Read Online Hope's Vengeance by Ricki Thomas - Free Book Online Page A

teddies and clothes were all there, waiting for us.”
    Hope breathed deeply, preparing herself, Dawn discreetly checked her watch. Twenty minutes left. “That was the start of the nightmare, walking through the door and hearing the word ‘home’. The next part started straight after. Dad drove away, Mum came in, she got a bottle of vodka and poured a glass out. I was scared, because that was what Sam had always drunk before he was sick, so I started crying. Mum patted me on the head, then she hugged me and said it would be alright. After she’d had about half the bottle she started crying, then she got angry and sent us to bed. We didn’t even have any covers on the bed, and the mattress stank. Faith and I cried ourselves to sleep, but at least we had each other to cuddle.”
    Hope ambled to the water cooler. “Things didn’t improve. Soon she was drinking from the morning, getting through a bottle a day. We had no food in the house, so ate as much as we could at school because we had free meals. I always went up for seconds.” A light chuckle. “Probably why I’m so fat now!” Dawn’s face remained stern.
    Refreshed, Hope sat again, leaning back in the chair. “We discovered jumble sales, me and my sisters, we’d steal a bit of money from Mum’s purse when she was passed out, and went to jumble sales. Then we had something to wear to school and the teasing stopped, so we began to fit in. We got used to Mum always being drunk, she was always crying, but then her tummy got huge. Charity said she was pregnant, and we didn’t believe her.
    Then one night, Mum woke us up, it was two in the morning, she said she had to go to hospital because it was time. An ambulance came, then two policemen, Mum got in the ambulance and they went off. The police said they had to stay until a social worker got there. We were taken to another place, to this woman, big, fat she was. I thought we’d done something wrong again, and we’d lost our Mum now, I was so scared. I loved her, you know, just because she stopped being a nice Mum, I still loved her.”
    “You say that in the past tense?”
    The raised eyebrows, sardonic expression, and Dawn was silenced. “She was back just in time for Christmas with my new baby sister. I adored Honesty from the word go, her little scrunched up face, jet black hair, tiny fingers and toes, she was beautiful.”
    Dawn leaned forward, hands outstretched, pensive. “Can I clarify something here, Hope? You say your Mum was drunk all the time, but then she came home with a baby?”
    “That’s the one! Terrible, huh. We didn’t know the significance at the time, but she was lucky Honesty came out okay.” Dawn sighed incredulously as she settled back into the homely chair. “We started to take it in turns to miss school, me and Faith. Mum always told us to go in the morning, but when we did, sometimes we’d come back home and Honesty would be screaming while Mum was asleep, drunk. So we made sure one of us was always on hand for Honesty. Charity refused to help, said her schoolwork was important and she wasn’t going to miss it. We used to fight, me and Charity, because I said Honesty was important too, but she didn’t care.”
    “Did anyone know you were having to miss school to look after your sister? I mean, social workers, anyone?” Unchecked, Dawn was visibly shocked at what she was hearing.
    “Eventually, yes. Eventually we got a social worker each, and Mum got some help. She still drank then, but only in the evenings.”
    “How awful, Hope, what a horrible come down. You must have been so scared.” Dawn checked her watch. “It’s just about time to finish, but I just want to ask a couple of questions, just to get things straight in my head.” She had to see the reactions again, see if Hope’s body language gave anything more away.
    “Fire away.” A wide, confident smile.
    “Sandra, did you ever forgive her?”
    Hope shrugged, indifferent. “She means nothing to me. I