Iâll do it today.â
It wasnât until the next day that Sonia got a chance to speak to Andrea, however, because Andrea was late home that evening. So they didnât meet again until the following morning, once again over breakfast at the kitchen table. Sonia would have forgotten all about it, she was so sleepy in the mornings, but Carol wouldnât let it go.
âAndrea, Sonia wants to talk to you about our computer.â
That seemed to set Andrea off. She started gabbling.
âIâm glad you brought this up. Iâve been wanting to have this out with you two. Computers are not kidsâ toys, you know, and theyâre expensive. If you have a problem, you should call technical support right away.â
The conversation was not going the way Carol had planned. The two younger girls could hardly get a word in edgeways, and it was all the wrong way around. The one who was doing the telling off was Andrea. That wasnât how it was supposed to go.
âAt first I thought it was just nonsense,â Andrea was babbling on, âa stupid virus, because of those weird little symbols that appeared on the screen. Thatâs why I said that thing yesterday morning. Only later, when I got to the office and started revising the terms of a petition with Colin, he noticed something strange and asked me what that was doing in the middle of my work. I was so embarrassed! There I was, concentrating on serious stuff, work stuff, and looking like a fool ⦠I had this really well-grounded argument, based on a long history of jurisprudence and case histories, and then in the middle of it comes all this rubbish from you girls. Colin was really sweet about it, but of course he thought it was weird. Frankly, girls â¦â
âCan you explain exactly what happened?â Sonia was trying to sound focused.
Putting her empty glass on the table and getting ready to leave, Andrea said, âI spent days researching this stuff. I went to a lot of trouble. I even found precedents for our argument in ancient Roman law, in Hammurabiâs code â¦â
Whose code? Sonia had never heard of the guy.
â⦠in lots of places, and then there was all that childish nonsense scattered in the middle of it. It was lucky that Colin noticed it before we handed it all to Dr Barry, otherwise â¦â
While she was talking, Andrea was fussing with her folder. She shuffled a few sheets of paper, then took two pages and left them on the kitchen counter, putting the sugar bowl on top of them so they wouldnât fly away. Before either of her younger sisters had time to say anything, she had already picked an apple out of the basket on the table and was standing on the threshold, about to sink her teeth into the fruit and disappear from sight on her way to work.
She snapped, âI should have thrown it away, of course. I just kept it out of the goodness of my heart. There it is. Iâm in a hurry. Bye!â
And she was gone.
âYou didnât even ask what she was doing on our computer!â Carol complained. âShe canât just ââ
âShut up, Carol,â Sonia interrupted, getting up slowly and walking to the counter.
Carol was used to Soniaâs foul mood in the mornings so she didnât say anything, but she was surprised to see her sister getting up and picking up the sheets of paper. Kind of looking like a zombie, itâs true. Still, she was moving a lot more than usual for that time of the morning.
Sonia sat down with the pages in her hand and examined them carefully. On the first page was a list. A shopping list, perhaps, but quite weird. There were some insane items, some crazy amounts and some nonsense prices in a very strange currency. But it couldnât be a shopping list. Nobody writes down the price of something in order to remember to buy it. So what could this list be for?
30 sheep
20 packs of Anatolian wool
2 combs for wool
2 hair combs
3
It wasnât until the next day that Sonia got a chance to speak to Andrea, however, because Andrea was late home that evening. So they didnât meet again until the following morning, once again over breakfast at the kitchen table. Sonia would have forgotten all about it, she was so sleepy in the mornings, but Carol wouldnât let it go.
âAndrea, Sonia wants to talk to you about our computer.â
That seemed to set Andrea off. She started gabbling.
âIâm glad you brought this up. Iâve been wanting to have this out with you two. Computers are not kidsâ toys, you know, and theyâre expensive. If you have a problem, you should call technical support right away.â
The conversation was not going the way Carol had planned. The two younger girls could hardly get a word in edgeways, and it was all the wrong way around. The one who was doing the telling off was Andrea. That wasnât how it was supposed to go.
âAt first I thought it was just nonsense,â Andrea was babbling on, âa stupid virus, because of those weird little symbols that appeared on the screen. Thatâs why I said that thing yesterday morning. Only later, when I got to the office and started revising the terms of a petition with Colin, he noticed something strange and asked me what that was doing in the middle of my work. I was so embarrassed! There I was, concentrating on serious stuff, work stuff, and looking like a fool ⦠I had this really well-grounded argument, based on a long history of jurisprudence and case histories, and then in the middle of it comes all this rubbish from you girls. Colin was really sweet about it, but of course he thought it was weird. Frankly, girls â¦â
âCan you explain exactly what happened?â Sonia was trying to sound focused.
Putting her empty glass on the table and getting ready to leave, Andrea said, âI spent days researching this stuff. I went to a lot of trouble. I even found precedents for our argument in ancient Roman law, in Hammurabiâs code â¦â
Whose code? Sonia had never heard of the guy.
â⦠in lots of places, and then there was all that childish nonsense scattered in the middle of it. It was lucky that Colin noticed it before we handed it all to Dr Barry, otherwise â¦â
While she was talking, Andrea was fussing with her folder. She shuffled a few sheets of paper, then took two pages and left them on the kitchen counter, putting the sugar bowl on top of them so they wouldnât fly away. Before either of her younger sisters had time to say anything, she had already picked an apple out of the basket on the table and was standing on the threshold, about to sink her teeth into the fruit and disappear from sight on her way to work.
She snapped, âI should have thrown it away, of course. I just kept it out of the goodness of my heart. There it is. Iâm in a hurry. Bye!â
And she was gone.
âYou didnât even ask what she was doing on our computer!â Carol complained. âShe canât just ââ
âShut up, Carol,â Sonia interrupted, getting up slowly and walking to the counter.
Carol was used to Soniaâs foul mood in the mornings so she didnât say anything, but she was surprised to see her sister getting up and picking up the sheets of paper. Kind of looking like a zombie, itâs true. Still, she was moving a lot more than usual for that time of the morning.
Sonia sat down with the pages in her hand and examined them carefully. On the first page was a list. A shopping list, perhaps, but quite weird. There were some insane items, some crazy amounts and some nonsense prices in a very strange currency. But it couldnât be a shopping list. Nobody writes down the price of something in order to remember to buy it. So what could this list be for?
30 sheep
20 packs of Anatolian wool
2 combs for wool
2 hair combs
3
Similar Books
A Southern Exposure
Alice Adams
Shattered
Kailin Gow
Deadly Betrayal
Maria Hammarblad
Mockingbird (A Stepbrother Romance)
Abigail Graham
Holly's Wishes
Karen Pokras
Furious Old Women
Leo Bruce
The Bricklayer
Noah Boyd
The Demon King
Heather Killough-Walden
Crawl
Edward Lorn
Suprise
Jill Gates