tissue paper and some special silica packs to absorb any moisture. Oh, and some cedar and lavender balls to stave off the insects. That way you won’t be getting around smelling all mothbally, like an op shop.’

‘Ew, I hate that smell,’ I said. ‘Claud’s grandma smells like that.’

Granny Carmelene had the bestest-ever shoe collection. Practically every single pair still had its own shoebox, and a handbag to match. I picked one up to check the size.

‘Forty,’ I said. ‘So that’s about a size nine, isn’t it? What size are you, Mum?’

‘I’m an eight. Don’t worry, Sunny, you’ll get no competition from me. They’re all too big. Believe me, I’ve tried.’

That was a relief, I can tell you, because if there’s one person you don’t want to compete with in a clothing kind of way, it’s your mum. My friend Ruby has that problem. Her mum’s always buying the same clothes as her and dressing like a teenager. Ruby hates it. She just wishes her mum would wear Country Road.

I stood and stared at the rows and rows of Granny’s shoes, all beautifully made to last for years. And I thought about Crocs, and how shocked and disappointed Granny’s
shoes designers would be if they knew that most of the world was wearing buckets on their feet nowadays.

‘Can’t we just leave it all stored in here?’ I said. ‘I mean, there’s a perfect place for everything.’

‘I know, love,’ she said, taping up the bottom of a storage box. ‘It seems perfect, but it’s best for now to pack her things away. Besides, I’m sure Granny Carmelene would have wanted her things taken care of properly.’

As mum was speaking, I was looking in the mirror and imagining myself as an older, taller person (shoe size 40, of course), all dressed up in one of Granny Carmelene’s outfits. I was at some sort of important occasion and Willow was with me on a leash that matched my bag.
Thank you, it belonged to my Grandmother,
I was saying to people who were giving me compliments on my super-stylish outfit.
Yes, it is lucky I turned out to be exactly the same size.

It was precisely at that moment, when Mum had disappeared into the bathroom and I was floating off in my imagination somewhere between the present and the future, that I noticed a flickering up in one corner of Granny Carmelene’s mirror. Just a flicker, and then it was gone, but a flicker clear enough for me to know what it was. The angel. Or should I say
my
angel, as it (she?) certainly only seemed to be interested in visiting me.