Free Star Sullivan by Maeve Binchy Page A

have to put up with what we’ve got.’
    ‘But I
hate
when people fight, I’d do anything on earth to avoid a row,’ Star said.
    ‘Not always the right thing to do,’ her mother said.
    Star thought of her brother Michael, and shivered.
    ‘So are you are all right? Wouldn’t you like to come downstairs?’
    ‘No, Mam.’
    ‘What are you thinking about, love?’
    ‘I was thinking that I’d like to work somewhere else, rather than near Kenny. You know, after everything.’
    ‘I hear he’s going off to Head Office shortly,’ her mother said.
    ‘Oh.’
    ‘So that’s not a problem. What else are you worrying about?’
    ‘My real name is Oona,’ Star said.
    ‘Of course it is, love.’
    ‘So that’s what I’m going to call myself from now on. Star hasn’t worked for me, I wasn’t bright enough or glittery enough, no light to shine on things. I’d like to be Oona now. In ayear’s time people will forget I was ever called Star.’
    ‘All right, sweetheart,’ her mother said. It was just one more thing to cope with in the day.
    And in a year’s time when Oona Sullivan won the Employee of the Year Award in the supermarket chain, it was Kenny, the Area Manager, who presented it. He was astounded to find it was the girl he knew as Star. He had never guessed it was the same person.
    And when she was bridesmaid at Gemma and Kevin’s wedding, her picture was in the evening paper as Ms Oona Sullivan, sister of the groom.
    And she got a postcard from Laddy who now lived far away. It said: ‘Welcome to the real world, Oona Sullivan. May you be much happier and much nicer than all those silly little stars.’
    And because she was so grown up now, Oona smiled and was pleased, rather than thinking, as the old Star would have done, that the love of her life was on his way back to her.

WORLD BOOK DAY
     
Quick
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Quick
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BOOKS IN THE
Quick
Reads SERIES
The Book Boy
Joanna Trollope
Blackwater
Conn Iggulden
Chickenfeed
Minette Walters
Don’t Make Me Laugh
Patrick Augustus
Hell Island
Matthew Reilly
How to Change Your Life in 7 Steps
John Bird
Screw It, Let’s Do It
Richard Branson
Someone Like Me
Tom Holt
Star Sullivan
Maeve Binchy
The Team
Mick Dennis
The Thief
Ruth Rendell
Woman Walks into a Bar
Rowan Coleman
AND IN MAY 2006
Cleanskin
Val McDermid
Danny Wallace and the Centre of the Universe
Danny Wallace
Desert Claw
Damien Lewis
The Dying Wish
Courttia Newland
The Grey Man
Andy McNab
I Am a Dalek
Garath Roberts
I Love Football
Hunter Davies
The Name You Once Gave Me
Mike Phillips
The Poison in the Blood
Tom Holland
Winner Takes All
John Francome
Look out for more titles in the
Quick
Reads
series in 2007.
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Quick
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The Book Boy
by Joanna Trollope
Bloomsbury
Sometimes it takes a stranger to guess a family secret.
Alice has a