“I do not—” she began.
“Now, see, Ithoughtso,” Jade said.
“Zane doesn’t want to hear this either,” Skylar said, somewhat desperate now.
“Zane’s intrigued,” the man himself said. “Go on and give us the plan. We can always say no.”
“True,” Skylar said. “And the brilliant plan is …”
“I understand you’re taking a house in Wellington for the school holidays, Zane,” Granddad said. “As you’ll be training down there with the All Blacks.”
Gordon sighed. “Rub it in, why don’t you. I’m only named as injury cover for this series. The lot of a midfielder. Why is En Zed rugby so lousy with midfielders? Of course, there are enough matches coming up that they may need me. I’m clinging to that cheering thought.”
Granddad ignored him. “So we thought,” he went on, “that as I’m keen to join Maureen there and she’s keen to have me—it’s too much anyway, a woman of her age coping with three kids for weeks without any help—we could get Skylar and the kids down for a week or two as well. That’d help Maureen and me slip away from time to time, for one thing.”
“So your plan,” Zane said, still calmly, “is to have Skylar care forallthe kids while you and Nan ‘slip away.’ Not surethat’s much of a holiday for her. Year One teacher,” he told his siblings.
“We know,” Jade said. “Georgia’s teacher. Intriguing.”
“Who gets enough chance to practice her child-wrangling during term time, I’d have thought,” Zane said. “Why would this plan appeal?”
“I can’t imagine,” Jade said. “Unless …”
“It doesn’t,” Scarlett said.
Zane fixed her with a hard look. “I’ve heard enough of that from you. I’ve thought it would pass, but it’s not passing, and I’m tired of it. It’s not funny, and it’s rude.”
Scarlett opened her mouth, then closed it. Her cheeks turned dark, and she looked miserable. Finlay piped up, and Skylar tensed, but all he said was, “Scarlett hasn’t said any more about me than I’ve said about her, though, so that’s not fair. If she’s rude, we’re probably both rude.”
“Probably so,” Zane said. “And I’d like it to stop.” His gimlet eye was on Scarlett again. “Understood?”
She nodded once, a jerk of her head, and looked down at her pudding.
“Good,” Zane said. “You two can keep track of my list instead. You’re both systematic enough for that. Ready to begin?”
“Uh … yes,” Finlay said. “Sir,” he added belatedly.
Scarlett said, “Suckup.” Out of the side of her mouth, but Finlay heard her. “What?” he said. “He’s scary.”
Zane said, “Now that we’ve got that sorted, here’s how I see it. It’s a pretty good house, because I’ve let it before. Six bedrooms, heated swimming pool that’s bigger than ours?—”
“With a diving board,” Duncan said. “I’m getting better at diving, Dad. I want to learn trick dives now off the board.”
“Then you’ll be happy,” Zane said. “Climbing structure, too. Swing set. And then there’s Wellington.”
“Te Papa,” Duncan said. “That’s a museum,” he told the others.
“I know,” Finlay said. “Just because we haven’t been doesn’t mean we don’t know.”
“Oh,” Duncan said. “Well, it’s cool. And there arehugeplaygrounds. And Zealandia. That’s birds,” he told Olive, who was next to him. “If you sit very still and don’t scare them, you can see heaps of interesting birds.”
“I’d like to do that,” she said. “Can we, Mum?”
“Have you been to the Quake House at Te Papa?” Finlay asked Duncan. “I’ve only been to the volcano exhibit at the War Memorial Museum here, where they make you feel what it’d be like if a volcano erupted. You wouldn’t have enough time to get away, and most people would die. I wonder what the earthquake exhibit says about that.”
“You have a lively interest in death,” Gordon said.
“It’s interesting,” Finlay said, “because people are so afraid of it, but it happens all the time. Which makes it more interesting than things like spiders and snakes.”
