The Homeward Bounders: Part 3

By DIANA WYNNE JONES, Illustrator DAVID WYATT

I really enjoyed my twelve years of ordinary life. Home to me is a big city, and always will be. We lived in a really big, dirty, slummy city. The back of our house looked out on to a lovely cosy courtyard, where everyone came out and talked in fine weather and everyone knew everyone else. The front of our house was our grocery shop, and all the neighbours shopped there. We were open every day, including Sunday. My mother was a bit of a sharp woman. She was always having rows in the courtyard, usually abouat credit. She used to say the neighbours expected to buy things for nothing just because they lived in the court, and she told them so to their faces. But no one could have been kinder than my mother when a neighbour's daughter was run over by a brewer's wagon. I often hope they were as kind to her over me.

My father was big and soft-spoken and kind all the time. He used to let people buy things for nothing. When my mother objected, he used to say, "Now, Margaret, they needed it." And usually that stopped the argument.

Publisher: HarperCollins, $14.95 Age group: 9-12 years