Read Online The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough - Free Book Online

within an inch of their lives. All the boys were put to helping, only Meggie exempted because she was in absolute disgrace. She crawled away behind the barn and cried. Her head throbbed with pain from the scrubbing, the burns and the blisters; and she was so bitterly ashamed that she would not even look at Frank when he came to find her, nor could he persuade her to come inside.
    In the end he had to drag her into the house by brute force, kicking and fighting, and she had pushed herself into a corner when Paddy came back from Wahine in the late afternoon. He took one look at Meggie’s shorn head and burst into tears, sitting rocking himself in the Windsor chair with his hands over his face, while the family stood shuffling their feet and wishing they were anywhere but where they were. Fee made a pot of tea and poured Paddy a cup as he began to recover.
    “What happened in Wahine?” she asked. “You were gone an awful long time.”
    “I took the horsewhip to that blasted Dago and threw him into the horse trough, for one thing. Then I noticed MacLeod standing outside his shop watching, so I told him what had happened. MacLeod mustered some of the chaps at the pub and we threw the whole lot of those Dagos into the horse trough, women too, and tipped a few gallons of sheep-dip into it. Then I went down to the school and saw Sister Agatha, and I tell you, she was fit to be tied that she hadn’t noticed anything. She hauled the Dago girl out of her desk to look in her hair, and sure enough, lice all over the place. So she sent the girl home and told her not to come back until her head was clean. I left her and Sister Declan and Sister Catherine looking through every head in the school, and there turned out to be a lot of lousy ones. Those three nuns were scratching themselves like mad when they thought no one was watching.” He grinned at the memory, then he saw Meggie’s head again and sobered. He stared at her grimly. “As for you, young lady, no more Dagos or anyone except your brothers. If they aren’t good enough for you, too bad. Bob, I’m telling you that Meggie’s to have nothing to do with anyone except you and the boys while she’s at school, do you hear?”
    Bob nodded. “Yes, Daddy.”
    The next morning Meggie was horrified to discover that she was expected to go to school as usual.
    “No, no, I can’t go!” she moaned, her hands clutching at her head. “Mum, Mum, I can’t go to school like this, not with Sister Agatha!”
    “Oh, yes, you can,” her mother replied, ignoring Frank’s imploring looks. “It’ll teach you a lesson.”
    So off to school went Meggie, her feet dragging and her head done up in a brown bandanna. Sister Agatha ignored her entirely, but at playtime the other girls caught her and tore her scarf away to see what she looked like. Her face was only mildly disfigured, but her head when uncovered was a horrible sight, oozing and angry. The moment he saw what was going on Bob came over, and took his sister away into a secluded corner of the cricket pitch.
    “Don’t you take any notice of them, Meggie,” he said roughly, tying the scarf around her head awkwardly and patting her stiff shoulders. “Spiteful little cats! I wish I’d thought to catch some of those things out of your head; I’m sure they’d keep. The minute everyone forgot, I’d sprinkle a few heads with a new lot.”
    The other Cleary boys gathered around, and they sat guarding Meggie until the bell rang.
    Teresa Annunzio came to school briefly at lunchtime, her head shaven. She tried to attack Meggie, but the boys held her off easily. As she backed away she flung her right arm up in the air, its fist clenched, and slapped her left hand on its biceps in a fascinating, mysterious gesture no one understood, but which the boys avidly filed away for future use.
    “I hate you!” Teresa screamed. “Me dad’s got to move out of the district because of what your dad did to him!” She turned and ran from the