Free Oracle in the Mist by Linda Maree Malcolm Page A

and he bowed slightly and turned to take the whistling kettle off the boil. Bobby and David stared at one another, puzzled. David had heard the reference to Daphne too. David shrugged his shoulders to show Bobby that he found it quite mysterious as well.
    â€œRight. Time for tea. Aahh, are there any better words in the English language?” the professor said becoming quite excited at the prospect of having a fresh pot of tea. He stirred the pot enthusiastically and then poured the amber liquid straight into cups already prepared with milk and sugar. He handed it to the children. It was quite delicious. Very creamy and sweet. He also offered them some Anzac biscuits.
    â€œSo, have you met my mother then?” Bobby took up her line of questioning from before.
    â€œYou know, I’ve just this moment realised that these blasted tassels that have been the bane of my life for, oh, let me think … too many years to remember, can easily be detached.” He took the moccasin from his foot and held it up to demonstrate. “You see, every time I move my feet about, when I’m walking for instance, they bounce and bob around in the most annoying fashion.” He was staring at the slipper intensely.
    â€œScreech,” said Sebastian.
    â€œMy sentiments exactly, old chap. I believe I have stumbled onto the solution. See how tea gets the old grey matter working. Remarkable! Now all I have to do is snip them off,” and again he demonstrated by pretending his fingers were the scissors and snipping at the base of the tassels. “Now where did I put those scissors? Let me think. Oh, that’s right!” He smacked the side of his own head. “I lent them to those dratted natives decades ago and it’s my guess that they never returned them.” He let out a long sigh. “Fantastic people but simply no idea how to care for things and so unreliable in that way, you know, with things that you or I just take for granted. I’ll bet those scissors are lying buried somewhere all rusted up and underground by now. Still …”
    David and Bobby looked at one another blinking heavily. Something told them they had just stumbled into the drawing room of the most eccentric professor that ever lived. David went to ask a question but the professor overruled him by talking loudly over the top of him.
    â€œI could use my pocket knife. Splendid idea, old chap.” He seemed to be talking to himself now. “Now where is it, I wonder? Oh that’s right.” He jumped up from his spot, one slipper in hand and the other on his foot, and sweeping up the knife, opened it and severed off the tassels all within a few seconds.
    â€œThere,” he said, most pleased with himself and the look of the new moccasins. “So incredibly easy and quite liberating, if I do say so myself. I can’t think why I didn’t do it years ago.” He walked around in the slippers in circles, grinning from ear to ear.
    â€œRight, now … where were we?” he asked the children and took his seat again, smiling hugely and marvelling at his moccasins.
    Bobby and David exchanged glances again and David frowned and shook his head at Bobby as if to imply she should discontinue her line of questioning.
    Whatever the truth was about Daphne, it would have to wait. Obviously for some unknown reason, the professor was not comfortable discussing it. Bobby sat on her hands and chewed her bottom lip furiously. She felt as though she was being ignored and she didn’t like that feeling, not one little bit. She held herself back from shouting the thing that was on the tip of her tongue which went something like this: “How dare you speak my mother’s name, have a drawing of her hanging on your wall and yet not give me the information that I have requested. I have a right to know …” but she kept her feelings bottled up, because by hook or by crook she knew she would get to the bottom of this