Her Name Will Be Faith Read Online Free PDF Page A

that," Mike agreed.
    "It'll be full of crawly bugs," Dale
grinned.
    "Ooh!" Meg shrilled.
    "Dale!" Babs
remonstrated. "All you have to do, Meg dear, is shut the place up and have it fumigated."
    "Yeah, but there's a lot to do to it," Neal
said.
    "Oh, I'm so scared," Meg said again.
    "What about?" Mike inquired.
    "Well, snakes, and..."
    "There are no dangerous
snakes in the Bahamas," Mike declared.
    "But some of them are so big."
    "Chicken snakes," Mike
said reassuringly. "They won't trouble you."
    "But what about things like hurricanes?" Meg
squeaked.
    "Hurricanes? They're no hassle."
    "Oh, but when one reads the newspapers..."
    "You don't want to believe
everything you read in the newspapers," Mike announced. "We had a hurricane down
there. Three years ago."
    "Well," Babs said.
"I don't think it was actually a hurricane. Didn't they call it a tropical depression, or
something?"
    "It was a hurricane,"
Mike said firmly. "Don't you remember that wind howling?"
    "And the rain," Marcia
said, squeezing Benny's hand. "So much got in we had to sleep in the lounge."
    "It must have been awful,
but awful. Weren't you terrified?" Meg asked.
    The Donnellys exchanged glances.
    "I'll confess I was a bit
worried at first, but providing one is sensible and takes the proper precautions, like boarding up
the windows, why..." Mike spread his
hands expansively. "It's a doddle."
    "Read three books by candlelight," Dale
said.
    "You read through a hurricane?" James Robson
was aghast.
    "Sure. Not easy, mind you,
because the candle flame kept blowing out."
    Marcia kicked him under the table
but the Robsons didn't realize they were
being roasted.
    "Believe me," Mike declared.
"Hurricanes aren't all they're cracked up
to be."
    "Then how come people die in
them?" James wanted to know. "They do, you know."
    "Oh, sure they do. When
they're living in some shantytown in Haiti and the whole house comes down on them. It shouldn't ever
happen to a proper building."
    "Anyway," Dale said,
"hurricanes hardly ever hit the same place again for years and years. So Eleuthera
has got to be the safest place in the Bahamas
for a long time to come."
    "I think you're talking about
lightning," Marcia objected. "So how come the house gets struck by lightning every year?"
    "You get struck by lightning?" Meg gasped.
    "Does no more damage than that storm," Mike
asserted.
    Jo remained silent as the
conversation continued. Perhaps she was just irritated with Michael, but the whole family was
being a bit over the top
tonight. She could remember that storm. It certainly hadn't been a hurricane; the winds had never
risen above 5o mph. Yet it had been terrifying, out on Dolphin Point, with the waves crashing
on the rocks on one side and rolling up
the beach on the other, and the wind howling, and
the trees bending, and the rain teeming down as the thunder and lightning had been continuous. They had all been
scared, not least Big Mike; she had
been more afraid for the children than herself, had first really felt the bitterness that she should be
there, coping, while Michael was
racing Esmeralda in the relatively calm waters off Bermuda. But in fact no real damage had been done, although Mike
was gradually increas ing the wind
strength every time he talked about it. She wondered what his reaction
would be to a real hurricane.
    "Hello there!" The
front door opened and Michael stalked in. "Not too late for some food, I hope?"
    "Mike!" His father leapt
up and seized his hand; he was the only person allowed to call his eldest son
by the diminutive, as Michael Donnelly junior was determined to grow away from his Irish roots.
"Jo says you had trouble."
    "Defective gear." He
kissed Babs, blew one at his wife. "Kids in bed?"
    "Yes," she said.
    The rest of the party was already
on their dessert, but Mike provided his son with a plate of roast beef, and the conversation
became concerned with
yachts and racing. Mike could hardly wait for the meal to end. As soon as they left the table, he
pushed