The House Swap: Part Two

Dad sighs and trudges up the stairs.

He
barfs frothy green liquid all over my jeans.

There’s a drawing of
a house, five stick figures, a horse that is almost as big
as the house, and the word WELLCOM scrawled across
the top of the paper in gigantic multicolored letters.

When I go to the bathroom the next morning, I see
two very fancy-looking toilet bags. One is cream
leather and has initials monogrammed on it in navy-blue letters so swirly I can’t even read them, and the
other is pale pink with BELIEVE printed on it in silver
letters.

She has
fine, wispy sunshine-colored hair in two fancy braids
that reach halfway down her back, very round, very
blue eyes, pale eyebrows and eyelashes, and a heart-shaped face.

My own mother appears in the doorway behind Sage’s
mum, yawning, earringless, glossless, and wearing an
ancient tartan dressing gown of Dad’s, which has definitely seen better days.

Twenty minutes later, Mum is looking at Dr. Ted incredulously.
“Did you say bloat? Gas? Wind? Oh my god! Angus is
going to be furious. It cost one hundred and fifty pounds
to change the flights.”

“The surgery went extremely well. Bear should be
feeling like himself in no time. Big dogs like him are
more at risk of GDV due to their increased thoracic
height-to-weight ratio,” Dr. Ted says.

“Basically, Bear has a deep chest. Do you want to
come and see him? He’s still a bit woozy from the anesthetic.”

Mum practically does a dance on the spot and hugs
Sage’s mum.

“Hmmm,” she says, fiddling with her camera. “I’m
not sure I’ve got the shutter speed right for this light.
I’ll need to check the instructions when we get back to
the cottage.”

She has a cloud of tight white curls, a bit like
the fleece of one of the sheep in the patchwork fields.

She’s wearing purple-framed glasses and a frilly white
apron with purple flowers on it, and she has a smudge of
flour on her cheek.

It reminds me
of the Calico Critters Grocery Market I used to have—the one I secretly played with long after my friends
had given their sets to a younger brother or sister.

She says you have a
swimming pool. Very posh!

You Americans are keen on
tracking down your relatives, aren’t you?

You should check with the vicar. If your relatives got
married at St. Agatha’s, the records will be there.

“Well, are you going to California or not?”
Wow, she’s almost as relentless as Willow.

“Um, Allie?” Sage says, walking tentatively toward us.

It’s weird that Sage isn’t more confident, because if I
looked like her and lived in a fancy house in California
with a pool and my own bedroom, I would swan around
like the queen, but American.

Chloe Belton smiles in her sickly-sweet way, flicks her hair, and sashays back into her house.

You’re so lucky to be an only child. My
brother is a mean, smelly, loud, obnoxious show-off, and
my sister is a little brat who follows me around all day
and steals my stuff.

Mom says something in a really quiet voice. I wriggle
forward, straining to hear her reply.

“Would you like me to ask your mum for you? I’ll do it in
a supersubtle way. In Think Like a Spy—you can borrow
it if you like—there’s a whole chapter on covert interrogation techniques. Basically, you just slip an important
question into a casual conversation.”

“He is a bit subdued,” Mum says. “Don’t worry,
though. I’m sure he’ll be back to his usual bouncy self
in no time.”

Everything she sees is “adorable,” “super cute,”
or “quaint,” and she seems to be having a great time.

These are the parish records for 1945 and 1946. I
thought that if Violet married a pilot from the US Air
Force base, they probably got married right after the
war ended.

By the way, Moleswood House is just on the outskirts of the village.

Well, Lauren, Sage, if you’ll excuse me, I must go and
change before the bishop arrives. God wouldn’t mind the
T-shirt, but the bishop is a bit of a fuddy-duddy.

“Moleswood House,” Allie says in a sulky voice. “It’s
where Sage’s great-great-whoever lived.”

I open it slowly, and a soft smell of flowers and secrets wafts out. It almost feels as if the suitcase is sighing.

Ignoring Allie, I open the suitcase wide, resting the
lid gently against the table. It is lined with the palest
green fabric that has tiny white flowers embroidered on
it.

Mom, Mrs. Greenwood, and I sit at the kitchen table
for ages looking through the photographs and papers
while Allie sprawls out in the striped armchair in the
corner, her legs hanging over one arm, engrossed in her
spy book.

I suggest we take pictures of
some of the most incriminating evidence—mostly in the
endless text chain between Sage’s mum and Kristen.

They’re right for a change: this is no time for
empathy and wallowing in misery—it’s a time for action.

We know that ONE, your
mum’s friend has given her the number of a divorce
lawyer called Stephanie Salinas, who TWO, charges
a ridiculous seven hundred and fifty dollars per hour,
which THREE, seems very expensive without even
counting the fact that FOUR, Stephanie Salinas also
wants a five-thousand-dollar retainer, whatever that is,
but FIVE, your mum hasn’t paid her any money yet, so
SIX, she might still be making up her mind about getting a divorce, which is why SEVEN, we need a plan,
stat.

“Make sure you give your hands a good
wash. Don’t forget that chicken poop can give you salmonella.”

I consider this for a minute but can imagine Sage’s
parents scouring the nearby fields for her, maybe using
Bear as a sniffer dog.

The golden topaz promotes deep friendships and
reminds you to value true friends. It’s a fun, sunny
crystal that brings a real sense of joy.

“Covert Operations, Subtle Surveillance, Code-Cracking, Disguises...Disguises?”