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

be much fun, would it?’
    ‘So when do we go?’
    ‘After lunch,’ Tom said and then frowned. Was there actually any food in the house?
    They went downstairs to find out. He knew Flora was used to eating out of tins when she stayed with him but he’d like to be able to offer her something a bit different just once.
    ‘What would you like?’ he asked over his shoulder, crossing his fingers that he’d be able to find it.
    ‘I’m not really that hungry,’ she said, ‘but I wouldn’t mind some tomato soup.’
    Tom smiled as he opened a cupboard. Tomato soup was the right answer.
     
    Molly could smell soup – tomato soup – floating up through the floorboards of the bed and breakfast. It was ten-thirty in the evening and the owner was probably sitting down to tea at last.
    Molly closed her eyes and floated back into her past on the scent. She was sat at the enormous kitchen table in their house. She was ten years old.
     
    It was a wet Saturday afternoon and Molly and Marty had had enough of each other’s company so Cynthia had called them into the kitchen.
    Without saying a word, she placed a piece of paper before each of them, together with a pencil.
    ‘I’m too old to draw,’ Marty whined.
    ‘So am I,’ Molly said.
    ‘We’re not going to draw. We’re going to write,’ Cynthia said.
    ‘We write at school. I’m not writing on a Saturday,’ Marty complained.
    Cynthia smiled at him. ‘It’s not school writing I want you to do.’
    Molly looked up at her mother. ‘What, then?’
    ‘I want you to make a wish list of everything you want in the world.’
    ‘A wish list?’ Molly repeated.
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘What’s a wish list?’
    Cynthia paused for a moment, her eyes wide and wise. ‘It’s a list of everything you want. For example, it could have things on it – like toys and games and bikes, but it must also have other things too – like happiness, a fulfilling job and good luck.’
    ‘That sounds like a strange list to me,’ Marty observed.
    ‘The stranger the better,’ Cynthia laughed. ‘I want you to really think about everything you want in the world.’
    Molly and Marty stared at their mother. How did she come up with these ideas? Did she have a secret book somewhere on how to keep children amused on wet afternoons?
    ‘I’ll make us some soup whilst you’re doing it,’ she said,leaving them to look at their blank sheets of paper with bemused faces.
    As Cynthia was heating the soup, Molly and Marty covered their sheets of paper in an endless stream of wishes. The thick smell of tomato rose from the hob and flooded their nostrils with a homely warmth. It was only an ordinary can of tomato soup but something mysterious and wonderful happened in between opening the can and serving it which made it taste like nothing else in the world.
    ‘Have you written your lists?’ Cynthia asked, pausing a few minutes later with their bowls of soup, as if she meant to trade them for their wishes.
    ‘Yes,’ Molly said, her mouth practically watering at the savoury scent.
    ‘I’ve got nearly thirty!’ Marty boasted.
    ‘Good,’ Cynthia said. ‘Now, before you have your soup, I want you to read your lists to yourself, but I don’t want to know what’s on them.’
    Molly and Marty obeyed, Molly wondering if her mother was about to perform some magic trick on them and guess their lists.
    ‘Have you read them?’ she asked, and Molly and Marty nodded. ‘Know them by heart?’ Again they nodded. ‘Right. Now tear them up.’
    ‘What?’ Marty’s eyes narrowed.
    ‘Really?’ Molly’s eyes widened.
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Why?’ Marty asked.
    ‘Because I don’t want you to think about what you want, because that’s not always the most important thing in the world.’ She smiled as she saw their faces cloud over. ‘WhatI really want you to do is to make a wish list for somebody else, listing what you wish them to have in their lives. You could do each other’s if you like.’ She put the soup