Free The Small Fortune of Dorothea Q by Sharon Maas Page A

voice when she spoke again, this time shy and uncertain.
    ‘Look, I can’t talk to you, and you shouldn’t be here at all. If my Pa sees me, he’ll …’
    ‘I told you, he’s out. But we don’t have to talk here. Come on over to my place. You’ve never been inside, have you?’
    ‘No, of course not!’
    Like theirs, the Quint house was made of white-painted timber, and stood on high stone columns so that you reached the front door via an outside staircase, but there the similarity ended, for the Quint house was several times bigger, and just as wild as the family that lived within its walls. Probably it had started out as basic as theirs, and as practical: two stories, with a jutting gallery along the front, a drawing room behind the gallery, a kitchen behind the drawing room, a staircase leading up to the bedrooms and bathroom, above it all a roof of corrugated iron, and all around it windows and jalousies and wooden shutters.
    The Quint house had a life of its own. As the family that inhabited it had grown so had the house, with extensions upwards and outwards: a high tower topped by a cupola; Bottom House rooms added on willy-nilly; and even an Annex, a separate little cottage joined to the back of the house by a mid-air passage. The house was an architectural monster, yet fascinating; it made you want to enter and explore, figure out how all its parts fit together, or even if they did at all. It fired Dorothea’s imagination, already well nourished by the piles of novels she borrowed from the library. She could imagine a wicked witch living there, keeping her prisoners victims in the various rooms, or a miser all alone, counting his fortune, or a community of elves, or a headmistress with a boarding school and a horde of giggling girls her age. But actually, truth was better than fiction and the family that lived there was far more intriguing than any witch or gathering of elves. Pa said they were Satan’s brew, and that was enough to whet Dorothea’s appetite.
    Now, Freddy snapped his fingers to wake her out of her reverie. ‘Hey, come down from the clouds! You want to come over, meet my family?’
    Dorothea met his eyes again. She smiled, flipped her pigtails over her shoulder.
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Come on, then.’ Freddy held out his left hand. She took it with her right. He pulled her into the hibiscus bush, pushed away the loose board in the palings and held it as she squeezed through the hole. He followed suit. He took her hand again, and the two of them ran through the alley, along the grass verge that edged the gutter.
    The moment their hands joined Dorothea knew that her life would never be the same again.

Chapter Five
Dorothea: The Thirties
    F reddy and Dorothea reached the Quint backyard a little way along the alley. No need to hold her breath to squeeze between the laths; unlike the narrow gap in the van Dam fence, which Freddy had just this day created, the opening in the Quint palings was wide and permanent, for the Quint boys had long ago claimed the alley as part of their property. They might was well have put in a gate.
    This yard, like her own, was a profusion of typical tropical trees and shrubs: hibiscus and oleander adding points of brilliant colour; bougainvillea cascading with red and purple clusters; pawpaw and banana palms and two huge mango trees lending shade and concealment. Freddy led the way down a gravel path between the overgrown, unkempt bushes. Two dogs leapt around them, tails wagging, eager to lick Freddy’s face and make her own acquaintance. She laughed, and patted them; she loved animals, but Pa wouldn’t even allow a cat, said he was allergic.
    ‘This is Parrot,’ said Freddy, fondling the brown one, ‘and this is Turtle.’
    Dorothea laughed. ‘What strange names!’
    ‘I gave them those names when I was about six,’ said Freddy. ‘Everyone else was suggesting boring names like Frisky and Blacky. I wanted them to have really special names. So Parrot and Turtle