Free Gift of the Gab by Morris Gleitzman

something in French, which was probably her translating for Mr Bernard.
    I went into the kitchen and they all stopped talking.
    Dad went down on one knee and sang me a quick verse of that haunting Carla Tamworth classic ‘I Love You More Than Pickled Onions’.
    When he’d finished I was about to ask him what it was he wanted to tell me himself, but Mrs Bernard spoke first and what she said took my breath away, and not just because of her voice.
    â€˜We go now to your mother’s grave,’ she said. ‘Yes?’
    My guts gave their biggest lurch since our plane hit an air pocket over Afghanistan.
    I nodded.
    We piled into another police car with Mr Bernard driving this time and soon we were speeding through the narrow streets.
    My chest was thumping so hard from fear and excitement that I didn’t think about flowers till we were almost out of town.
    I prodded Dad and told him.
    â€˜Bit late for flowers now,’ he said. ‘Sorry, Tonto.’
    I was stunned. Normally Dad would crawl through wet cement to get flowers for Mum’s grave.
    Mrs Bernard turned and gave me one of her sad smiles. ‘It’s not too late,’ she said. ‘Ro must have flowers.’
    She said something to Mr Bernard in French and he slammed on the brakes and did a squealing U-turn through a petrol station. He zoomed back into town and parked on the footpath outside a flower shop.
    Inside, Mrs Bernard said lots of things in French to the two young women shop assistants. While she spoke they stared at me, their eyes getting bigger and bigger.
    It didn’t worry me, I get stared at quite a lot.
    I just wanted to buy some flowers and get to my mum’s grave.
    The assistants must have understood my hand-movements because suddenly they jumped into action and gave me a beautiful bunch.
    Then something weird happened.
    They wouldn’t take any money. Even when Dad took the senior assistant’s hand and put some French money into it she just gave it back.
    He tried again with Australian money, but she didn’t want that either.
    I realised what was going on.
    They probably hadn’t seen a kid before with bits missing from her throat.
    â€˜They’re being charitable,’ I said to Dad.
    Dad frowned and turned to Mrs Bernard, who was smiling and nodding. He opened his mouth to explain how Australians don’t usually accept charity unless it’s absolutely essential because we’re used to battling a harsh land with droughts and bushfires and floods and unreliable tractors and pushy TV presenters.
    Then I saw him decide it was too complicated to try and explain all this through a translator, even a top one like Mrs Bernard.
    Instead he gave me an apologetic shrug.
    It was OK, I understood.
    Well, I thought I did.
    â€˜Ta muchly,’ Dad said to the assistants. ‘Very nice of you.’
    That’s what I thought too, at the time.

Mr Bernard got us to the cemetery in about three minutes.
    Mum’s French cemetery is very different from her Australian one. It’s got a wall round it with a gate, probably to keep out local boons and their dog poo.
    I was shaking so much as I followed Mrs Bernard through the gate that I could hardly hold the flowers.
    She took me to Mum’s grave.
    Most of the graveyard is gravel, and most of the graves are grey stone.
    Mum’s isn’t, but.
    Mum’s is the most beautiful grave I’ve ever seen.
    Her headstone is marble and her grave is covered with really soft dark-green grass, perfectly clipped and edged with more marble.
    But it wasn’t just the neatness of the grass that made my mouth fall open.
    It was the four other bunches of flowers lying on it.
    All fresh.
    I stared, gobsmacked.
    I’d imagined Mum’s French grave would be wild and unkempt and I’d be the first person tidying it up and putting flowers on it for twelve years.
    Instead it’s the best-cared-for grave in the whole cemetery.
    I was about