A Song for Summer Read Online Free PDF

of the window. "Oh good, how very nice of them! What kind and helpful boys!"
    Bennet followed her gaze. There were a lot of ways of describing Bruno and Frank, his two most objectionable seniors, but this was not one of them. Bruno was trundling a wheelbarrow on which were piled a broken spinning wheel, a shattered wooden chair and a pair of ancient bongo drums towards the kitchen gardens. Behind him followed Frank, dragging a sack from which various scrolls protruded and a battered guitar case.
    "I asked them to make a bonfire. No one seemed to want the stuff in my room and they said they'd be very careful and only light it in the incinerator." And, as Bennet was silent, "You don't mind?"'
    "No," said Bennet. "I don't mind at all."
    At the door, leaving to go, she paused. "There's something I think we should have here."
    Bennet glanced at the letter from his stockbroker lying on his desk. "Is it expensive?"'
    She smiled. "I don't think so. I'd like us to have storks. Only I don't know how to make them come. One needs a wheel, I think."
    "You must ask Marek, he'd know. He'll be back in a few days."
    She nodded, thinking of the tortoise. "Yes," she said, "he'd know. I see that."
    After she had gone, Bennet limped over to the window and looked out over the lake. Was it possible that something could go right? That she would stay and work--that in her care his children would be seen?
    And Tamara is away, he thought. She had not, as he had asked her, organised the turning out of Ellen's room, but when had Tamara done anything he had asked her? But he would not go down that road.
    Tonight he would not work late on the accounts. He would go to bed with a large whisky and golden Nausicaa in Homer's tensile, homely, heart-stopping Greek.
    "She won't last a week," said
    Ursula, sitting in her hideous striped pyjamas on the edge of her bed.
    Sophie sniffed back her tears and agreed. With the advent of darkness the hope she had felt when she met Ellen had died. Ellen would barricade herself into her room like the others had done, Frank and Bruno would go on sliding up and down the corridor and crashing into doors--and her father would go further and further away, past America where he was giving lectures, and disappear over the rim of the world for ever.
    "I get so tired," she said.
    Ursula shrugged. She didn't mind Sophie as much as she minded most people, but she was soppy.
    Ursula got by on hatred--for her ancient grandparents in their horrible house in Bath, for Frank who teased her because she wore braces on her teeth, for Dr Hermine who breastfed her revolting baby during Movement Classes and expected Ursula to give birth to herself or be a fork. Above Ursula's bed was a row of the only human beings for whom she felt concern: a series of Indian braves in full regalia.
    The door opened and the new matron entered. "I came to say goodnight and see if you needed anything."
    She came over to Ursula's bed, smiled down at her, put the bedclothes straight. For a dreadful moment Ursula thought she was going to kiss her, but she didn't. She stood looking carefully at the labelled portraits Ursula had put up: Little Crow, Chief of the Santees, Geronimo, last of the Apaches and Ursula's favourite, Big Foot, dying in the snow at Wounded Knee.
    "Isn't that where the massacre was?"' asked Ellen.
    "Yes. I'm going to go there when I'm grown up. To Wounded Knee."
    "That seems sensible," said Ellen. Then she went over to Sophie. "What is it? What's the matter?"'
    "She's lost her parents. I can't think it's anything to make a fuss about--I lost my parents years ago. I killed my mother because my arm stuck out when I was born and I killed my father because he went off to shoot tigers to cure his grief and died of a fever. But Sophie gets in a state," Ursula explained.
    Ellen sat down on the bed and smoothed Sophie's long dark hair. "When you say "lost", Sophie, what exactly do you mean?"'
    But what Sophie meant was not something she could put into