Sarah's Legacy Read Online Free Page A

the doorway to see if, as I suspected, he was smiling. He was.
    â€œThey’re all personalized,” he said, waving his hand toward the gobbling creatures in the room.
    â€œWhat, the cats and dogs?” I was confused.
    â€œNo, their dishes. They each have two. One for food and one for water.” He leaned down and picked up a bowl to show me. On the side of it the word “Inky” appeared between black paw prints.
    â€œDon’t worry about trying to make them eat from their own dishes, though.” His smile was growing. “I just let them go to the nearest bowl.”
    I frowned. His amusement was not contagious.
    â€œWait till you see downstairs.” He was actually laughing by this time. “The cats’ litter boxes are personalized too. And the skunk’s. And I might as well tell you right now that hers has to be in the same place all the time. Skunks pick out a favourite place to ‘go’ and that’s that. Hard to believe, huh?”
    He was wrong. I’d have believed just about anything right then. But for Mom, the mention of six litter boxes was too much. A gasp, followed by a short, strangled cry came out of her. It seemed to restore her, though, because she got up then and joined us.
    â€œThis is a pantry,” she said indignantly. “Or, at least, it was
meant
to be one.”
    David shrugged. “You can move their dishes somewhere else if you want, I guess. I don’t think they’re particular about where they eat.”
    Mom stared at him blankly, but a sudden highpitched cry of “
Knock it off!
” from down the hallway startled her back to awareness.
    â€œThat’s Stoolie,” David explained. “He’s
always
telling someone to knock it off — and saying other bossy things. Anyway, did you want to have a look through the house now? I have to get back home to watch my kid brother when my dad goes to work.”
    We did a quick tour, trying to push aside the thoughtthat our inheritance included this unbelievable menagerie of pets.
    Stoolie told us to knock it off again as we passed him. He also commanded us to feed the pretty bird, though his dish was brimming.
    I have to say that the house was beautiful. There were two rooms off the kitchen, the pantry we’d already seen, and what David referred to as the back kitchen. Who ever heard of a house having two kitchens?
    Most of the floors were hardwood and a lot of the furniture was fancy-looking wood stuff too. A fireplace stood in what David called the sitting room downstairs. I’d never heard the names he used for some of the rooms before, being used to a kitchen, living room, bedrooms, and a bathroom, though of course I’d heard of dining rooms, too. But our house contained rooms that David referred to as a parlour and a den. Upstairs there were four enormous bedrooms and two smaller rooms that David identified as a sewing room and a quiet room. Two of the bedrooms also had fireplaces.
    â€œYou can check out the attic another time,” he told us, gesturing toward a square set into the ceiling of the upstairs hallway. “This is the entry to it. A ladder comes down when you open it.”
    â€œWhat’s the other building attached at the back of the house?” I asked when we’d gone through the place.
    â€œUsed to be servants’ quarters,” he said, “but Sarah used it for storing things. There are two entrances to it, one outside and one from the back kitchen, but both are kept locked. The lawyer will have the keys for those doors.”
    I’d never heard of servants’ quarters. Mom explained that years ago very rich people had wings built on their homes for the hired help to live in.
    â€œYou seem to have known my great-aunt quite well,” Mom remarked to David.
    â€œI helped her out when she needed something done. She was a nice old lady.” He looked away then and I could see that he felt sad about her