Read Three Summers for Free Online Page B

don’t know. Just any young girl.’
    The statue’s face had a kind of patient calm, and the square hands curved protectively across the small round belly that pushed against the shift’s wooden folds. ‘Yes, you’re like all of us,’ whispered Margaret May, laying the basket of hydrangeas on the end of a pew, opening the cardboard box. Inside were the two big drip-trays she’d borrowed from the shop storeroom; they’d been designed to hold motor oil or paint but they would hold water just as well. She filled the kettle in the kitchen behind the sacristy and poured the water into the trays. The blue hydrangeas floated there, jostling and quivering against each other, and Margaret May gave a tiny gasp of pleasure, because it looked so perfect, exactly as she’d imagined it in her garden this morning: the girl’s small brown feet stepping out into a soft blue sea.
    There was a sudden rattle at the door behind her, and a strident barking call. ‘Yoo hoo! Anyone there?’ She turned and saw Merle Hogan had arrived, little Milly Lachlan a few steps behind her, almost hidden by a great green bunch of ivy and ferns. Merle had a sheaf of scarlet gladioli which she held up high in front of her, like a runner bearing the Olympic torch. ‘That you over in the corner, Margaret May? What are you doing there?’
    â€˜The flowers.’
    Merle came clattering up the aisle. ‘But it’s so dark! How can you see?’ Her hand found the switch on the wall and overhead lights came on. ‘Ah!’ she gasped.
    Merle Hogan was a big woman whose flesh seemed to strain from her clothes. Her eyes protruded too, fixing on the blue hydrangeas floating at the statue’s feet. ‘Whatever’s this?’ she cried. ‘What’ve you done, Margaret May? Why are the flowers all over the floor?’
    â€˜They’re not on the floor.’ Margaret May lifted a flower to show the tray beneath.
    Merle sucked in her breath. ‘Well! What a funny idea!’ Her voice rang with astonishment, even outrage. Margaret May was silent. It was one of the things she hated about the little town, how you couldn’t do anything the least bit different without being thought ‘funny’. You couldn’t even think differently, or they would find you out and whisper. For years she had dreaded that her clever granddaughter would have to live that way, but now she wouldn’t, and the knowledge almost made her smile.
    Merle turned to Milly Lachlan. ‘Don’t you think it’s funny, Milly?’
    Milly was Fee’s grandmother. She had the same fair skin and wide blue eyes, the same sweet nature, even the same little dimple in her cheek. She hesitated for a moment now, eager to keep the peace, but gazing at the deep blueness of the hydrangeas, she couldn’t help herself from exclaiming, ‘I think they look lovely!’
    â€˜Lovely!’ Merle’s wide nostrils flared; she hated it when people disagreed with her. She scowled at both of them. ‘Someone could get their foot caught and trip! There’d be water everywhere!’ When there was no response to this she put her hand on Margaret May’s arm and spoke quite softly, as if encouraging reason in a naughty child. ‘Don’t you think they’d be better in vases, Margaret May? Up on the altar, or on a shelf somewhere?’
    Margaret May stood her ground. She knew about people like Merle Hogan. There’d been girls like Merle at the orphanage, big girls, mean spiteful girls, eager to push you around. Hungry girls they were, wanting any little thing you had, or else to make you cry. You got to know them and you learned not to give way to them and make them glad. You recognised them later when you met them in the adult world, angry and hungry still. There was never any kindness in them, not a drop.
    Margaret May looked down at her small sea of blue flowers. ‘I like