Children of the Moon. Evadeen Brickwood

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СКАЧАТЬ it, if they didn’t trample on his flowers or played fountain with the water hoses. Water was expensive these days.

      Too clever for their own good some of those kids are, Walt thought to himself and opened the trunk of the car. Just too clever.

      Katherine and the two boys jumped onto the crunching gravel. She felt hot in her woolen skirt and twin set. They were more suitable for the cool British weather than the much warmer Georgia. Then it didn’t matter anymore. Katherine had detected Chryséis and Trevor.

      Trevor stood in a group of boys, close by. They were telling stories about their holidays. Chryséis held the hand of her colourfully dressed Mom. Most of the kids wouldn’t be seen dead, holding their Mom’s hand, but Chryséis couldn’t be bothered with other people’s opinions. Prof. Cromwell was a bit eccentric, but other than that, really nice. Not like many of the other rather square parents.

      The three friends shared an interest in quantum physics and global warming and were in the top ten of their grade. This year, they would be in the seventh grade. Seventh grade sounded so grown-up!

      *

      Trevor was glad to be back at school after a never-ending holiday. He had spent the first two weeks cooped up in his Dad’s small flat in Chicago, ’The Windy City’, with his new computer. His Dad never spoke much and it had been too cold to go outside. The few friends he still had there were on vacation.

      Trevor knew that his Dad meant well, but they were just light years apart. His parents had been divorced by the time Trevor was three and he began to spend much time with his beloved grandmother.

      Granny had nursed him when he had broken his arm as a little boy, they went for walks in the park and she had made up the most amazing stories.

      But then Granny had died two years ago of pneumonia in the cold of winter and Trevor felt so lonely as if he had lost his entire family right then.

      Dad’s new girlfriend Peggy-Sue had also been there in Chicago. She always wore this puzzled look on her heavily made-up face. She was a waitress at the diner around the corner. Dad had obviously not looked very far to find a girlfriend. Trevor couldn’t talk at all to the giggling Peggy-Sue and avoided her most of the time.

      By the end of his stay in Chicago, Trevor was sick of greasy burgers and peach cobbler. He was sure that his Dad and Peggy-Sue were just as relieved to see him leave on the bus bound for Iowa.

      Trevor listened to music on his headphones for most of the trip and braced himself for his stay in Iowa. His mother was now Mrs. Hadwen and seemed happier in the country than she had ever been in the city.

      Trevor found it difficult to call her ‘Mom’ or even kiss her cheek. He didn’t know her very well. All she did was talk to him about stuff like eating a nourishing meal and wearing a clean shirt and had given him three boring shirts for Christmas.

      Her new husband was a big, homey fellow of a farmer, who talked just as little as his Dad. Trevor’s half-brother, Gerry Junior, was a real pain in the neck. Gerry was just two and a half and threw temper tantrums at least a dozen times a day.

      It became Trevor’s favorite pastime to walk along the fallow cornfields or in the hills. At least he could get away from the house. He had discovered a gurgling spring between two vertical rock faces last summer. There he liked to sit on a flat rock and played with the pebbles in the water or he just read a book. But in winter it was just too cold for that.

      Trevor much preferred the mild southern climate. The fragrant rose garden at Pemberton was his favorite spot. Here he would sit on a bench under the softly swaying birch trees and study. Even in winter.

      When he became friends with the confident Chryséis Cromwell and Katherine MacDougal last year, they often sat together under the birch trees. The two girls never ragged him like some of the other girls. They were different. Sometimes, they just chatted while watching the colourful birds, flowers and dragonflies.

      Oh yes, Trevor was glad to be back at Pemberton. He had arrived by bus in the morning and his short brown hair was still neatly combed.

      Trevor had already spotted the two of them, but it would have been uncool to run and greet them now in front of all the boys.

      “Yeah, sure, I also can’t wait for the baseball season to start again,” he said instead. John LeGrange was going on about last season’s highlights and he just couldn’t shut up about baseball.

      “I’d rather play cricket,” said Ben.

      Ben Harper from Rockingham, Australia was one of the wealthiest kids at the school. He carried on telling them every boring detail about some sailing trip, while Trevor watched the girls from the corner of his eye.

      They waved wildly to each other. Katherine looked like a lady. Chryséis, on the other hand, had blonde pigtails and wore simple jeans and a pink T-shirt and. Pink was her favorite colour.

      The Cromwells had named their first child after an obscure character from one of the Greek legends. The ‘Tale of Troy’. The historical Chryséis had been a lucky maiden. Captured by the Greeks during the Trojan War and then given back her freedom.

      This was unusual in Greek mythology, to say the least. The parents of the modern Chryséis had studied Greek and had been inspired by the story. Her younger siblings were named Jason and Cassiopeia, or Cassie for short. Also classical names.

      Katherine and Trevor spent many a weekend in the townhouse of the Cromwell family. It was half hidden by an overgrown garden, in an area of town, where manicured lawns and straight flower beds were the order of the day.

      Trevor had loved it there from the start. The family was so uncomplicated, and he loved Mrs. Cromwell’s cornbread and gumbo.

      They seemed to have so much time for each other and always talked during dinner. Inside, the house was bright and cheerful with loads of wooden furniture smelling of beeswax polish. There were framed pictures on the walls and all sorts of fascinating stuff was scattered around.

      *

      “Hi there, Katie!” Chryséis called and let go of her mother’s hand.

      Katherine started to run across the parking lot. But not without pinching the unsuspecting Trevor in passing.

      That was unusually bold for Katherine and Trevor tried to playfully slap her arm. She was too fast for him, despite her stiff skirt and woolen twinset.

      The white gravel crunched under their soles as Trevor chased her to the other side of the lawn. The two of them came to a halt in front of Chryséis, breathless and laughing.

      “Hi there guys, good to see you’ll again,” Chryséis greeted them in her southern drawl.

      “Hi there, girlfriend,” Katherine laughed, still out of breath. “Hello, Mrs. Cromwell!”

      Chryséis’s Mom greeted them and continued chatting to other parents.

      “Hey Chris, did you get my last e-mail? I sent it off in Oxford yesterday before I left.”

      “Which e-mail, the one about Fred’s tummy bug?”

      Katherine nodded. “Yes, got it. Bummer.”

      Chryséis СКАЧАТЬ