Road Ends Read Online Free

surprised again but Megan was too confused to enjoy it.
    “You seem to be well organized,” her father said. “It’s all settled then.” He gave her what Megan thought of as his end-of-interview smile.
    At the door she turned and said, “Thank you very much.”
    Her father was gazing out of the window again but he turned his head and looked at her. “I dare say you’ve earned it,” he said, which was his most amazing comment yet, suggesting as it did that he’d actually noticed.
    Megan went out and closed the study door and stood for a moment, not thinking of England or even of leaving home, but thinking instead how sad it was that she had never known the strange man who was her father and now she never would.
    She phoned Tom to tell him. He was in a hall of residence down at the University of Toronto, so it was a long-distance call, but she decided it would be worth it to hear the astonishment in his voice. She timed the call for six o’clock at night, reasoning thathe’d be home from his classes by then and not yet out for the evening with his friends, and she was right.
    “
England
!” he said. “
England
—holy cow, when did all this happen?”
    He’d been urging her to leave home and predicting that she never would for years. “You’re gettin’ old, Meg,” he’d say, shaking his head over her. He was only a year older than Megan but he’d always acted as if she was his baby sister, and it drove her mad. “You keep saying you’re going but you never do. How much do you want to bet you’re still here when you’re thirty?”
    Now she said casually, “I’ve been planning it for a while. Dad seems to think it’s a good idea. He’s paying for the ticket.”
    “He’s what?” Tom said. “He’s
what
? You got
money
out of him?”
    Then he said seriously, “That’s really great, Meg. Congratulations—I never thought you had it in you.”
    Oh, but that last comment tasted sweet.
    She told the rest of the boys at suppertime. She summoned them a few minutes early while her mother was still in the kitchen making the gravy. Their father ate separately in his study after the rest of them had finished. Megan had suggested the arrangement some years before and it had been a great relief all around.
    The boys came promptly; there was a house rule—also of Megan’s devising—whereby anyone who wasn’t sitting at his place within five minutes of being called went hungry. No excuses. It had proved to be very effective. When she first instituted the rule Tom had accused her of being a dictator, and Megan had said, “Absolutely.”
    They shambled in two by two—like the animals in the Ark, Megan thought, apart from being all the same sex and considerably less appealing. Donald and Gary, age seventeen; Peter and Corey, age ten and nine. The latter two were bickering, as always.
    “I never touched it,” Peter said.
    “You did too,” Corey said. “I saw you.”
    “You couldn’t have,
pig
, ’cause I never touched it.”
    “If you two don’t shut up, I’m going to tear your heads off,” Donald said. He sat down and heaved his chair closer to the table.
    “Sit down, all of you,” Megan said, stuffing Adam into his high chair. “I have something to tell you.” She tied Adam’s bib firmly around his neck and manoeuvred the high chair up to the table. Tom’s empty chair was still there, taking up valuable space. Megan would have liked to shove it back against the wall, but her mother insisted on it staying where it was, like a ghost at the feast.
    “Are you calling me a liar?” Peter said to Corey.
    “Yeah, I am. Liar, liar, pants on fire!”
    Donald half stood and reached across the table to cuff him, but Corey dodged out of the way.
    Megan picked up a spoon and rapped the table warningly. They all looked at her. “I have something to tell you,” she repeated.
    Peter looked back at Corey. “Snot-head,” he said.
    Megan stepped around the table and rapped him on the head with the