Summer Brook Spring

By Lynne Lumsden Green

INTRODUCING THE SUMMER BROOK BESTIES

Can two people from opposite ends of the earth really be friends?

Summer Brook Spring is the first book in a cosy series for kind and curious young readers who love books, animals and best friend adventures.

10-year-old Freya Patel think it is RUBBISH

• Language: English
• Publisher: Iron Bridge Publishing
• Release date: Mar 31, 2021
• ISBN: 9780648651383

Book preview

Inside front cover

Table of Contents

Title Page

Summer Brook Spring (Summer Brook Besties, #1)

Chapter 1 First impressions

Chapter 2 The girl next door

Chapter 3 More new faces

Chapter 4 An invitation

Chapter 5 A sumptuous feast

Chapter 6 The summer brook

Chapter 7 Stuck in the mud!

Chapter 8 Book buddies

Chapter 9 Calf care

Chapter 10 Home at the farm

SUMMER BROOK BESTIES #1

Summer Brook

SPRING

Lynne Lumsden Green

Summer Brook Spring

First published 2020

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Text by Lynne Lumsden Green

Illustrations by Caitlyn McPherson

Cover design by Pamela Jeffs

The moral rights of Lynne Lumsden Green as author have been asserted.

Except as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form without prior written permissions.

© Iron Bridge Publishing

140 Gilliver St.

Mt Gravatt East

QLD 4122 Australia

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A cataloguing entry is available for this title from the National Library of Australia.

ISBN 978—0—6486513—7—6 (Paperback)

ISBN 978—0—6486513—8—3 (ePub)

ISBN 978—0—6486513—9—0 (KDP paperback)

Summer Brook SPRING

Chapter 1  First impressions

Chapter 2  The girl next door

Chapter 3 More new faces

Chapter 4 An invitation

Chapter 5 A sumptuous feast

Chapter 6 The summer brook

Chapter 7 Stuck in the mud!

Chapter 8 Book buddies

Chapter 9 Calf care

Chapter 10 Home at the farm

Chapter 1

First impressions

It was only a few hours since Gran Rose met them at the Brisbane airport, but Freya Patel hated everything about Australia already. Even the airport had been a shock: it was so small compared to Heathrow. She stared miserably out the dusty window of her grandmother’s battered white SUV.

The countryside didn’t look like Freya’s idea of spring at all. Wasn’t this part of Queensland supposed to have rainforests and stuff? There was less colour in the landscape than in the English autumn they left behind. There were seemingly endless dry yellow fields of bleached grass, and strange trees that looked half dead. It was rubbish that her family was going to live here for a year.

Beside her, Sam was straining at his seatbelt to lean in between the front seats. He had been delighted when their father Colin had announced he was taking a year off from the bank so they could help Gran Rose sell her farm in Queensland. It was alright for Sam, he didn’t have any best friends to miss, not like Freya.

Freya’s mother Anna was sitting on the other side of Sam.

‘I expected it to be greener than this,’ she said. Was that worry in her voice? Too late for that now, Mum, thought Freya.

‘It should be, Anna,’ Gran Rose replied. ‘That’s climate change for you. We’re officially in drought. It’s been two years since we’ve had proper rain around here.’

‘Hard for us Londoners to imagine!’ said Colin. Even the rain didn’t want to be here, Freya grumbled to herself.

‘Drought is a feature of Australian life,’ Rose continued, ‘But the Scenic Rim—that’s what we call this region—has a temperate climate. That’s what drew the original settlers, it’s good for farming. Though the real farmers do it tough these days.’

‘Real farmers?’ piped up Sam.

‘Summer Brook Farm isn’t a working farm, Sam,’ Rose explained. ‘It was once, but my brother sold most of the land before I inherited it from him. The farm you’ll see is what is called a hobby farm.’

‘What happens to the animals in a drought?’ said Anna. That was typical of Mum, always so interested in everything.

‘The farmers have to buy in feed and water for their animals. The wildlife come closer to humans in desperation. It’s tough all around.’

‘I don’t know why anyone would live out here,’ Freya sulked. For a moment the only sound was the rumbling of the engine and the sound of the wheels on the tarmac.

Gran Rose said, ‘Your Pop and I were very happy out here, Freya. I hope you’ll see why in time.’

It was less than a year since Pop Patel had died. That’s why they’d come; Dad said the farm was too much for Gran all on her own. Freya didn’t know her father’s parents as well as she knew her mother’s, who lived just two train stations away in London, but