Free The Stone House by Marita Conlon-Mckenna Page A

treated in the local casualty department, all the stings removed.
    â€˜She’s shocked and she needs to rest,’ said their father, helping her upstairs. ‘You girls make her a cup of tea and some toast.’
    She felt like a traitor as she watched him put his arm around her mother, her body against his, totally dependent on him as they slowly climbed the stairs. Kate knew at that precise moment she hated him and would never trust him again.

Chapter Nine
    â€˜CLEVER KATE’, THAT’S what her mother had always called her, branding her the brainy one of the family. Kate however wished that she was beautiful, like Moya who drove the boys crazy with her dark hair and wide eyes and perfectly proportioned body with her long legs and natural grace. Instead she had been gifted with a round face and pale blue eyes and wavy light brown hair that was the very devil to control and came from the Dillon side of the family where the women were noted for their strong wholesome looks and big feet and hands. She was considered fair and sensible and totally reliable and at least not given to the crazy mood swings and behaviour of her younger sister Romy, who didn’t believe in rules and timetables or doing the right thing!
    From the minute she could read, Kate had stuck her face in books, driving Mrs O’Donnell the local librarian mad with her constant filling in of request forms for new books. At St Dominic’s Sister Goretti and the rest of the nuns had encouraged her academic abilities as she found study and learning so easy. She often endedup helping her friends Sarah and Aisling with their maths and science homework. For fun she played hockey and sang in the school choir, which meant forty girls got to jaunt around different parts of the country in a rickety school bus singing their hearts out before ending up in Dublin competing in the final round of the annual Feis Ceoil. On prize day, at the end of the school year, Maeve and Frank Dillon would sit bursting with pride in the packed school hall with the rest of the parents, clapping loudly as she went up to receive two or three prizes, Maeve’s eyes sparkling as the nuns complimented her on Kate.
    â€˜Aye, she’s a bright girl!’ her father would say.
    â€˜And a wonderful daughter and friend,’ beamed her mother.
    Kate, embarrassed, felt a strange mixture of guilt and relief as she saw them standing together, still a pair.
    Nuala Hayes, the school career guidance teacher, had called Kate in with her parents to discuss her options for when she left school. She had already made up her mind as to what she wanted to study and where. She had toyed briefly with the notion of medicine as she enjoyed biology and chemistry, but knew she lacked the constant dedication to the well-being of others to be a good doctor. Law would be her first choice. Her grandfather James Ryan had been the head of a busy solicitors’ practice in Waterford. He had a keen legal brain and the love of a good court story and she could still remember him even in his old age sitting discussing legal challenges and precedents with his elderly friends in the front drawing room. Kate was curious as to whatcould keep her grandfather so entertained and interested for most of his life. He used to tease her about her sense of fairness and justice when she insisted that even a bag of sweets be divided up equally or that the washing up be shared.
    â€˜Kate will follow in my footsteps,’ he’d joke, producing a mint humbug from the tin in his desk for her, ‘mark my words.’
    She had done aptitude tests, and read every information leaflet and booklet in the careers part of the library, researching what she wanted to study.
    â€˜She’s always worked hard and done her homework,’ her mother said proudly, patting her knee.
    â€˜Law in Trinity College is what I want to do,’ said Kate, relishing the challenge and exciting prospect of studying in