Read Online The Pirate Princess: Return to the Emerald Isle by Matthew Morris - Free Book Online Page B

She gave him a big hug and kiss. He didn’t know what was going on, but said, “Bye, bye, Momma,” and ran off towards the house with Molly in tow. Mark, Shay, and Meg got in the car for the two and a half hour drive to New York City. They waved goodbye to Eileen and Finn who were standing on the porch as they pulled away.
    A few years back, the Murphy family had sailed down Long Island Sound and spent the night in New York on one of their short family trips. Meg thought it was the most amazing place she had ever seen. They walked around the city under the massive buildings and bright lights. Everything was huge and buzzing, like a hive of bees. She was awed by the amount of people constantly walking the streets, seemingly at all hours. While she was in the midst of it all, Meg wondered how the people who lived in New York City could put up with the constant noise and being separated from nature. Sure, they had Central Park and trees lined some of the streets, but everything around the city was encased in concrete and stone.
    At home, Meg woke up to the sounds of the shoreline, with birds and frogs and bugs singing all day and night. The honking, yelling, and din of the city were alien to her, and she had spent the one night they stayed in New York looking out the hotel window and not being able to sleep a wink. Thankfully, the next day they got back on their boat and sailed around the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, returning to the water where she felt most at home.
    Remembering that trip, Meg started to think about what it must have been like for Nanny Sullivan to leave her family at such a young age. She pictured her on the bow of a ship entering New York Harbor and seeing Lady Liberty for the first time. She envisioned that the sight would have brought tears to Nanny’s eyes.
    It was unthinkable to Meg that someone could leave their family forever. At the same time, though, she could not fully grasp the idea of death; nobody in her family had died in her lifetime, other than a couple of goldfish. Meg didn’t even know about those until later on, when her sister told her that their parents would just switch out the dead ones for new ones before she realized it. The thought of losing her sister or brother was unimaginable, and her parents, even worse, but it had to take something that tragic to send a young woman from Ireland to never see her family again.
    It was hard on Meg to learn that she had a great grandfather one day, only to find out that he was gone the next. The thought of Nanny possibly dying someday was just too much for her to even ponder. Yet, here she was, sitting in a car heading towards an airport to be with her mom for the funeral of her great grandfather. Just then, she realized that she didn’t even know his name. His last name was O’-something , but she hadn’t learned his first name.
    “Mom, what’s my great grandfather’s name?”
    “Owen…Owen O’Flaherty.”
    Owen O’Flaherty . She didn’t know any Owens, at least not personally, but there was that cute movie star with the crooked nose.
    ‘Mac and O’, something , something Irish they be’ What was that rhyme her mom always said? Meg then realized it didn’t matter, as she was from Irish royalty and had a banshee following her every move. At least it wasn’t one of those creepy leprechauns.
    Every St. Patrick’s Day since she was little, Meg would pour milk into her glass in the morning and it would magically turn green. Her parents said it was the sneaky Leprechaun playing tricks on her family as usual on March 17, Ireland’s Patron Saint’s holiday. They would search around the house and try to find the little spirit but they were never able to find him. At least the green milk didn’t taste bad.
    Meg looked out the car window. She saw they were only at New Haven. Still quite a while to go .
    She grabbed her backpack that held her school work for the week and the compendium. Carefully, she pulled the compendium out