Wish Upon a Star Read Online Free Page B

Wish Upon a Star
Book: Wish Upon a Star Read Online Free
Author: Trisha Ashley
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my mind to having a merry little Christmas with a bright yuletide and jingle bells all the way.
    Ma’s house was a long, low building made of slightly crumbly local sandstone, once a tied cottage on the Almonds’ farm, Badger’s Bolt. From what I’d gleaned, Ma had a fairly solitary childhood there, with parents who didn’t mix much with the local people. But it sounded like the Almonds had always been clannish before they emigrated after the war, so I suppose when Ma’s parents came back, they
would
feel isolated. Ma didn’t like to talk about the Almonds much, but that could be because, apart from her father, she didn’t really remember them.
    I do dimly recall visiting Grandma Almond: a small, plump, silver-haired woman, who only ever seemed to have a real conversation with her hens. The cottage had still belonged to old Mr Ormerod, the farmer who’d bought up the Almonds’ land and buildings, so it was a very different place now from how it was originally. A few years before, he’d sold off the buildings he didn’t need, including this cottage, and the new owners extended upwards and out at the back, giving Ma an upstairs master bedroom with ensuite over the light airy garden room, as well as a garage at the side.
    The big barn nearby has been converted into a smart house, but the old Almond farmhouse at the top of the lane was currently uninhabited and for sale, since there had been some trouble with the last owner a year or two back and it had lain empty ever since.
    Stella and I had the two small downstairs bedrooms just off the old sitting room and next to the family bathroom, and Toto and Moses, Ma’s cat, fight it out for the rag rug in front of the wood-burning stove in the kitchen.
    Ma seemed mildly pleased to see us, but it was just as I thought: she hadn’t remembered to get a tree, or find the decorations, and was even hazy on which day of the week Christmas Day fell. But we quickly settled in and next morning I decided to leave Stella with Ma after breakfast while I went into Ormskirk to do a huge supermarket shop for basics: anything else I needed I intended to buy in the village, which has a good range of shops now.
    I would take Toto with me, since he was always happy to go anywhere in the car and it took him and Moses the cat two or three days of wary circling and jostling before they settled down happily together, so time apart was good.
    Ma and Stella were going to go up to the studio and, since it was a Sunday, I was sure Hal would also be about to keep an eye on her. Stella, though, saw things differently and promised to look after Grandma while I was out.
    ‘I’ll tell her off if she puts her paintbrush in her mouth,’ she assured me. ‘And Grandma, you shouldn’t smoke.’
    ‘I’m down to two Sobranies a day now, so have a heart, love,’ Ma said, guiltily laying down the jade holder she had removed from her mouth for long enough to eat her breakfast and which she’d been about to replace. It seemed to be a comfort thing, a bit like the thumb-sucking Stella still resorted to in times of stress. Today’s Sobranie was the same green as the holder.
    Stella made a tut-tutting noise and shook her head, so that all her white-blond curls danced.
    ‘You leave Grandma alone,’ I told her. ‘I’m sure she doesn’t breathe the smoke in.’
    Ma looked even guiltier, and Stella unconvinced, but I left them to it and went to brave the pre-Christmas shops: with only a few days to go a kind of feeding frenzy was taking place in the aisles and a near-fight erupted over the last family-sized deluxe Christmas pudding.
    There was no sign of anyone at the cottage when I got back so I put away all the shopping in Ma’s almost empty fridge, freezer and cupboards – though she was big on packets of coffee, Laphroaig whisky, Plymouth gin and frozen microwave dinners – and then went up to the studio, where I found Stella and Ma painting at adjacent easels. Hal was sitting in an old wooden chair

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