Read Online Millie and the Night Heron by Catherine Bateson - Free Book Online Page B

yourself?’
    â€˜Depends.’ She shrugged, turning away. ‘Someone from the exhibition committee might be interested. There’s a good film on at the Valley cinema.’
    â€˜So you really don’t mind?’
    â€˜Of course not. I think this is a greatopportunity, Millie. Helen’s mother seems very nice. It was funny really, because we had coffee together only last week but didn’t put two and two together. About you girls, I mean.’
    â€˜I wasn’t friends with Helen-Sarah-and-Rachel last week,’ I pointed out.
    â€˜That’s true,’ Mum said. ‘Things can happen fast, can’t they?’
    â€˜That was the whole point of the camp, to bond us together. You said so yourself.’
    â€˜That’s right, I did. Now, Millie, what shall we have for dinner?’
    After dinner the phone rang. I don’t mean that was unusual. Sheri often rang us, Patrick rang at least once a week, and there were other friends from our old life, too. What was unusual was that when the phone rang, Mum took the call and then sent me off to the shower and took the phone into her bedroom.
    She was off the phone by the time I got out, and was drinking a cup of tea.
    â€˜Who was that?’ I asked casually.
    â€˜Just someone from the exhibition committee,’ Mum said.
    â€˜What is this exhibition anyway?’ I asked.
    â€˜An exhibition for the Diploma students,’ Mum said. ‘It was supposed to be on late last year, but the tutor was ill. So we’re doing it this year,instead. I thought I told you all this. It’s occupied most of my non-teaching time for the past six weeks!’
    â€˜Just refreshing my memory,’ I said smoothly. ‘Any chocolate biscuits left?’
    The phone rang again much later. I was in bed reading. I waited for Mum to come in and tell me who had rung up but she was on the phone for so long I went to sleep waiting. She was on for so long it could only have been one person in the world – and that was Sheri.
    Helen-Sarah-and-Rachel-and-I played netball practically every fine day. We weren’t on a team or anything. It was just what we did. We weren’t on a team because:

    â€” Helen didn’t like competitive sports.
    â€” Sarah was too short.
    â€” Rachel played badminton and she was only allowed to play one thing after school.
    â€” I didn’t really play netball at all.

    â€˜You should though,’ Helen said, ‘you’ve got the height, Millie, and you’re fast, when you think about it.’
    I didn’t like having to think fast, although I loved the feeling when the ball soared out of your hands and went up, up into the air and thenstraight into the basket, as though it was destined to drop through from the moment it left your hands, tugged there by an invisible thread. The rules confused me, though, and I didn’t like the way everyone shouted at you, ‘Throw it here, here, here!’ I agreed with Helen about competitive sports, although it wasn’t so much the competition as the noise and the pressure.
    I liked hanging out with Helen-Sarah-and-Rachel. They talked to each other about everything, even the embarrassing stuff.
    â€˜I like Drew because he’s funny,’ Rachel said, lying back in the grass. ‘Do you see that big cloud, the one over there. I reckon it looks like a dragon.’
    â€˜Like the dragon from The Dragon Piper, ’ Sarah said. ‘That has to be the best book ever written.’
    â€˜I haven’t read it.’
    â€˜Oh, Millie, it is so good. You’ll just love it.’
    â€˜You will love it, Millie. Sarah, can you lend it to Millie?’
    â€˜Of course, I’ll bring it to school tomorrow. I know what you mean about Drew, Rachel, he is funny. But he’s too short for you, really.’
    â€˜I don’t care if he’s short,’ Rachel said. ‘I don’t get all that stuff about boys having to be