Read A Second Chance for Free Online Page B

watch those fellows,’ she added in a lower voice, plainly still
none too impressed by the sailors. ‘Oh, and make sure you don’t get
off at Tauranga by mistake. Frank, how will she know it’s Tauranga
and not Auckland?’
    ‘She’ll know. Anyway, you’ve got to change
boats at Tauranga. Someone will point out the right boat to you,
Amy, don’t worry.’
    ‘I’m not a bit worried,’ Amy assured him.
And it was true; she faced the voyage with bright anticipation.
‘Don’t worry about me, Lizzie, I won’t get lost.’
    ‘Well, you just be careful who you talk to,’
Lizzie said, clearly unconvinced. ‘Especially once you get to
Auckland. All those people there,’ she said, shaking her head
disapprovingly. ‘There’ll be thieves and goodness knows what sort
of rogues, keep an eye on your things. The roads, too,’ she said,
seizing on a fresh idea. ‘They’ll be busy as anything—didn’t you
say the roads get busy there, Frank?’
    ‘There’s a lot more carts and buggies and
things than we’re used to in Ruatane,’ Frank agreed.
    ‘You see?’ said Lizzie. ‘So watch yourself
crossing the roads. Oh, and have you got Miss Millish’s address
written down? You never know, if you get lost when you’re up there
and have to ask someone the way, they mightn’t even know where she
lives with Auckland being such a big place.’
    ‘I know the address by heart.’
    ‘You should write it down anyway. It’d be a
terrible place to get lost in.’
    Amy suspected that, at least for the moment,
Lizzie had completely forgotten that Amy had made one other trip to
Auckland, long ago. Though there had been little enough chance for
her to get lost during that stay, confined as she had been to first
boarding house then nursing home.
    ‘You stick close to Miss Millish, anyway,’
said Lizzie. ‘She’ll see you don’t get lost.’
    ‘Oh, I’ll stick close to her, all right,’
Amy said, and smiled. That, she knew, would be an easy promise to
keep.
    The sailors seemed to be making their final
preparations; it would not be long before the boat sailed. Amy was
thinking of boarding when her younger brother appeared.
    ‘Tommy!’ she said in delight, taking hold of
his arm and standing on tiptoe to plant a kiss on his cheek. ‘I
didn’t expect to see you here!’
    ‘I sneaked off for a minute.’ Seeing her
look of alarm, Thomas grinned and squeezed her arm. ‘I didn’t
really. Mr Callaghan said it was all right for me to come and see
you off. I thought I’d better wait till it got a bit quiet, though,
then everyone seemed to come into the bank at once. I thought I
might have missed you.’
    ‘You nearly did,’ Amy said, glancing at the
boat. ‘I’m glad you came, though. I was just thinking about you.’
Thinking about that other trip to Auckland, with all its dark
memories. Thomas had been with her on that voyage, though Amy was
unsure whether he remembered it. As a little boy of two years old
he had been more like her own child than a brother, and he had
cried miserably when Amy was left at the boarding house, while
Thomas and his baby brother were swept off by their mother to stay
with her parents. Looking back, Amy found it hard to believe that
she had actually been upset at parting from Susannah. Only the fear
of being left alone among strangers could have roused such a
feeling in her.
    ‘Mother said she’d try and come along too,
to see you off,’ Thomas said.
    Amy gave a guilty start at having Susannah
mentioned aloud when she had just been recalling unpleasant
memories of her stepmother.
    ‘Oh, there’s no need for her to put herself
out.’ Amy wished her lack of any desire to see Susannah did not
sound out quite so clearly.
    ‘Well, she did say she felt as if one of her
headaches might be coming on. You know how she gets those. But she
sent her best wishes.’
    ‘Did she really, Tommy?’
    ‘Yes, she did.’
    Amy studied the firm set of his expression
and decided that, surprising though