Read Victory for Free Online Page B

dowithout Sally, and her other friends Jen and Naomi, when she is alone at this huge new school? Who will look out for her, and understand, if her face becomes vacant for a few minutes? They will all think she’s crazy, or a complete geek.
    She scrambles down from the window-seat, tosses several wet tissues into the wastepaper basket, and goes out into her little bathroom to splash water on her face. Here in Carl’s Connecticut house she has her very own bathroom, all white and yellow to match the bedroom, with a print of van Gogh’s sunflowers on the wall. It is somehow part of the same pattern as the big two-acre garden, with its swimming pool and tennis court; it’s too much, she doesn’t belong there. Though when she had described it to Sally, disparagingly, Sally had e-mailed back that she thought Molly must have died and gone to heaven.
    â€œHey, Moll? Kate says there’s tea if you want it.” Russell is passing the open door of the bathroom. He thunders down the stairs, yelling “Hey, lunkhead!” at someone below, and Molly realizes with a sinking feeling that his friend Jack must be there again. Jack’s universe has no space for a much younger girl, except as an object for heavy-handed teasing. And she just plain doesn’t like Jack. Seeking some symbol of self-protection, she goes back into the bedroom and snatches up a couple of books.
    The prospect of teatime counterbalances the thought of Jack, so she goes downstairs to the kitchen, where the two boys are sitting on stools at the island counter drinking milk and wolfing chocolate chip cookies. Carl is not here; he hasgone to Italy. Kate smiles at Molly. Without asking, she pours her a cup of tea and cuts her a piece of cake. It’s a very English cake: a fluffy sponge cake with raspberry jam sandwiched in the middle, and the top sprinkled with fine granular sugar. This kind of sugar is not sold in the United States, so Kate makes it by whirling regular sugar in her blender. For Molly.
    â€œThanks, Mum.” Molly pours milk into her tea.
    â€œLet’s have a naice cup of tea,” says Jack, in an exaggerated parody of an English voice.
    â€œYou’ll never make the school play, Jack,” Kate says equably, though Molly knows she despises fake English accents.
    â€œIt’s teataime,” says Jack, undeterred. He takes another cookie and grins at Kate. “You make delicious bickies, Mrs. Hibbert! Just soopah!”
    Kate appalls Molly by laughing at him. But Russell has noticed the expression on Molly’s face. He digs his elbow into Jack’s side. “Shut up, lunkhead.”
    Jack digs him in return, more forcibly. “What’s up with you, old chap ? Two years over there did a number on you—you should have heard your Limey accent when you came back!”
    â€œWe don’t have an accent,” Molly says flatly. “You do. It’s our language. It’s called English.”
    Jack crows with laughter. “Lah-di-dah!” he cries. “Lah-di-dah!” He slides off his stool and stands there, tall and chunky, mocking.
    Russell gets up hastily and heads for the door. “C’mon, Yank,” he says. “Time for a sail. Want to come, Molly?”
    â€œNo!” Molly says.
    Kate looks at her.
    Molly says reluctantly, “No, thanks.”
    â€œSeven o’clock supper,” Kate says to Russell. “But not for the All-American as well, I’m afraid—I only have three lamb chops. Sorry, Jack.”
    Jack turns back to grin at her. He’s wearing jeans and a tank top, and his sun-reddened shoulders look enormous; he is on the high school football team, and proud of it. He leers at Kate flirtatiously, and this time he tries a terrible imitation of a Cockney accent. “Ooh, y’re an ’ard-’earted woman—” he starts.
    And Molly snaps.
    â€œStop it!” she shrieks, and she flings one of her books at him.