tiny cloud between the trees shifted to the left as the road swerved through the broad school gate. Ah, there was another cloud not far from the first. That’s more like it.
Katherine sighed and settled back into the snug leather seat. As always, the holidays had been way too short. She missed her gentle French mother and Dad and their comfortable home in Oxfordshire. And Aunt Trudie, Mom’s sister. She was always so nice and funny.
She didn’t really miss her two younger brothers, Graham and Frederick. They were really naughty and bothered her endlessly.
Dad was often away on business. The lingering smell of leather and cigars always reminded Katherine of him. When her Dad was home, she loved to sit on his lap and listen to his deep, sonorous voice. He’d tell her fascinating stories, like the one about a wedding in Pakistan he had been invited to.
‘The bride wore a red and gold sari dress and the groom’s eyes were hidden behind a veil of golden lametta,’ he had reported. ‘Women were dancing around balancing metal water jugs on their heads.’
They made Dad ride on a painted elephant! Katherine could see the scene right in front of her as she smelled the leather of the car seat. This time, Dad had been home for only three brief days before flying back to Hong Kong.
Would things be better, if her parents weren’t wealthy? Sometimes, all Katherine wanted was the luxury of growing up without being shipped off to boarding school. It seemed so unfair. Why couldn’t she just grow up like everybody else? Well, almost everybody else. There were many kids with rich parents at Pemberton.
The rambling school building painted in rust and white, with its impossible spires and towers, appeared behind the sweeping green lawns at the end of the driveway. Katherine asked herself for the umpteenth time, who had thought that up.
Loads of shrubs and trees dotted the Pemberton school grounds. All that exuberant vegetation kept two gardeners quite busy throughout the year. Murmuring water features sparkled between masses of flowers as the car purred past a nine-hole golf course.
The sports facilities at Pemberton weren’t to be scoffed at, either. Too bad that Katherine wasn’t interested in sports.
They left the tennis courts behind as the car began to wind its way up the alley between high bluegum trees.
Walt steered the black Volvo deftly up the broad driveway.
A familiar bump in the road jolted Katherine from her dreamy mood. A red squirrel with feathery tail darted up and down the trunk of a large tree as they reached the graveled parking lot. Directly in front of the entrance with its sweeping stairs.
Children walked around everywhere between the parked cars, while adults in smart clothes stood chatting next to piles of luggage. A familiar sight.
The school magazine proudly declared that Pemberton-students came from all over the States, Europe and from far-flung countries like Korea, South Africa and New Zealand. The academy enjoyed an excellent reputation all over the world.
A sobbing boy of perhaps eight years was obviously new to the school and clung to his increasingly impatient mother. “Mom, I don’t want to stay here. Mom, please...”
She scolded him under her breath and pulled his clawing hands from her expensive pink designer suit.
"Lester..., stop it this minute. No, don’t do that... please... stop it!”
At the same time, she tried to make a good impression on Woody Kranich’s mother, who was a fashion editor from California. Defeated, Lester sat down on his designer suitcase with a sad expression.
For Katherine, there had been a few tears in the privacy of her first class seat on the Boeing that had carried her from London to New York. By the time her connecting flight had reached Etheridgeville, Katherine’s tears had dried up. After all, her parents tried to give her the best education they could afford. Nothing one could do about it, anyway.
The Volvo came to a solid halt. On top of the broad steps, the great doors were flung invitingly open.
‘Pemberton Academy for Advanced Learning’, announced a polished brass sign next to the dark wooden entrance.
“Right, here we are,” Walt said. His voice was raspy like a vegetable grater. “Out with you guys. I’ll get your things from the trunk in a jiffy and take them up to the entrance hall.”
Walt was an amicable fellow with grey, wiry hair. He had been the janitor, chauffeur and supervisor of staff forever – even longer than the fat cook Mrs. Hadley - and proud to be an employee of importance.
He admired Dr. Broadbent and was fond of the students. Well, most of them. He appreciated 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