The Web

by Nette Hilton

  A nice stiff lady found us. She came to turn on the light.

  ‘Ho! Ho!’ she said. She sounded just like a lady Santa. ‘What do we have here?’

  I thought she might rouse. But she didn’t. She said she was glad that I had made Violet-Anne smile again.

  I had made Violet-Anne happy. But it was the tin of letters that made Violet-Anne smile. It wasn’t a happy smile that you share with the world. It was a private smile that Violet-Anne was sharing with someone secret — someone she kept in her memory.

  So I just told the lady that I was glad I had made Violet-Anne happy and I said goodbye. I gave Violet-Anne a special hug and a kiss. She hugged me back. And gave me a squeeze. But her eyes were far away.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, ‘thank you.’

  I never saw Violet-Anne again. I never got to give her a hotdog from the canteen.

  My mum and dad took me with them to the nursing home early the next morning. I woke up when I heard the phone ring. I heard my dad say, ‘We’ll be right there!’ and I knew something was wrong. My mum was crying. Not angry tears this time. They were tears that made her nose all red and her eyes puffy. My dad kept patting her and blowing his nose a lot. His eyes were puffy too.

  I just stood there. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want my mum and dad to cry.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I said.

  So my dad told me. He told me that Violet-Anne was very, very old. He told me that she had lived a lot longer than many people. And he told me that she had lived a good life. It took a long time for him to tell me that Violet-Anne had died.

  I stood next to my mother for a long time. I knew I would miss Violet-Anne but my tears were still inside. I held my mum’s hand all the way to the nursing home.

  The stiff lady was softer today.

  She was gentle when she took my mum and dad to Violet-Anne’s room.

  ‘I’ll leave you here for a minute,’ she said. ‘I’ll bring you back a cup of tea and then we can talk a little.’

  The room was just as empty as before Violet-Anne moved in. It hadn’t stopped waiting for her like her house at 56 Brinsmead Street. It didn’t really know her. It was just empty and all it was waiting for was another old person. Perhaps somebody who might like it a bit more than Violet-Anne had.

  Her bed was made and her clothes were in a neat pile at the end. I smiled when I saw her football jumper.

  I’ll bet Violet-Anne was cross when she had to leave it behind.

  The little lavender tin was there too. It was sitting on top of the stack. I ran my fingers over it.

  ‘Can I have this?’ I asked quietly.

  Mum nodded. I don’t think she really knew what I had asked.

  I took it over to the bedside table and put it down. I didn’t want to read the letters. I only wanted to look at it. That was when I saw the web.

  It sparkled at me from the gap in the window. Every strand was sprinkled with crystals — just like before. It was spun round and round with only the finest strands holding it in place. And right in the centre, in the place where all the strands met, there was a tiny yellow blossom.

  ‘Look,’ I said. But I don’t think anyone heard me.

  It was the best web that Sam had ever made.

  I kept that web. A nice old lady with lots of wavy white hair gave me some hair spray and a nurse gave me a piece of brown cardboard. She said she’d never seen a web with a flower in it before.

  We put the web on the cardboard — just like Mrs Cannagan did. I have it hanging in my room next to my poster of the monkey on the toilet.

  Whenever I feel sad I go and look at that web. And remember all the things that Violet-Anne did with me.

  I think about Sam, too. I hope he’s happy living at the nursing home. I’ll bet he’s busy there with so many old people. Poor old thing is probably spun off his seven legs.

  And I think about that flower too. And the beautiful young woman in the lacy white dress in the photo that I found in the lavender tin. A tall man is standing beside her. He has one hand resting on her shoulder and the other resting on a cane with a silver egret on the top. The woman has long dark hair and in her hand she’s holding a bunch of tiny blossoms.

  I think about that a lot.

  My dad still says I’d forget my head if it wasn’t screwed on. Sometimes I think he’s right. But I’ll never forget Violet-Anne and all the holidays and stories we shared at 56 Brinsmead Street.

  And I’ll never forget Sam and that last special dream he’d spun for her.

  I know I’ll remember that forever. It’s hanging on my wall — right next to the poster of the monkey on the toilet.

  About the Author and Illustrator

  NETTE HILTON is a well-known writer of children’s literature. She has won several awards for her books: The Web was named a Children’s Book Council Honour Book, and the eternally popular picture book A Proper Little Lady was shortlisted in the Children’s Book Council Awards.

  KERRY MILLARD was born in Canada. She loved making pictures from the time she could hold a pencil. Kerry loves animals and grew up with dozens of pets including a monkey. Kerry moved to Australia when she was 19 and became a veterinarian, then a cartoonist, and soon began illustrating and writing children’s books. Kerry has many interests including singing and clowns and people and theatre and ideas and learning new things.

  Also by Nette Hilton

  A Proper Little Lady (illustrated by Cathy Wilcox)

  The Collecting of Timothy Taylor (illustrated by Steven Bray)

  Living Next to Lulah

  Copyright

  The author wishes to acknowledge the support

  of the Literature Board of the Australia Council

  Angus&Robertson

  An imprint of HarperCollinsChildren'sBooks, Australia

  First published in Australia in 1992

  This edition published in 2017

  by HarperCollinsPublishers Australia Pty Limited

  ABN 36 009 913 517

  www.harpercollins.com.au

  Text copyright © Nette Hilton 1992

  Illustrations copyright © Kerry Millard 1992

  The rights of Nette Hilton and Kerry Millard to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work have been asserted by them under the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000.

  This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  HarperCollinsPublishers

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  195 Broadway, New York NY 10007, USA

  National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

  Hilton, Nette, 1946– .

  The web.

  New ed.

  For primary school aged children.

  ISBN 978 0 20720 085 4 (paperback)

  ISBN 978 1 4607 0878 1 (ebook)

  1. Grandmothers – Juvenile fiction. 2. Spiders – Juvenile fiction.

  3. Spider webs – Juvenile fiction. I. Millard, Kerry. II. Title.

  A823.3

  Cover and internal illustrations by Kerry Millard

  Cover design by Katy Wright, HarperCollins Design Studio

 

 

 
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