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Scattered Leaves
By
V C Andrews
With my hands clasped and resting on my lap, I sat at the foot of my bed in my room, waiting for Grandmother Emma March's chauffeur, Felix, to come up for my two suitcases and me. This morning it was so quiet that I imagined I wore invisible earmuffs. I could hear only my memories: the muffled sounds of my mother and father having another argument behind their closed bedroom door across the hallway, the clip-clop footsteps of Nancy, the maid, coming down the hallway to clean either my brother Ian's or my room, Ian imitating the sound of some insect he was studying, Grandmother Emma's voice echoing from the other side of the mansion as she barked out an order to one of the other servants.
As I sat there, it suddenly occurred to me why I wasn't terribly unhappy about leaving my grandmother's magnificent mansion. It had never felt like a home to me. It was more like borrowed space. Mother used to say we were even borrowing the air we breathed here. My brother, Ian, and I had to be so careful about everything we touched, even in our own rooms. So-called unnecessary noise was prohibited. Often, we found ourselves whispering, even when Grandmother Emma wasn't at home. We behaved as if we believed that whenever she went somewhere, she always left her shadow behind to spy on us and make reports. There were tattletales listening in every corner, under every chair, behind closed closet doors.
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