Invincible Read Online Free PDF Page A

with a sympathetic smile.
    â€œThanks. And thanks for bringing my daughter home.”
    Kristin put her arm around Flick’s narrow shoulders, looked around and said, “Where’s your luggage, Flick?”
    â€œShe didn’t check any bags,” the chaperon said. “I have a flight home to catch, so I’ll leave you two to sort this out.”
    Kristin frowned as she watched the chaperon hurry away, then turned to her daughter and said, “Why didn’t you bring anything with you?”
    â€œThe headmistress is packing everything up. She’s going to ship it to me,” Flick explained. “She said she didn’t trust me in the dormitory.”
    Good lord! She’d wondered why Flick was still wearing her school uniform. If she wasn’t mistaken, there was a spot of blood on the collar of Flick’s white blouse, above the red V-neck wool sweater she wore with a blue red-and-green-plaid wool pleated skirt. “All right. Let’s go home.”
    Flick stopped dead in her tracks and looked up at Kristin, her blue eyes brimming with tears. “I don’t want to go home, Mom. I want to go see Gramps in the hospital.”
    Kristin stared at her daughter in shock. “How did you know—? How could you possibly—? Who told you Gramps is in the hospital?”
    â€œI’m not stupid, Mom. Gramps emailed me every day—until last Wednesday. Nothing Thursday or Friday or Saturday or Sunday. I knew something was wrong. So I tried calling him. Which got me in trouble with Mrs.Fortin. But he didn’t call me back. So I knew something was wrong.
    â€œThen I called you and asked why Gramps didn’t call me back and you said—”
    â€œI said he wasn’t feeling well. But that doesn’t mean he’s in the hospital, Flick.”
    â€œBut he is, isn’t he?” her daughter challenged. “Because if he wasn’t, Gramps would have called me back, no matter how sick he was. What’s wrong with him, Mom? How bad is he hurt? Was he in a car accident, or what?”
    Kristin felt trapped. She’d hoped to shield Flick from the truth for long enough to let her father regain more of his faculties. But that obviously wasn’t possible now. “He’s had a stroke, Flick.”
    â€œA stroke? What’s that?”
    â€œA blood vessel broke in his brain.”
    â€œIs he dying?” Flick cried.
    â€œNo, but the stroke caused some of his brain not to work right. That’s why Gramps hasn’t called you back. The stroke affected his speech, so he can’t talk very well yet.”
    â€œYet?” Flick said, looking, as she always did, for the loophole that allowed her to escape anything she found unpleasant.
    â€œWith therapy, he should get much better. But, Flick…”
    Kristin cupped her hands gently on either side of her daughter’s anxious face and said, “His right side is paralyzed. He can’t walk or write—”
    â€œOr type,” Flick interjected, pulling free. “So he couldn’t email me back.”
    â€œThat’s right.”
    â€œThen it’s a good thing I got myself kicked out of that ludicrous school,” Flick said, her eyes narrowed in fierce determination. “Gramps is going to need my help to get better.”
    Ludicrous: Worthy of scorn as absurdly inept, false or foolish.
    It was the first time Kristin had heard Flick use the word. It seemed her daughter’s vocabulary had grown in the four months since she’d seen her at Christmas. It wasn’t always an advantage having a child who was so smart. Like now, when her daughter had manipulated her world to arrive home, instead of being at school where she belonged.
    Kristin put an arm around Flick and walked toward the airport garage where she’d left her car, listening attentively as her daughter talked a mile a minute about everything that had happened since she’d last seen