Read Pickers 3: The Valley for Free Online Page A

walls. Despite the rough frontage, however, the buildings were still solid. The sounds of children playing could be heard before they even saw the buildings.
    The woman they had talked to when they had arrived in town was refereeing a game of boules on a gravel strip between the chalets' shared veranda and the pavement. She spotted Tony and Veronique and waved to them. As they drew nearer, she pointed to a group of the smaller children crowded around a plastic table. One of the children stopped playing with the wooden bricks she was building a tower with,  and stared at the newcomers. One by one, the other kids looked up as well, until Luke turned to see them.
    His face was very pink, now all the muck had been washed from it. His hair had been cut to a more manageable length, but he had compensated by getting it ruffled up so spikes stuck out in all directions. He looked up at Tony and Veronique, and his mouth formed a little O. Then he turned and ran into the nearest chalet.
    "Oh." Veronique felt a horrible, quick loss as the child clambered up the steps. She hadn't expected to be rejected.
    The woman got up from her refereeing and stepped over. "That was odd. He has come on so well since we got here. Just a couple of days and he's picking up words really quickly. Or perhaps he's remembering them, who knows. Should I go and get him for you?"
    Before Veronique or Tony could reply, Luke appeared back in the door to the chalet. Holding something in his right hand, he carefully made his way down the steps. Serious expression on his face, he walked up to them and held out the object. It was the torch Tony had given him. Veronique bit her bottom lip, holding in a laugh and wondering why the back of her eyes stung.
    Tony took the offered torch and tested it. It still worked. Kneeling down, he put it into the little front pocket on Luke's shirt and pressed the stud closed. "You keep on looking after that for me, okay." Luke grinned and nodded, holding out his arms to be lifted up.
    When he was on a level with Veronique, Luke held out a hand, trying to reach across and touch her cheek. "jour" he said.
    "Bonjour to you too, Luke. I hear you've been learning some new words. What new words do you know?"
    Luke thought about this for a while, then pointed at the front of the chalet and said, "Ah."
    "I suppose so. So, do you want to go and have a look around the town?"
    Luke didn't seem to understand the question, until Veronique pointed down the street. "Erm, it is okay if we take him away for a while, isn't it?"
    "Of course. But next time, we might make you take all the children and show them the sights. We're looking for good families for all of them."
    "Families, eh?" Tony was trying to get Luke's hair to sit neatly, and failing. "We'll see how that goes. Where shall we take the little one? Can you show me part of the town I haven't seen yet?"
    "Let's go to the greenhouses." Veronique said. "I loved them when we lived here."
    The greenhouses were built on the expanse that had previously been car and coach parking around the wheel house for the cable cars. The cables were still strung from pylon to pylon up the hillside, and, a few times a year, a gondola would edge its way up to the wheel house's mate far above. But that wasn't going to happen any time soon, so they made their way to the mass of glass structures under the cables.
    Veronique remembered the routine of old. There was a handle that visitors had to pull, that would set bells gently ringing in all corners of the structure and, if anyone was working in there, someone would come to decide whether to let them in. She tugged the handle all the way down, then watched as it clicked its way back into position. As always, she couldn't hear the bells, so didn't know whether they had rung. She resisted the impatient temptation to pull again.
    While they waited, Tony was making nonsense conversation with Luke. "Look at that tree." he said, "And that one. That tree's even taller. I