Free The Great Gatenby by John Marsden Page A

used to the idea that Melanie lived here — but she just opened it up and went right on in. There was a vestibule and then we were in this massive entrance hall with a floor of tiles or something, I don’t know, and stretching away to the right and left were reception rooms that looked like they were out of a museum, because they were filled with antique furniture and paintings and big tapestries hanging on the walls. In front of us was a huge staircase that split in two different directions half way up. But Melanie went straight ahead, through a little door beside the staircase.
    â€˜I think this is where you’ll be,’ she said. ‘It looks like it’s all made up.’
    â€˜What time’s Inspection?’ I asked, cracking jokes to cover how nervous I really felt. The thing was, this wasn’t a bedroom I was sleeping in, this was a suite. There was a bedroom, sure, but there was also a little sitting room and a bathroom. The shower, for some reason, was off the bedroom, separate from the bathroom. ‘Where do I ring for Room Service?’ I asked her. I wouldn’t have been surprised to be shown a bell above the bed.
    â€˜Come on, leave your stuff here,’ Mel said, ‘and come and see my room.’
    â€˜Oh good, yeah, I’ll need to know where that is,’ I smirked.
    â€˜Don’t be disgusting,’ she said, wrinkling her nose at me.
    We went up the main staircase and along a corridor. What got me was that everything was so perfect. You just knew that every room was going to be laid out like it was a work of art — there wasn’t going to be some old junk room, filled with rubbish, or a rumpus room with toys and pyjamas scattered all over it. ‘How can you actually live in a place like this?’ I wondered, but not out loud. I was beginning to understand Melanie a bit better. Mel’s room was good though, the only one in the place that I would have felt comfortable with. It wasn’t anything special, I mean, not something out of Vogue Living ; it was just a messy kind of kid’s room, with stuff stuck on the walls and a patchwork quilt and a big black stuffed gorilla and a fantastic view across the gardens to the city.
    â€˜I’ll bet they shut the door when they bring visitors through this part of the house,’ I said, trying to flop down in an armchair that wasn’t really made for flopping down in.
    â€˜You better believe it,’ said Mel.
    I jumped up and started looking at what she had on the walls. There were some pictures of wind-surfers, a drawing of a ‘Smile’ face, a banner with a statement on it that she’d written out from somewhere: ‘WHATEVER YOU CAN DO, OR DREAM YOU CAN, BEGIN IT. BOLDNESS HAS GENIUS, POWER AND MAGIC IN IT.’ There was a newspaper picture of some sleeping bats, a photo of a woman rock-climber hanging out over nothing, a calendar, a Do Not Disturb sign, a cartoon of a man trying to hide a hole in a wall by putting a bigger hole over the top of it, another saying: ‘ALWAYS BE TRUE TO YOUR TEETH AND THEY’LL NEVER BE FALSE TO YOU’, and a whole lot of photos.
    I took a good long look at the photos, despite Melanie getting all embarrassed. There were a couple of old ones from her last school, Ainsworth — class photos and sports teams. It was easy to pick Mel; she was the only kid in year three with a punk haircut. Then there were some family shots, and some taken of her and her friends up at the snow, and finally a stunning large photo of her diving: a beautiful colour shot that caught her in mid-air.
    â€˜Who took that?’
    â€˜My mother . . . she’s a photographer.’
    â€˜What does your father do?’
    â€˜Uh, runs department stores or something . . . ’
    â€˜Oh, right, yeah, should have guessed.’
    â€˜They’ll be back in about an hour,’ she added, looking out the window.
    â€˜What are we going to do