Finch Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  Blurb

  Logo

  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 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Dedication

  Copyright

  Audrey is used to not fitting in. She knows she’s different – even her little sister calls her “Nerd Girl”. When her family moves to the country to live on a vineyard property, Audrey makes a secret friend: a boy, Finch, who seems to understand her as nobody else can. But there’s something mysterious about Finch. Who is he, really?

  CHAPTER 1

  Audrey lay in bed, ears alert, listening. It was her first night in the old farmhouse, and she couldn’t sleep. It was so hot! And her bedroom smelled funny, sort of mouldy.

  She heard a creak. What was that?

  Mouse-like squeaking and scratching as a gust of wind pushed tree branches against her bedroom window.

  Then silence.

  Deep, deep silence.

  No traffic. No friendly streetlights to lighten the dark square of the window blind. Being in the country was definitely not like being in the city.

  I wish I was home again. I wish, I wish, I wish …

  And then she heard something else. At first it sounded like someone moaning. Then came a rising wail, a sound so eerie, so piercingly sad, that she felt the hair rise on the back of her neck.

  It’s a ghost!

  Of course it’s not. There’s no such thing.

  Who says? This place is old, it’s creepy–

  Listen to it! It’s a dog howling. It’s just a dog.

  The sound came again, heartbreaking in its misery. Audrey pulled her pillow over her head, but she couldn’t block it out. It seemed to reach right into her brain.

  The dog stopped howling at last. But then a new sound started up, inside the house.

  It was Freddy, wanting to be let out.

  Audrey climbed out of bed and made her way down the dark hallway, stubbing her toe on a large packing crate outside the kitchen door. Ouch! Stupid box!

  Freddy was on the window ledge in the sitting room. As soon as he heard Audrey he turned around, tail up, and made a hopeful noise, half-meow, half-purr.

  “Sorry, Fred, I can’t let you out,” Audrey whispered. She carried Freddy back to her bedroom, closed the door and switched on the bedside lamp. The big white-and-tabby cat wandered around the strange room for a while and then stretched up high on his back legs to look out the window, pushing the blind aside with his head. Finally he jumped up on the bed, snuggled into the curve of Audrey’s body and began to purr loudly.

  Audrey turned off the light.

  *

  The morning was hot and sunny, completely ghost-free. Ten-year-old Chloe, Audrey’s younger sister, was exploring the big backyard. “Look, I found some chook eggs under the tank-stand! I bet they’re about a thousand years old.” “There are ducks on the dam! Quick, come and see!” “Audrey, Audrey, I found a horseshoe! That’s for good luck, isn’t it?”

  Obviously Chloe wasn’t too fussed about living here. Nothing much bothered Chlo for long.

  When they’d arrived late yesterday afternoon they’d made the beds so that everyone had somewhere to sleep. Most of the packing crates still had to be sorted out, though. Two of them were labelled “Audrey’s things”, neatly printed in black texta, and one had “Chloe’s stuff PRIVATE” written on it inside a big scrawled pink love heart. The removal men had already put nearly all the furniture in the right rooms, but a few bits and pieces still stood around like awkward guests, getting in the way.

  After breakfast they started to get everything organised. They put books in bookcases, and worked out where to hang pictures and what to do with odd chairs. Audrey stuck her bird poster on her bedroom wall with Blu-Tack and arranged her owl collection on the windowsill. Freddy prowled around, sniffing all the unfamiliar smells, and had his tail trodden on twice.

  The rooms in the farmhouse were quite small, and their living-room furniture looked all wrong. It was too large, too modern, too … too city.

  “They didn’t waste money on big rooms, those early settlers,” said Dad. “Good for the environment, too. Easier to heat, and those solid walls keep the place cool in summer.”

  Mum didn’t reply. She just went on wiping things down with a duster, straightening up every so often to ease her back. Audrey knew Mum didn’t want to live in the country. It had been totally Dad’s idea. Dad had worked for a manufacturing firm, but he’d been laid off – made redundant – more than a year ago. He’d looked for another job for months. And then, without warning, he’d decided that they should all move to the country. A tree change, he called it.

  He’d found their new home advertised in the local newspaper. “Live your dream!” the ad had said. “The perfect hobby farm! Character farmhouse on 30 hectares of prime country, just minutes from the beach. Five hectares of vines already planted to shiraz and cabernet sauvignon.”

  Dad loved the idea of owning a vineyard, and the property was quite close to a town with the usual shops and services, and most importantly a big area school that taught up to Year Twelve. The main problem was that there weren’t any jobs for Mum. She’d worked for years as a legal secretary. She loved her job, and for the whole time Dad had been out of work she’d kept the family going. Now all she could be was a farmer’s wife. (A vigneron’s wife, Dad had told her, as if that was somehow better.) Right from the beginning she’d told Dad she didn’t want to be a farmer’s wife, or even a vigneron’s wife, but Dad had talked her into it. “Wait till we’re settled, Caroline,” he’d said. “Give it a chance, at least.”

  By midday the house was more or less in order, and Mum called everyone into the kitchen for lunch. The pots and frying pans and plates and mugs and knives and spoons and forks had all found their places in the kitchen cupboards and drawers, and the toaster and the electric kettle had done their best to make the counter look familiar.

  Mum got a quiche out of the fridge and sliced up a loaf of crusty bread that had gone soft and leathery. She buttered the bread and Audrey poured juice for herself and Chloe while Dad made coffee in the plunger. Mum gave Dad a tight little smile when he handed her a mug of coffee.

  After lunch, Dad took them all on a guided tour. “There are fences that divide our land from the land that belongs to our neighbours,” he said. “I needn’t tell you girls that you stay within those boundaries. You don’t just wander on to someone else’s property. That’s called trespassing, and it’s something country people take very seriously, okay? It’s like walking into somebody else’s home when you haven’t been invited.”

  Their farm was on low hilly country and surrounded by other low hills patched with other vineyards. Far to the west you could see the sea, a faint blue line ruled between land and sky. A breeze softened the heat of the sun. It was summer, still the school holidays.

  Audrey followed her parents up the hill, feeling the dry grass brush against her bare legs. To her left was the vineyard that had been the reason Dad had bought the farm. Rows of vines loaded with bunches of dark grapes stretched towards the northern boundary fence. As the family approached, there was an explosion of wings, and
a flock of starlings rose into the air.

  “We’ll have to do something about that,” said Dad. “Damn pests, getting fat on my crop.”

  The starlings flew off, shrieking, and Dad stopped to pick a bunch of grapes. He tasted a couple of berries, spat them out, and offered the bunch to Mum. “Have a taste. They’re not ready yet – not enough sugar. They’ll need another month or so.”

  Mum took a berry, but didn’t put it in her mouth. She was gazing towards the western horizon. “Quite a good view from here,” she said.

  Dad looked relieved. “It’s a pretty place, Caroline. And I’ll make it work. Trust me.”

  Trust Dad? Look where that got us, Audrey thought. He’d turned their lives topsy-turvy. Like Mum, Audrey had hated leaving the city. Life in the suburbs was all she’d ever known. And the idea of having to get used to a new school, a country school, panicked her a bit. Would a country school be different from a city one? Would the kids be different? She’d looked forward to being a senior at St Cuthbert’s and having her name listed on the back of her year’s jumper. Now all that had gone, along with the school where she had, if not real friends, then at least sort-of friends.

  She thought about those sort-of friends now, and wondered if she’d miss them. Maybe, a little. Would they miss her? Probably not. Some of them might keep in touch for a while; Jaz would, at least. Jasmine Chen was everyone’s friend, which meant she was Audrey’s friend too, and the nearest Audrey had to a proper friend. She was smart and pretty, and on the A netball team. Jaz always put lots of stuff on Instagram – selfies taken on holidays, clothes she’d just bought, photos of her cute Cavoodle puppy.

  Audrey never posted anything online about herself – partly because she didn’t have a mobile phone, and partly because she didn’t think her life was interesting enough. Jaz was always teasing her about it. “Omigod, Aud, you are so boring,” she’d told her, once. She’d laughed when she said it, though, so Audrey would know she didn’t really mean it.

  I’ll go on my laptop tonight and see what everyone’s doing, Audrey decided. It was so annoying that Dad wouldn’t let her have a mobile phone. “Can’t afford it,” he’d said. “Ask me again when you’re in Year Eight. Or Year Nine. Or even better, Year Twelve.” He started to mutter about wasting money, and too much screen time, and kids not knowing how dangerous social media could be. “I know all that, Dad, and I’d be super careful,” Audrey had said, but of course he didn’t listen.

  No wonder I always feel like I’m different, she thought. All the kids I know have their own phone. Every single one of them. Jaz had her first iPhone when she was eight.

  While Mum and Dad wandered down the rows of vines, Audrey and Chloe went up the hill towards the furthest boundary fence. The breeze was stronger here. Chloe’s long ponytail streamed out behind her, and Audrey’s short, silky hair lifted around her head, cooling her scalp.

  From the top of the hill they could see the farmhouse and its outbuildings, doll-sized in the distance, the half-empty dam with its water-level rings, and the old orchard. Further away, a creek wound off into the distance.

  “Our farm is big, isn’t it?” Chloe said brightly, pulling strands of windblown hair away from her face. “Bigger than I thought, anyway.”

  “I guess.”

  “I think it’ll be fun living here, don’t you?”

  “Seriously? No.”

  Chloe’s face fell, and Audrey felt a twinge of guilt. After all, none of this was Chloe’s fault. She put an arm around her. “I mean,” she said, “I don’t know. Whether it’s going to be fun, that is.”

  Chloe looked happy again. “We can make it fun.”

  “Sure.” Audrey forced a smile.

  As they stood looking out over their new home, they heard a faint meow. Freddy was trotting through the grass towards them, bounding over the high tussocks. He made a beeline for Audrey and rubbed affectionately against her legs.

  “Hi, Fred! Did you miss us?” Audrey picked him up and draped him around her neck, a purring fur collar. Freddy was so friendly, so easily pleased, so uncomplicated. He always made her feel better.

  But going on Instagram that evening, sitting up in bed, made her feel worse again. Everyone she knew was going to parties or sleepovers, or they were staying at their family’s beach house, or they’d gone interstate or overseas for their holidays. Bali is amazing, Jaz posted, along with a photo of herself in a pair of trendy metallic sunglasses with pink lenses. She was smiling and doing a thumbs up.

  Audrey looked at the image for a while and then closed down her laptop.

  CHAPTER 2

  When Audrey was very little, her grandma had shown her a big book with illustrations of all kinds of birds – jewel-coloured hummingbirds, bright pink flamingos with long and unbelievably skinny legs, tiny blue wrens, flame-chested robins. It soon became Audrey’s favourite book, and every time she visited her grandma she asked to see it again.

  By the time she was six or seven she could identify all the birds she saw in their garden at home, and in the local park. When she wasn’t much older, she’d started to learn their almost impossible-to-pronounce scientific names, reading them aloud from a field guide. “Phylidonyris novaehollandiae,” she would say slowly, putting her finger under each syllable. “Rhipidura leucophrys.” Anyone could identify a New Holland honeyeater or a willie wagtail by their common names, but knowing their proper names made you feel as if you were a member of a special club. If you used those names, people from all over the world would know exactly which bird you were talking about.

  Audrey had never been very interested in the things most girls liked when they were in junior primary – Barbie dolls and fairy princesses and ballet and make-up and doing each other’s hair. She thought of these as “pink things”. She could see why other girls enjoyed them, but they weren’t for her. Instead, birds became her passion.

  For her ninth birthday, her grandpa had built her a big wooden-framed birdcage. Mum and Dad gave her three pairs of zebra finches, and the whole family enjoyed watching them flitting between the nest boxes and splashing in the water bowl. They were small and quick and neat, with brilliant red beaks and striped or spotted feathers, white and brown and grey. Audrey loved the way they burst into a chorus of squeaky chattering whenever they were alarmed, which was about every five minutes.

  The pairs began to breed. Small round white eggs appeared in the nests, and soon newly hatched chicks, adorable bundles of grey fluff, were hopping around on the floor of the cage. Before long the six birds had become twelve. To keep the cage from becoming overcrowded Audrey raided the nests every few days, gathering up handfuls of eggs and throwing them away. Within a couple of years the older birds began to die off, the females going first.

  Now the cage stood on its four sturdy legs next to the glory vine on the back verandah of the farmhouse. It was home to five elderly male birds. Mum had suggested naming them after the five Marx Brothers, film star comedians from the 1930s. Groucho, Harpo, Chico, Zeppo and Gummo spent their lives maintaining the pecking order. Groucho, a fine plump bird with chestnut cheek patches, was in charge, and then came his four brothers, the state of their feathers showing their ranking. At the bottom of the pecking order was Gummo, a small buff-coloured bird with no neck feathers at all.

  Audrey was fond of all her birds, but especially Gummo. She knew what it was like to be at the bottom of the pecking order – you had to keep your head down. She’d decided long ago that it was best not to tell the girls at school about her fascination with birds, or that one day she planned to study them properly. She was sure they’d think she was weird; probably they’d laugh about her behind her back. Even Jaz thought that Audrey only liked clothes and shopping, stuff like that. And boys. Audrey thought most of the boys in her class were annoying, but the other girls giggled and gossiped about them all the time, so she pretended to be interested too. She knew that Jaz would put birds in the worst category of all: Bor-ing. Privately, Audrey thought Jaz could be a b
it boring herself sometimes, but it was hard not to like her. She was fun to be around. And it was useful having a friend, even a sort-of friend, who was popular. It helped her to fit in.

  Audrey had never had a proper best friend, someone she could really talk to. Chloe, on the other hand, collected best friends the way Audrey collected owl ornaments. One week she’d talk only about Candice or Shakira; the next week it would be Sienna or Madison or Ruby. Sometimes the old best friend was upset and became an enemy for a short time, but mostly all that happened was that the circle of friends just grew a little larger.

  If Chloe was a bird, Audrey thought, she’d be a rainbow lorikeet: bright, inquisitive, a bit loud, often part of a large flock. She herself would be a tawny frogmouth: shy and solitary, good at not being noticed. She managed to seem average in most ways. Not bad at lessons, not bad at sport, no trouble in class. Not pretty, but not ugly either. Nothing special about her at all.

  *

  On the afternoon of their second day on the farm Dad drove them all into town. “We can have a look around and then go for a coffee,” he said. “I saw a little place in the main street that looked quite promising.” Audrey hadn’t taken much notice of the town whenever they’d driven through it earlier, before it had so quickly and unexpectedly become a part of their lives. Now she looked at it differently.

  Dad slowed down as they drove past the school, a large red-brick building on the outskirts of town. It looked neat and well cared for, cleaned up and refreshed over the long summer holidays, ready to spring into action. A line of yellow school buses waited on one side of the car park for the new term to start. In the distance somebody was pushing a wheelbarrow; magpies strolled around on the lush green lawn, listening for worms and nimbly avoiding the long arcs of water spraying from the sprinklers. Gymnorhina tibicen, Audrey thought, her mind automatically going into bird-identification mode. She loved magpies – they were amazingly intelligent, and their singing was the happiest, best sound ever. But why did they have so many different songs? What did the songs mean? It was like magpies talked to each other, really talked–