Read Online Shooting Butterflies by T.M. Clark - Free Book Online Page A

he put Tara on the bench at the back of the crematorium hall and smoothed her skirt down, covering her legs.
    â€˜Hey Gabe,’ Tara said, seeing his large familiar smile.
    â€˜ Imbodla , you okay?’
    â€˜Why didn’t you sit down before you fainted?’ Aunty Marie-Ann interrupted. ‘What am I to do with you, Tara? You have caused your mother even more stress on a day she really didn’t need it.’
    â€˜I’m sorry,’ Tara said automatically. Already she’d learnt that her mother’s sister wasn’t someone who suffered fools. She was strict, and she expected to be listened to, no arguments. Tara had only met her once before in her life, and she hadn’t liked her then, and she sure as hell hated her aunt now for her unkind words.
    Tara looked at Gabe. Gabriel, with his kind, gentle soul, had always been in her life. He was as close to a brother as she was ever going to get. He understood her. Always.
    â€˜Marie-Ann, why don’t you go grab Tara something cool to drink? I’ll make sure she doesn’t fall of this bench, it’s quite narrow,’ Gabe said.
    â€˜Oh very well,’ Aunty Marie-Ann said as she went off to get the beverage.
    â€˜Stuck up old biddy. How her and your mum could be related amazes me,’ Gabe said. ‘Come on, let’s see if you can sit up.’
    â€˜Gabriel,’ Tara said, ‘what’s going to happen now?’
    â€˜We’re going to munch our way through that spread of cakes and drink lots of cups of tea in the room over there, and then home.’
    â€˜No, not now. I mean what’s going to happen now that my dad and Uncle Jacob aren’t there to run their businesses? Who’s going to run Whispering Winds?’
    â€˜Ah, your mum will most likely sell it. I know Mr Potgieter has approached her already.’
    â€˜He can’t have our farm! It’s not right!’ Tara said. ‘He’s horrid. Whenever I have seen him he always has on the same grass-green suit that looks like he’d split the seams at any moment. Gabe, it’s the same colour as baby poop when they get diarrhoea. And his thick legs always in his green knee-high socks, and his safari shorts always ending just above his hairy knees.’
    â€˜Don’t be nasty about his lack of clothes sense. That look was in vogue a few years back.’ Gabe smiled.
    Tara grinned. ‘Did you see how his bushy beard sticks out at all angles, and he strokes it like it might be a cat. But it doesn’t smooth down, it bounces up and curls around his hand as if it were snakes. Like Medusa from my Greek mythology book, except the hair ison his face, not his head. And did you notice that his beady grey eyes are the same as his pit-bull terrier? Like those of a pig, slit and untrustworthy.’
    â€˜Now you are just being nasty, Tara. You can have a problem with him, but you can’t go around saying things like that—’
    â€˜Only to you. I wouldn’t dare to anyone one else, Gabe. But I don’t want him to have our farm. I don’t want anyone to have Whispering Winds, or anything that is ours, except us.’
    Gabe smoothed a stray hair off her forehead. ‘Sometimes in life it’s not what’s right that happens, it’s more like dumb blind luck. Come on, here comes your aunt and before she gets up at you again, let’s get you on your feet and back with your mum.’
    â€˜Thanks, Gabe,’ Tara said. ‘I’m so glad I have a cousin like you.’
    â€˜Me too,’ he said.
    Three weeks after the funeral, Gabe strode through the door of the house Maggie and the girls were renting in Bulawayo. It was so much smaller than the farmhouse that their furniture dominated the rooms. But Maggie had insisted that the girls complete their year of school, and she had moved the family to the city where the girls could continue as day scholars for the rest of the