South of Capricorn Read Free Page A

getting them to the airport. Once there another silence followed, with both Mr. and Mrs. Stafford sending worried glances at each other, and at their daughter.
    ‘I can manage her,’ Gail told them confidently, noting this anxiety. ‘You’ll remember, Mother, that I told you she can be bribed.’
    ‘Why have to bribe a child?’ was the indignant query. ‘It’s disgraceful! Sandra, poor dear child, must have had a dreadful time with her.’
    ‘Undoubtedly,’ murmured her husband. ‘Were she mine I’d flay her alive!’
    ‘She certainly needs controlling.’
    ‘Her father is shortly to have the task,’ said Gail grimly. ‘And the best of luck to him!’
    There were a few tears on Mrs. Stafford’s cheeks when at length the good-byes were being said, and Gail, herself deeply affected but managing to hold back the tears, reminded her mother that she would in all probability be back within a fortnight.
    ‘I wish it were a shorter period, dear,’ sighed her mother. ‘Can’t you manage it in a week?’
    Gail shook her head, saying that the journey fallowing the flight itself would be a very long one.
    ‘I shall have to hire a car, or something. There’s in Overlanding bus, I’ve been told by the girl in the travel agency, but I’ve enough money to hire a car.’
    Her father glanced at Leta, who was deliberately pulling threads out of the new knitted gloves she had taken from her hands.
    ‘I am of the opinion,’ he remarked significantly, ‘that it will be preferable—and certainly less wearing on your nerves, my dear—to taking that young brat on a public conveyance, especially for as many hours as that.’
    ‘I agree wholeheartedly,’ said Mrs. Stafford, handkerchief held to her face. ‘Darling, do be careful!’
    Gail had to smile.
    ‘There’s no danger, pet,’ she said soothingly as she put an arm around her mother’s shoulders. ‘Anyone would think I was taking a load of explosives to Australia!’
    At this her father sent another glance at the small child who was now scraping the shiny toe of one shoe with the sole of the other, determined to take the gloss off completely.
    ‘I’d feel rather less apprehensive if you were,’ he rejoined with a crisp sort of chill in his voice which neither his wife nor his daughter had ever heard before. ‘That, over there, is more destructive than any load of dynamite!’
    ‘What’s dynamite?’ inquired Leta, suddenly interested in the grown-ups.
    ‘Something that explodes—blows you up!’
    ‘Ooh ... I’d like to blow somebody up!’
    ‘And kill them?’ Mr. Stafford was frowning heavily, but Leta was totally undaunted by this.
    ‘Of course.’
    ‘Come along,’ snapped Mrs. Stafford. ‘Take hold of Gail’s hand! If you’re not careful the aeroplane will go without you!’
    ‘I don’t want it to!’ Leta exclaimed, running to take the proffered hand. ‘I’m going to live with my daddy!’ And to the utter amazement of Gail and her parents Leta’s eyes took on a glow of excitement which transformed her whole appearance.
    ‘She really wants to go!’ Mrs. Stafford looked be- wilderedly at her daughter. Gail could only shake her head, recalling how, since the first mention of the father with whom she was now going to live, Leta had retired completely into herself, showing emotion only when she had one of her tantrums. Not a tear had been shed when she was told that she would not see her mother again and, troubled by the child’s long silences, Mrs. Stafford had sent for the doctor. It was he who told Leta that, if she did not go to her father, then she would have to live in a children’s home. Gail was furious about his, but the doctor did manage to convince her, after a while, that some threat was necessary in order to make the child go quietly, as it were.
    ‘Unless she is willing you’ll never get her on that plane,’ he had warned, and as he had the support of both her parents Gail at last forgave him for the ultimatum he had