Free The Listmaker by Robin Klein

You’ve mentioned it quite a few times already. And you can stop fussing, because we’re just waiting for that little girl from next-door. Nat told her mother we could give her a lift.’
    â€˜Corrie Ryder? What a nerve, cadging lifts all over the place when we hardly even know them!’
    â€˜Where she’s going is just round the corner from the Moreton Centre, so it’s not even out of our way.’
    â€˜Their living room’s messy. I saw through the window last night when I was checking Eileen’s car. They even had food sitting around on plates on the
floor
. Well, I’m just glad I didn’t have to eat any of it!’
    â€˜Sarah, don’t be such a toffee-nose. The Ryders seem very nice people.’
    â€˜Their house isn’t. It’s even more run down than Avian Cottage.’
    â€˜They probably can’t afford to do it up. They’ve put all their money into buying a plant nursery, and good luck to them. Corrie’s a pleasant enough kid. When she brought that goat over before breakfast …’
    â€˜Meg’s a
dumb
name for a goat,’ I said, turning a little red.
    â€˜â€¦ I really think you might have shown some interest. She was just about to show you how to tether it, only you’d already nicked back inside. And it doesn’t matter what that goat’s called, as long as it gets rid of some of the blackberries.’
    I could think of plenty of reasons for not showing more interest in Corrie Ryder. While we waited, I went over some of them in my mind.
She was a pain in the neck.
She had a laugh like a kookaburra’s.
She poked her nose into things that weren’t any of her business.
She was tactless about people’s names (ie Piriel’s).
If I was too nice to her, she might get the idea I actually wanted to be her friend.
    Corrie came hurtling out, not even shutting their gate behind her. She didn’t close the door of the car properly, either, so we had to stop further along to fix it. She was off to this place where you could climb walls studded with rocks. Even though she had a grazed knee from her last visit there, she sounded as though she could hardly wait to have another try. (I felt amazed that anyone could not only
want
to do something like that, but also pay to get in!)
    â€˜It’s
awesome
! I’ll probably go again before Christmas,’ she said. ‘Want to come along if I do?’
    â€˜Thanks all the same, but I don’t think I’m going to have any spare time before Christmas.’
    â€˜There’s a big water slide up in the lake park. That’s great, too. Now it’s swimming weather, maybe we could –’
    â€˜I’ll be very busy,’ I said, cutting her off short.
    Aunt Dorothy, who was being decidedly irritating this morning, butted in with, ‘Get along with you, Sarah. You sound like a company director. I could always drop you and Corrie off at the lake park and pick you up again later. Or the wall-climbing place, if you’d rather have a shot at that.’
    â€˜I’ll have masses of cards to send out. And Christmas shopping to do, if I don’t finish it all today,’ I said curtly. Corrie’s exuberance was
already
driving me up a wall! It was hot in the car, but the air-conditioning was out of action. (It had been like that ever since Aunty Nat let Scott and Cameron tune it instead of having it done at a proper garage.)
    â€˜My Christmas presents were a breeze this year,’ Corrie volunteered. ‘I just bought a lot of old books at the junk shop, then hollowed out the pages with a Stanley knife. You make a kind of little pit for hiding valuables, but it still looks like an ordinary book. I thought I’d fill the cut-out spaces with gold chocolate coins, so everyone will get the general idea.’
    â€˜Goodness, I remember making one of those when I was a kid!’ Aunt Dorothy said. ‘I’d forgotten all about it.