Victory by Susan Cooper Read Free Book Online

“Just stop it!”
    The book narrowly misses Jack’s head and hits the wall. He blinks, startled.
    Molly bursts into violent tears.
    â€œMoll—” Russell says unhappily, starting toward her, but Kate puts an arm round Molly and waves him away.
    â€œIt’s okay,” she says. “Go off and sail. She’ll be all right.”
    Jack says in confusion, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
    â€œIt’s okay,” Kate says again. Now she has both arms round Molly, who is sobbing into her shoulder. “It’s not about you. Don’t worry.”
    Russell picks up the fallen book and puts it on thekitchen table, and the two boys go silently out of the kitchen like two big obedient baffled dogs.
    All Molly’s deep unhappiness has erupted out of her, like lava shooting out of a volcano. She is clutching her mother, shaken by great gut-wrenching sobs, making noises she has never in her life made before. She can’t stop. Kate lets her go on for a long time, holding her close, stroking her hair, but then she starts to soothe her, crooning to her as if she were a baby: “There, love, there . . .”
    Gradually Molly stops making the terrible deep noises and is merely crying. She raises her head; her face is all wet with tears and snot. “I want to go home,” she weeps. “Oh Mum, I want to go home.”
    Kate hands her a fistful of tissues. Molly blows her nose several times. They both know that what she wants is impossible.
    Kate says soberly, “Maybe I should never have married Carl.”
    â€œOh no,” Molly says. “No. It’s not Carl. It’s just—”
    â€œI know,” Kate says. She pulls another tissue from the box, and dries Molly’s cheek. “We’ve turned your life upside-down. Nothing will ever be the same as it was.”
    A small husky sound comes from the baby monitor on the counter. It is Donald, upstairs, waking from his nap.
    Kate ignores it. She puts an arm across Molly’s shoulders, more lightly now. “I can remember crying like that,” she says. “Twice. Once, right after your father died. Thenafter that I had to concentrate on being a mum for you, comforting my little four-year-old who’d lost her Daddy, so for months I hung on and tried not to cry at all. But one night when I was going to bed I remembered it was our wedding anniversary, and I fell apart, I just howled, for half the night. I cried until there were no more tears in me. Because he was gone, gone, and he would never ever come back. Nothing would ever be the same again.”
    Molly clutches her hand, silently.
    The sounds from the baby monitor become a recognizable voice, complaining, insistent.
    â€œCome on,” says Kate. “He’s hungry.”
    â€œHe’s always hungry,” Molly says, and they go upstairs. Donald crows with pleasure at the sight of Molly, wriggling about like a happy eel as she changes his diaper. Then he catches sight of Kate and bellows with hunger.
    Molly hovers, while Kate settles into the rocking chair to give him his bottle. The room is full of sunshine, with brightly colored alphabets running in a high border round the walls. Molly sits down on the floor. “Mum,” she says, “when Daddy died—I know it was a plane crash, but nobody ever talks about it. What happened?”
    Her mother looks down at her, across Donald’s small contented head. “It was one of those accidents that never get solved,” she says. “His newspaper had sent him to cover a story in North Africa, and he was on his way home. It was a normal commercial flight, but they hit bad weather andsomething went horribly wrong—nobody ever knew what, because they never found the plane’s black box that records all the details.”
    Molly says, “Was it terrorists?”
    â€œNo. Not back then. It was an accident. Bad luck. Terrible luck for all the hundred