Free The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough Page B

boys and the house. It was Frank who lay closest to her heart, Frank who loomed as the star in her limited heaven. He was the only one who seemed to enjoy sitting talking to her, and he explained things in a way she could understand. Ever since the day Agnes had lost her hair there had been Frank, and in spite of her sore troubles nothing since had speared her quite to the core. Not canes or Sister Agatha or lice, because Frank was there to comfort and console.
    But she got up and managed a smile. “If you have to go, Frank, then it’s all right.”
    “Meggie, you ought to be in bed, and you’d better be back there before Mum checks. Scoot, quickly!”
    The reminder drove all else from her head; she thrust her face down and fished for the trailing back of her gown, pulled it through between her legs and held it like a tail in reverse in front of her as she ran, bare feet spurning the splinters and sharp chips.
    In the morning Frank was gone. When Fee came to pull Meggie from her bed she was grim and terse; Meggie hopped out like a scalded cat and dressed herself without even asking for help with all the little buttons.
    In the kitchen the boys were sitting glumly around the table, and Paddy’s chair was empty. So was Frank’s. Meggie slid into her place and sat there, teeth chattering in fear. After breakfast Fee shooed them outside dourly, and behind the barn Bob broke the news to Meggie.
    “Frank’s run away,” he breathed.
    “Maybe he’s just gone into Wahine,” Meggie suggested.
    “No, silly! He’s gone to join the army. Oh, I wish I was big enough to go with him! The lucky coot!”
    “Well, I wish he was still at home.”
    Bob shrugged. “You’re only a girl, and that’s what I’d expect a girl to say.”
    The normally incendiary remark was permitted to pass unchallenged; Meggie took herself inside to her mother to see what she could do.
    “Where’s Daddy?” she asked Fee after her mother had set her to ironing handkerchiefs.
    “Gone in to Wahine.”
    “Will he bring Frank back with him?”
    Fee snorted. “Trying to keep a secret in this family is impossible. No, he won’t catch Frank in Wahine, he knows that. He’s gone to send a telegram to the police and the army in Wanganui. They’ll bring him back.”
    “Oh, Mum, I hope they find him! I don’t want Frank to go away!”
    Fee slapped the contents of the butter churn onto the table and attacked the watery yellow mound with two wooden pats. “None of us want Frank to go away. That’s why Daddy’s going to see he’s brought back.” Her mouth quivered for a moment; she whacked the butter harder. “Poor Frank! Poor, poor Frank!” she sighed, not to Meggie but to herself. “I don’t know why the children must pay for our sins. My poor Frank, so out of things…” Then she noticed that Meggie had stopped ironing, and shut her lips, and said no more.
    Three days later the police brought Frank back. He had put up a terrific struggle, the Wanganui sergeant on escort duty told Paddy.
    “What a fighter you’ve got! When he saw the army lads were a wakeup he was off like a shot, down the steps and into the street with two soldiers after him. If he hadn’t had the bad luck to run into a constable on patrol, I reckon he’d a got away, too. He put up a real wacko fight; took five of them to get the manacles on.”
    So saying, he removed Frank’s heavy chains and pushed him roughly through the front gate; he stumbled against Paddy, and shrank away as if the contact stung.
    The children were skulking by the side of the house twenty feet beyond the adults, watching and waiting. Bob, Jack and Hughie stood stiffly, hoping Frank would put up another fight; Stuart just looked on quietly, from out of his peaceful, sympathetic little soul; Meggie held her hands to her cheeks, pushing and kneading at them in an agony of fear that someone meant to hurt Frank.
    He turned to look at his mother first, black eyes into grey in a dark and bitter communion