Molly's Millions by Victoria Connelly Read Free Book Online Page A

you don’t think I’m the sort to arrange flowers, do you? Heaven forbid! They arrange themselves. Look!’ She’d pointed to the profusion of pinks, blues, whites and mauves which knitted together in a blowsybounty. It was heavenly.
    Molly could still almost smell the garden as if a naughty wind had caught hold of it from her past and was winging it to her. It was then that she’d decided she wasn’t going to have a plan. She’d got as far as writing one to ten on it: a good, strong plan – her father would have been proud of her. But she was her mother’s daughter. So she’d torn it out neatly and then ripped it up into little pieces, sending the recycled shreds into the wind to disperse as freely as her mother’s flowers.
    No, she didn’t want to start timetabling things. It would be no good trying to compartmentalise counties and divide her winnings up into likely numbers of beneficiaries. That would take all the fun out of things.
    No, she was going to suppress her father’s organisational genes and give free rein to her mother’s spontaneous genes instead.

Chapter Eight
    Tom was running around like a man possessed. He’d almost forgotten Flora was sitting in the front room in his hurry to get things organised.
    ‘The first thing we’ve got to do is pack,’ he said, beating the palm of his left hand with his right as if choreographing a group of invisible dancers.
    Flora picked up her pink suitcase and pointed to it. ‘I’ve packed already – look!’
    ‘Yes. Good,’ Tom said absent-mindedly. ‘Now, what do I need?’
    ‘Clothes?’
    ‘Clothes,’ Tom repeated. ‘Yes,’ he said, as if methodically packing in his brain.
    Flora followed him upstairs and watched as he emptied his worldly goods out onto the bed. It was terrible. It was as if all the rejects from the local charity shop had been dumped onto his duvet.
     ‘There’s a big hole in this one,’ Flora said, picking up an old denim shirt.
    ‘And there’s an even bigger one in this one!’ Tom said.
    Flora giggled as he wiggled his finger through it. ‘Shall we go shopping?’ she suggested, the credit-card-pushing genes of her mother already apparent.
    ‘No. We haven’t time,’ Tom said, not bothering to add that he didn’t have the money either. ‘Chuck these in that sports bag over there,’ he said, selecting six shirts that had seen better days five years ago, ‘and empty that top drawer too.’
    Tom ventured into the ‘everything’ room and began to sift through the mountains of notepads on the floor. How many would he need? All of them? He knelt down to choose.
    ‘Daddy!’ Flora gasped as she poked her head round the door. ‘You really should tidy your room!’
    He turned round and saw her stern face. ‘Who’s the parent here?’ he asked, but he couldn’t keep the laugh out of his voice.
    ‘If this was my room, Mummy wouldn’t let me have any tea until I’d tidied it.’
    ‘Well, I don’t live with Mummy anymore, do I?’ he said somewhat tersely, and instantly regretted it as he saw a dark shadow pass over Flora’s face.
    He got up off the floor and walked across the room to ruffle her hair. ‘Sorry,’ he whispered, kissing the top of her head. ‘I shouldn’t have said that.’
    ‘’Sokay,’ she said. ‘None of my friends’ parents live together. I don’t mind.’
    Tom gave her a squeeze. God, he thought, what a mess, and he wasn’t talking about the state of his room.
    ‘It means I get to have two homes instead of just one,’ sheadded.
    Tom looked down at her. Was this child for real? How could one be so rational at the age of ten? He was sure he hadn’t been half as wise when he was a child.
    ‘Well, for the next couple of weeks or so, we’re not going to have a proper home,’ he told her. ‘Are you sure you still want to come with me?’
    ‘You wouldn’t want to go on your own, would you?’ she asked, looking up at him with questioning eyes.
    ‘Nah!’ he said. ‘That wouldn’t