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Meggie opened the book of poe in her face so brightly, and before beginning to read she looked over her shoulder to make quite sure Mo hadn’t followed her down She didn’t want hi to do She was ashareat

When she was perfectly sure no one was co she took a deep breath, cleared her throat – and began She shaped every ith her lips the way she had seen Mo do it, almost tenderly, as if every letter were a musical note and any words spoken without love were a discord in the melody But she soon realised that if she paid too much attention to every separate word the sentence didn’t sound right any more, and the pictures behind it were lost if she concentrated on the sound alone and not the sense It was difficult So difficult And the sun washer drowsy, until at last she closed the book and held her face up to its warm rays It was silly of her to try anyway Very silly …

Later that afternoon Pippo, Paula and Rico cae with theone in the e, watched ants carrying pine needles and flower seeds over the rough stones, and counted the ships sailing by on the distant sea

A second day passed like this Now and then Meggie wondered where Dustfinger could be, and whether Farid was still with hi to wonder where they were

There was no answer to any of these questions, and Meggie didn’t find out what Fenoglio was doing behind his study door either ‘Chewing his pencil,’ Paula told her when she hadthe end of his pencil and walking up and down’

‘Mo, when are we going to Elinor’s house?’ Meggie asked on their second night, when she sensed that, yet again, he couldn’t sleep She perched on the edge of his bed The bed creaked just like hers

‘Soon,’ he said ‘Go to sleep again now, OK?’

‘Do you ie herself didn’t knohy she asked that question out of the blue All of a sudden it was there, on the tip of her tongue, and had to be spoken aloud

It was a long time before Mo answered

‘So, at ht Al its little claws into her heart She knew that feeling; she felt it every tiirlfriend But how could she be jealous of her own mother? ‘Tell me about her,’ she said quietly ‘I don’t mean the made-up stories you used to tell’

She used to search her books for a suitable mother, but there were hardly any mothers in her favourite stories Tom Sawyer? No mother Huck Finn? Ditto Peter Pan and the Lost Boys? Not a ht Jim Button was motherless too – and all you found in fairy tales icked stepo on for ever That had often coie in the past It didn’t seem particularly unusual not to have a mother, or at least not in the books she liked best

‘What do you want me to tell you?’ Mo looked at theThe toain Their yowls sounded like babies crying ‘You look hs like you, and she chews a strand of hair while she’s reading exactly the way you do She’s shortsighted, but too vain to wear glasses--’

‘I can understand that’ Meggie sat down beside hi had almost healed up, but there would always be a scar, pale as the scar Basta’s knife had left nine years ago

‘What do you lasses,’ said Mo

‘I don’t Go on’

‘She loves stones, flat, smooth stones that fit comfortably into the hand She always has one or two of thehts down books with them, specially paperbacks She doesn’t like the covers to stick up in the air, but you were always taking the stones away and rolling them over the wooden floor’

‘And then she was cross’