Magenta McPhee (14 page)

‘But I'm not,' I said. ‘I can't do the maths sheets or tell the time.'

‘Time, maths,' Mrs. Wiseman waved them away with one hand as though they didn't matter. ‘Smart is more than time and maths. Two more to go.'

Dad had said recently I was selfish, but I didn't want that going on my description. Sarah said I was a drama queen, but that wasn't fair either.

‘Drama queen,' I said hesitantly.

‘Melodramatic,' Mrs. Wiseman nodded, ‘quite useful, really.'

Melodramatic sounded much better than a drama queen. ‘A good shopper,' I said, remembering Mum's tea cup.

As though she read my thoughts, Mrs. Wiseman smiled, ‘Ah yes, as witnessed by the Royal Albert tea cup. Discriminating. Good list, Ruby. I think we will get on just fine. Now, favourite food?'

‘For dinner, afters or snack?' I was beginning to like Mrs. Wiseman, even though she was pretty weird.

‘Oh, let's start with breakfast and work our way down through the day.'

Mrs Wiseman and I both liked pancakes. She didn't like peanut butter and Vegemite and thought wraps were silly.

‘Grilled cheese sandwich with a sprinkling of paprika and the cheese just bubbling.' she said.

We both liked roast chicken, lasagne and fish and chips. Mrs. Wiseman liked Christmas pud best but I liked double choc ice-cream, though I hadn't thought of Christmas food but I didn't want to admit that, particularly now that I was smart.

‘Books?'

But the books I had read Mrs. Wiseman hadn't even heard of and the books she loved were ones I didn't know – except for
Seven Little Australians.

‘Did you cry when Judy died?'

‘Of course,' I said, ‘doesn't everybody?'

‘You'd think so,' Mrs. Wiseman said. ‘I could lend you some books, if you like.
The Secret Garden
– you might enjoy that. I loved it.'

‘Oh, yes please!' Never turn down the opportunity to borrow a book. I was rapidly running out of reading material, what with Mum being so sick and Dad not realising the library opening hours so we always turned up twenty minutes after it closed.

Then it was time to heat up dinner and we agreed that if we did the biggest spaghetti sauce, Mrs. Wiseman could stay, have dinner and meet Dad ...