Transformation of Minna Hargreaves, The Read Online Free

looked around at the three of us, although I noticed his gaze kind of slipped across Mum rather quickly. ‘There’s going to be money in it — quite a bit, actually. We’ll be able to rent this house out for a start, and secondly the television company will be paying us. Handsomely.’
    Mum’s head jerked up. ‘What television company?’
    I put my fork down so that I could give him the full benefit of the wry expression I’d perfected with the girls only last week. Dad babbled on with the details of his Grand Plan.
    The Hargreaves family (i.e. us) were to stay on this island and see nobody much for a year.
    The Hargreaves family were to film themselves doing hard, back-breaking work for a year.
    The Hargreaves family film would then be made into a television series so the world could laugh at all the stuff-ups we made.
    ‘No,’ I said again. ‘Forget it, Dad.’ I leaned over my half-eaten meal so that I was right in his face. ‘No way in the world will I agree to that.’
    He patted my hand and grinned at me. ‘That’s a reaction, Min — not a well thought-out response.’ He turned to my brother. ‘Noah?’
    Noah beamed a happy-happy smile in Dad’s general direction. ‘Cool, man. Whatever turns you on. Sweet with me.’
    I kicked him. ‘Use your brain for once in your life. Itwill
not
be sweet and it will not be cool.’
    Dad ignored me. ‘One down, two to go.’ He put his arms on the table, leaned on them and looked across at Mum. ‘Liv? You could still paint. Will you do it?’
    I dropped my fork on to the plate so that it scattered tomato sauce across the table. ‘Don’t even think about it, Mum.’
    She ignored me too, just kept on drawing patterns on the table with her knife. ‘And when is this going to happen?’
    I thumped back in my chair. ‘It’s not going to happen with me. Absolutely not me.’
    Dad reached out to pat my hand again. He didn’t seem to notice it was jammed into the pocket of my jeans and had been for the last five minutes.
    ‘Pretty soon, actually — in about a month. The beginning of August,’ he said, his eyes shining bright enough to light up a street.
    ‘Forget it,’ I said, grabbing all the calm and dignified control I possessed so that he couldn’t accuse me of being hysterical, juvenile or whatever the epithet of the moment happened to be. ‘I Am Not Going!’ I’d die if I couldn’t see Seb for a whole, entire year, and that was just one of things that would kill me.
    Dad didn’t even glance at me. ‘We’ll be planting trees, taking inventories of the wildlife, eradicating pests.’
    ‘Start with Noah,’ I muttered. Talk to yourself, Min. Nobody else is listening.
    Mum held up a hand. ‘That bit I can go along with — but parading ourselves all over the telly in the process? No, thank you.’
    Dad grinned at her. ‘Come on, Liv — it’ll be fun. And don’t forget the money.’
    ‘Yes,’ said Mum, ‘the money.’ She went back to the knife-drawing, her eyes following the movement. Then she hauled in a deep breath and fired off a volley of questions. ‘How long have you known about this? Why us? Why the TV?’
    Dad, using the hearty voice he brings out when he wants us to do something gut-busting, foul and boring, said, ‘I’ve been working on setting it up for nine months. Didn’t want to worry you.’
    ‘Kind of you,’ I muttered, but he just swept on.
    ‘We approached the TV company because we need the money to bring the island to the next stage. The animal pests have pretty much been eradicated, but …’
    I sat up, slamming both hands flat on the table. ‘Listen up, and listen good — no money in the world is going to make me spend a whole year on some dumb island with you lot.’ I glared at them — Noah with a stupid grin on his stupid face, Mum still scratching away with the knife and not looking at anyone and Dad pretending he was giving me the biggest treat of my life so far. I had no appetite for the rest of my dinner.