Time For a Change

By Lynne Roberts

When Cory is sent to stay with Meredith and her parents, he is sure it will be a disaster. But Meredith's father has a boat and it takes the two of them on magic adventures where things don't turn out quite as they expected.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lynne Roberts
• Release date: Feb 28, 2014
• ISBN: 9781927241110

Lynne Roberts

Lynne is a writer, musician, dance teacher and porcelain painter, among other things. She lives on an orchard in the Bay of Plenty, New Zealand where she breeds donkeys and collects grandchildren. Lynne has written copious numbers of educational teaching resources from pre-school through to tertiary level. She writes story books and fantasy fiction for children and poetry for children and adults, always with a strong vein of humour. Lynne also writes musicals for which she composes the original music.

Book preview

Time For a Change

By Lynne Roberts

Published by Liberty Publications at Smashwords

Copyright 2014 Lynne Roberts

ISBN 978-1-927241-11-0

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 1

Cory felt sick. It wasn’t so much the motion of the car, although the way Ms Lannigan jerked and bounced it all over the road certainly didn’t help. She was nervous, though Cory couldn’t see that she had anything to be nervous about. She wasn’t the one being taken to live with a new foster family.

Cory swallowed hard. There seemed to be a frozen lump inside him that was growing bigger and bigger and filling his whole body. The problem was that when he was anxious or upset, which happened to be most of the time in the past three years, the frozen feeling made him stiff and stopped him from smiling or even talking at times. This made other people think he was cold and uncaring and the more Cory tried to be friendly the more frozen up he became.

The last three years seem to have taken forever to live through. At first it felt unreal. Why should he have been the only one of his family to survive? If he hadn’t spent that night at his friend Jonathan’s house, he too would have died when the gas heater blew up and set fire to his house, killing his parents and two brothers. Jonathan’s parents had been very kind and let Cory stay living with them while things were ‘sorted out’. Cory had lived in a half awake state for months then Jonathan’s family had gone overseas and he had to stay behind.

Jonathan’s mother had been very apologetic.

My husband has been offered a teaching position in Brunei and it is too good an opportunity to turn down. We’re sorry we have to leave you here but it’s better for you to be around your school and friends than having another upheaval in your life.

Upheaval! Huh! She didn’t know the half of it. From the moment he was taken by Ms Lannigann, his social worker, to a new foster home, Cory was furiously angry. He raged about being left behind by his best friend. He raged about being alive while his family was dead. He raged about the fact that his only other living relations were an old grandmother who lived in an old folk’s home, and whose mind was completely gone, to a distant uncle in Northland who had family problems and definitely didn’t want other one.

By this time Cory was a problem. He smashed things for the sheer joy of seeing them break. He swore and kicked and bit and fought anyone who tried to offer him a kind word. Four foster homes and four changes of school later, Cory was deposited in a ‘temporary’ care home. Here a succession of boys stayed before being placed in homes more suitable for them.

It didn’t help that Jonathan had promised faithfully to write to Cory. A couple of letters came at the beginning, glowing with enthusiasm for Brunei where apparently their whole family was surrounded by fabulous wealth and Jonathan was given everything his heart could desire. But these letters soon trickled to a stop and Cory hadn’t heard from him now for over a year.

No one will want me, muttered Cory when Ms Lannigan brightly told him she was looking for a ‘placement’ for him. By now his anger was gone and he couldn’t have cared less what happened to him.

That’s not true, Cory, Ms Lannigan had said soothingly. You’re nearly twelve now and I’m sure you could be very useful if you tried. Perhaps if you could go to a farm… she trailed off as she saw Cory’s aghast expression.

I’m being sent out as a slave, thought Cory bitterly. That’s the only thing I’m ever going to be good for. He sighed and went back to feeling hopeless.

But in the event, it wasn’t a farm he was heading for. It was the beginning of the April school holidays and he was to go and stay with the Miller family.

If it goes well they may consider taking you as a permanent placement, Ms Lannigan told Cory wishing that the boy could wipe that scowl off his face. This is a trial period.

So you mean I can come back after the holidays? demanded Cory.

Well yes, I suppose so, admitted Ms Lannigan, with a mental sigh at trying to find yet another placement for this dreadful child.

Good, thought Cory. I only have to put up with them for two weeks. They are bound to be awful.

So here they were jolting down a country road to the small farmlet the Millers lived on.

The Millers have one child, a daughter Meredith. She’s a year younger than you, said Ms Lannigan encouragingly.

You told me before, muttered Cory, forcing the words out over the frozen lump inside him. As if he didn’t have enough to put up with, without being expected to be friendly with a girl! He closed his eyes and concentrated on the plans inside his head for the racing car he was going to build when he was grown up. It would be sleek and shining silver and he would travel faster than anyone else on the road. Maybe it could skim over water as well. He was adding a gun for firing from the back and a helicopter rotor for emergency lift offs when Ms Lannigan called Here we are, and he opened his eyes with a blink.

Ms Lannigan pulled the car to a stop outside an old rambling house. She opened the car door in relief. She had been sure Cory was on the point of throwing up in her car and was thankful