Julie Reagan was glad she had known these suburban streets all her life as she turned into a driveway which ran with the deluge from the summer storm. She pulled up in front of a beautiful big old house, set high on stumps to allow the cooling air to flow beneath the solid wooden floors. The house was encircled by a wide verandah accessed by sandstone steps and atop its pitched roof sat a small, ornate turret. The old Queenslander had an imperious air, perched above the other nearby homes, with its sweeping views from the verandah, the colonnades of which were smothered in the bright yellow flowers of an alamanda vine. The young woman turned up the collar of her cotton jacket before racing across the sodden lawn, under a dripping poinciana tree, up the steps and onto the front verandah. She stepped out of her shoes and shook the drips from her hair and shirt. She knew her shoulder-length brown hair was starting to curl in the warm dampness. Julie opened the carved white front door with its panels of stained glass and paused to hear the news on the TV in the sitting room and inhale the toasty, cheesy smell of something that her mother was cooking.
