Time For a Change
By Lynne Roberts
Copyright 2014 Lynne Roberts
ISBN 978-1-927241-11-0
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Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 1
Cory felt sick. It wasn’t so much the motion of the car, although the way Ms Lannigan jerked and bounced it all over the road certainly didn’t help. She was nervous, though Cory couldn’t see that she had anything to be nervous about. She wasn’t the one being taken to live with a new foster family.
Cory swallowed hard. There seemed to be a frozen lump inside him that was growing bigger and bigger and filling his whole body. The problem was that when he was anxious or upset, which happened to be most of the time in the past three years, the frozen feeling made him stiff and stopped him from smiling or even talking at times. This made other people think he was cold and uncaring and the more Cory tried to be friendly the more frozen up he became.
The last three years seem to have taken forever to live through. At first it felt unreal. Why should he have been the only one of his family to survive? If he hadn’t spent that night at his friend Jonathan’s house, he too would have died when the gas heater blew up and set fire to his house, killing his parents and two brothers. Jonathan’s parents had been very kind and let Cory stay living with them while things were ‘sorted out’. Cory had lived in a half awake state for months then Jonathan’s family had gone overseas and he had to stay behind.
Jonathan’s mother had been very apologetic.
“My husband has been offered a teaching position in Brunei and it is too good an opportunity to turn down. We’re sorry we have to leave you here but it’s better for you to be around your school and friends than having another upheaval in your life.”
Upheaval! Huh! She didn’t know the half of it. From the moment he was taken by Ms Lannigann, his social worker, to a new foster home, Cory was furiously angry. He raged about being left behind by his best friend. He raged about being alive while his family was dead. He raged about the fact that his only other living relations were an old grandmother who lived in an old folk’s home, and whose mind was completely gone, to a distant uncle in Northland who had family problems and definitely didn’t want other one.
By this time Cory was a problem. He smashed things for the sheer joy of seeing them break. He swore and kicked and bit and fought anyone who tried to offer him a kind word. Four foster homes and four changes of school later, Cory was deposited in a ‘temporary’ care home. Here a succession of boys stayed before being placed in homes more suitable for them.
It didn’t help that Jonathan had promised faithfully to write to Cory. A couple of letters came at the beginning, glowing with enthusiasm for Brunei where apparently their whole family was surrounded by fabulous wealth and Jonathan was given everything his heart could desire. But these letters soon trickled to a stop and Cory hadn’t heard from him now for over a year.
“No one will want me,” muttered Cory when Ms Lannigan brightly told him she was looking for a ‘placement’ for him. By now his anger was gone and he couldn’t have cared less what happened to him.
“That’s not true, Cory,” Ms Lannigan had said soothingly. “You’re nearly twelve now and I’m sure you could be very useful if you tried. Perhaps if you could go to a farm…” she trailed off as she saw Cory’s aghast expression.
“I’m being sent out as a slave,” thought Cory bitterly. “That’s the only thing I’m ever going to be good for.” He sighed and went back to feeling hopeless.
But in the event, it wasn’t a farm he was heading for. It was the beginning of the April school holidays and he was to go and stay with the Miller family.
“If it goes well they may consider taking you as a permanent placement,” Ms Lannigan told Cory wishing that the boy could wipe that scowl off his face. “This is a trial period.”
“So you mean I can come back after the holidays?” demanded Cory.
“Well yes, I suppose so,” admitted Ms Lannigan, with a mental sigh at trying to find yet another placement for this dreadful child.
“Good,” thought Cory. “I only have to put up with them for two weeks. They are bound to be awful.”
So here they were jolting down a country road to the small farmlet the Millers lived on.
“The Millers have one child, a daughter Meredith. She’s a year younger than you,” said Ms Lannigan encouragingly.
“You told me before,” muttered Cory, forcing the words out over the frozen lump inside him. As if he didn’t have enough to put up with, without being expected to be friendly with a girl! He closed his eyes and concentrated on the plans inside his head for the racing car he was going to build when he was grown up. It would be sleek and shining silver and he would travel faster than anyone else on the road. Maybe it could skim over water as well. He was adding a gun for firing from the back and a helicopter rotor for emergency lift offs when Ms Lannigan called “Here we are,” and he opened his eyes with a blink.
Ms Lannigan pulled the car to a stop outside an old rambling house. She opened the car door in relief. She had been sure Cory was on the point of throwing up in her car and was thankful to have got him this far without any outbursts of temper.
A skinny girl with blonde pigtails shrieked “Mum, Dad, he’s here,” and bounded up to the car.
Cory got out and stood feeling stiff and awkward while the girl introduced herself.
“Hi, you must be Cory. I’m Meredith, I’m going to be your sister and you’re going to be my brother, at least I hope you are. I’ve always wanted a big brother. Girls in books always have them and they do all sorts of adventures together. I hope we can have adventures together. Have you lived in the country before? Well, its not really country like miles from anywhere, it’s only four kilometres to town but it takes ages to walk it so we go by car or I ride my bike. Have you got a bike? Oh, no. I suppose you haven’t. Dad will have to buy you one and then we can go for bike rides, which will be awesome because Mum and Dad don’t like me riding on my own. Dad, Dad, you have to get Cory a bike.”
Cory backed up to the car against this barrage of words. Meredith could apparently speak without having to pause for breath like normal people and she was now dragging at his arm.
“Come and see your room and I’ll help you to get your bags. Where is all your stuff? Is that all you’ve got? Only one bag? Gosh. I need a bag twice that big even if I only stay at my friend Sasha’s house for one night. Sasha is my best friend but she’s gone away for the holidays. I thought it was going to be really bad luck that I had to stay home, because we usually go away, but Dad’s too busy to take us on holiday this time, but now you’re here we’ll be able to do stuff together…”
She faltered to a stop as she saw Cory’s grim expression.
At this point Meredith’s father stepped over to the car. He stuck out a welcoming hand and gave a wide grin. “Hi Cory, I’m Brian,” he said cheerfully. “This is my daughter Meredith, as I’m sure she’s told you, and this is my wife Maggie.”
“Welcome Cory. I hope you’ll enjoy being part of our family,” she said rather stiffly. Cory realised with a slight shock that she was nervous as well. The frozen lump thawed enough to enable him to croak, “Hello.”
“Now if you have any problems,” Ms Lannigan looked menacingly at Cory, with Be Good written in large letters in the air above her head, “don’t hesitate to contact me. Otherwise I’ll be in touch in a fortnight.”
She hastily climbed into her car and drove off, narrowly missing the gatepost and doing terminal damage to a small camellia bush as she turned the wheel.
Meredith giggled.
“She’s not much of a driver, is she?”
Cory felt himself thawing a bit more and risked a glance at Meredith but she had raced into the house calling for Cory to come and see his room.
Brian tried to take Cory’s bag but Cory hung onto it fiercely. It held everything he possessed and there was no way anyone else was going to touch it. Cory allowed himself to be ushered inside, wishing he could run freely like Meredith instead of stumbling like some sort of clumsy puppet.
“Then I’d run away from here as fast as I could go,” he thought and mentally increased the speed of his racing car by adding a jet propelled rocket to the back of it.
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