 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
||
 |
|||
 |
 |
 |
 |
||
 |
||
 |
||
 |
||
 |
||
 |
 |
 |
 |
||
Read an Extract Something in one of the upper windows caught his attention, an orange shape moving to one side of the pane. ‘Pony?’ he shouted, and immediately, she was plainly in view, waving to him. Had she been there all along? Watching him? Something was going on. She’d called him that morning and told him in that rapid-fire way she had that he needed to come up to the lake and it had to be today. She had the place all to herself. Well, she and her son Andrew, who was only a baby. But the point was, no Daddy, no Tinker, no Mira. Pony had just come up and let herself in, and they didn’t even know about it. ‘So there!’ she’d said, meaning she’d blown off the whole sign-up sheet, the careful summer schedule that Tinker had come up with after their mother died. She vanished from the window. A moment later, the screen door flew open, banged against the side of the house, and slammed shut. Pony came at a run, a blur of bright orange T-shirt and white shorts across the lawn, her long dark red hair streaming behind. ‘Oh, Jesus, William,’ she said wrapping her arms around his neck. ‘You came.’ She was the youngest of his three sisters, his hands-down favourite. She was lean and tall, and she had the kind of energy that made her light as air. She hugged him, freed herself, hugged him again. She had a broad face, high cheekbones, and a perfectly straight and slightly prominent nose; it was the kind of nose, their father said, that came from generations of breeding. Her eyes, though, those were the main thing about Pony. Big hazel eyes always alert, always taking everything in, eyes that darted quickly and constantly. |
 |
 |
 |
 |
||
 |
||
 |
||
 |
||
 |
||
 |
 |
 |
 |
||