The Throwaway Children (13 page)

‘Amen.’

‘Our Father…’

They all joined in. Rita kept her eyes shut until she felt Daisy move beside her and heard a low buzz of conversation. When she dared open them again she found that Mrs Hawkins had left the room, and most of the girls had flopped down on the chairs and sagging sofas.

‘We have to go to bed now,’ Daisy said. ‘Juniors go up straight after evening prayers.’

‘What’s dormitory stools?’ asked Rita again.

‘If someone’s late for croc again, we’ll have to sit on our dormitory stools for three hours on Saturday afternoon.’

‘What’s croc?’ asked Rita anxiously.

Daisy stared at her in amazement. ‘Don’t you know nothing? Croc’s how we walk to school. In twos. We line up in croc and then we all walk to school. Same when we come home. You’ll see tomorrow morning.’

‘Go to bed,’ said a harsh voice and Rita looked up to find Sheila standing over her. ‘Or I’ll report you to Matron.’

‘We’re just going, Sheila,’ Daisy said hastily. ‘Come on, Rita.’

The other Purples had already left the room, and Daisy pulled Rita along the passage after them. At the bottom of the stairs they met Frances. Daisy pushed Rita back against the wall to let the senior girl pass, but Frances stopped.

‘Daisy,’ she said, ‘you’d better look after Rita. Make sure she’s in the right place at the right time, especially not late for croc.’

‘Yes, Frances.’

‘And you, Rita, listen to what Daisy tells you, she knows what’s what.’

‘Yes, Frances,’ answered Rita meekly.

Frances nodded. ‘Bed, then,’ she said and walked off down the corridor.

‘She’s nice,’ Rita said as she watched Frances disappearing.

‘She’s all right,’ conceded Daisy. ‘Better than most of them, anyway. Come on.’

In the dormitory Daisy showed Rita where to fill her bowl. ‘Hands, face and teeth at night,’ she explained. ‘Strip wash in the morning. Bath night once a week. You have to look at the list to see which is your night.’

There was supposed to be silence in the dormitory, but the other five girls exchanged whispers as they got ready for bed. Rita watched, doing what they did, but all the time she was fighting a lump in her throat. Tears filled her eyes as she put on the nightie lying on her bed. She blinked fiercely, trying to hold them back. She wanted her own bed in Ship Street, she wanted Mum and Gran, but they didn’t even know where she was. A sob escaped her, and then another.

Matron came in at that moment with a blue-checked cotton frock like the other girls all wore. ‘Here’s your dress for tomorrow, Rita,’ she said, as she placed it on her stool and gathered up the school dress Rita had been wearing. ‘You get clean knickers and socks on Saturday.’ She saw the tears on Rita’s cheeks and added, ‘And you can stop that snivelling. We don’t want cry-babies here.’

The lights went out five minutes later, and the six girls in Purple Dorm settled down to sleep. There was an occasional whisper, but before long there was only the sound of regular breathing as one by one they drifted off to sleep. All except Rita. She lay in bed, her face buried in her pillow, trying to stifle her sobs, but homesickness washed over her, filling her with a misery so deep, she even wished she were back with Uncle Jimmy. Everything at Laurel House was so strange, Rita ached for the familiarity of her own home, her own bedroom, of Rosie curled up beside her.

The thought of Rosie made her tears flow again. Poor little Rosie, alone in her new bed, too. Was she all right? Was she asleep, or was she lying awake as well?

As the summer light fled the sky, the dormitory was lit with an eerie green light from the street lamp in the road outside. Cautiously Rita stood up on her bed and peered out through the bars. Below the window was the front garden, patterned with dark shadows. A shaft of light from a downstairs window lay across the path, but even as she watched, it disappeared as the light was switched off. For a long time Rita stared out of the window. Her tears were dry now, but she felt a deep and aching loneliness; an emptiness that was beyond tears.

Laurel House was silent. Very quietly, Rita got off her bed and with her eyes accustomed to the pallid light, crossed to the door. She eased it open and crept along the passage to Green Dorm, its door standing ajar. For a moment she stood outside, listening to the quiet breathing of its inmates; the quiet breathing and the muffled sobs. Rita pushed the door open a little wider and slipped inside. It was darker in here, but she could see enough to creep over to Rosie’s bed. The little girl was curled up into a ball, crying in her sleep. Rita twitched back the blanket and lay down beside her, putting her arm round her and snuggling into shape behind her. Rosie stirred and opened her eyes, muttering.

‘It’s all right, Rosie,’ whispered Rita. ‘It’s me, Reet!’ She felt her sister relax against her, and it was only moments before they both fell into a deep and exhausted sleep.

The clanging of a loud bell shook them awake, and for a moment neither of them knew where they were. Then the events of the previous day crowded back to them, and Rita was filled with rising despair. She was just crawling out of Rosie’s bed when the door was flung open and Frances came in. She was wearing a dressing gown, and her hair stood in a halo round her head.

‘Come on, kids,’ she began and then broke off, staring at Rita. ‘What d’you think you’re doing in here?’ she demanded. ‘Get back to your own dorm, and be grateful it was me found you, not Matron. Go on, scoot!’

Rita scooted.

‘Where were you?’ hissed Daisy, when she saw her.

‘Went to the toilet,’ lied Rita.

‘Well, hurry up and strip your bed,’ said Daisy, who’d folded her bedclothes into a neat pile on her stool. ‘Come on,’ she said, placing her clothes on the bare mattress. ‘You’ve got to fill your bowl and get washed.’ She grabbed her own bowl and scurried out of the room, returning moments later with her bowl full of water. She stared at Rita.

‘Come on, Rita,’ she implored. ‘Strip your bed. Look.’ She put her bowl down and showed Rita what to do. ‘Hurry up,’ she scolded as Rita struggled to fold the sheets and blanket. ‘Matron’ll be here in ten minutes, and we have to be dressed, with our beds made and ready for inspection.’

She turned back to her own preparations, leaving Rita to fill her own bowl. By the time she was dressed, all the other girls in the room had remade their beds, and were waiting for Matron to carry out her inspection. They could hear her voice, loud with disapproval in another dorm, and Daisy grabbed Rita’s bedclothes and swiftly remade the bed.

‘Hospital corners,’ she muttered as Rita tried to tuck them in. ‘Like this!’

‘You’re very slow this morning, Purples!’ Matron said as she walked in and found Rita struggling with her blanket. She looked at her and sniffed. ‘Well, as it’s your first morning, I won’t be putting you on report,’ she said. ‘But you’ll have to learn to be quicker.’

She looked round the room where the other girls were all standing by their beds, waiting for her approval. Glancing at a notice on the back of the door she said, ‘You’re on dormitory work this morning, Joan. You and Rita. Show her what to do. The rest of you, get off to your chores.’

They got to the playroom just in time for morning prayers and listened, hands together, eyes closed, as Mrs Hawkins droned out exactly the same prayers as the night before, only adding, ‘Teach these girls to make the most of this day You have given them, to waste not a minute of Your precious time in idleness, but fill each moment with work and praise.’

Breakfast was porridge and bread and marge. Rita smiled across reassuringly at Rosie, sitting at the babies’ table, but Rosie simply stared down at the plate of cold porridge she’d pushed away. It was still Frances taking her table, and Rita saw her encouraging Rosie to eat. The next time she looked, the plate of porridge was in front of red-headed Susan, and Rosie was left with one piece of dry bread.

When the meal was over Rita found that it was still the Purples’ turn to wash up, and she followed the rest of her dorm to the kitchen to do so. There were other girls in the kitchen at the same time.

‘It’s Orange on veggies today,’ Daisy said as they washed the porridge bowls. ‘It’ll be us tomorrow.’

There was no time to spare once the clearing up was done.

‘Croc in the garden, in five minutes,’ came the call, and Rita followed Daisy to collect her satchel from her locker, ready for school. In a moment when there was no one near her, Rita unbuckled the flap and slipped her hand inside. There, tucked into the pages of her sum book, was her picture of Daddy. Quickly she slipped him inside her pillowcase before she hurried out to join the croc forming up in the garden.

The crocodile moved off, through the gate into the street beyond. Rita’s partner, Angela, looked at her and said, ‘Did you really bite Sheila?’

‘Yeah,’ answered Rita shortly, ‘she was hurting my sister.’

Angela nodded. ‘Yeah, she’s a bully. She often hits the little kids.’

‘Frances stopped her,’ Rita said.

‘Yeah, well, Frances won’t always be there,’ Angela said. ‘She’s got a job now. You better watch out for Sheila. She’s got it in for you.’

The walk to school took ten minutes. On the way they were overtaken by a number 37 bus. Rita watched to see where it stopped. The number 37 was the way home, back to Mum and back to Gran, but the bus didn’t stop; it swept round the corner and was lost to sight. Rita looked at the name of the road they were in. Meredith Lane. Me-red-ith. She sounded the name out to herself. Well, at least she knew where to look for the bus, even if she didn’t know where the stop was.

When they reached the elementary school, the juniors and babies branched off into the playground, while the rest of the crocodile continued to the secondary school. Rita found Rosie in the playground and took her hand.

‘We go to school here now, Rosie,’ she said.

Rosie clung to her. ‘I’m hungry,’ she wailed.

‘You didn’t eat no breakfast,’ pointed out Rita. ‘You let that Susan have it. You got to eat your breakfast, Rosie.’

‘I don’t like porridge,’ whined Rosie. ‘It was nasty.’

‘I didn’t like it, neither,’ Rita said, ‘but we got to eat it, or we’ll be hungry.’

At that moment Angela came up to them. ‘Miss Harrison wants to see you both,’ she said and pointed towards the school door. Rita looked over to where Miss Harrison was waiting. ‘Come on Rosie,’ she said, and led her across.

‘Rita and Rose?’ asked the teacher with a smile. ‘Welcome to St George’s School. I’m Miss Harrison and I’m your new headmistress. Miss Hassinger phoned me and told me all about you. Come on inside and I’ll show you where your classrooms are.’ She reached for Rosie’s hand, but Rosie drew back and hid behind Rita.

‘Rosie’s shy, miss,’ Rita explained.

‘So she is,’ agreed Miss Harrison cheerfully. ‘Never mind, you just bring her in with you. Come along.’

The morning passed very quickly. Everything was new and different at St George’s; for a start it was girls only and Capel Street Elementary had been mixed, but when Rita went to find Rosie at playtime, she was happily playing with a girl from her class, and so Rita left her to it.

At the end of morning school the Laurel House girls were marched back to the home for lunch. It was fish and mashed potato, and though Rita didn’t like fish very much, she was so hungry that she, like everyone else at the table, ate it all. A rather soggy suet pudding followed, and then it was washing up again. Rita couldn’t believe it was still their turn.

‘We’ll be late for croc,’ she wailed when Daisy dragged her into the kitchen.

‘Better not be!’ warned Daisy. ‘Don’t want no dormitory stools!’

All the Purples agreed with that, and hurriedly set to work on the dishes.

‘No more washing up for a week,’ crowed Daisy as they left the kitchen and rushed out to join the crocodile. ‘Yahoo!’

‘Warning, Daisy Smart, for making unseemly noises in the corridor!’ Mrs Hawkins was emerging from the dining room. ‘Another sound like that and you’ll be on punishment.’ She swept on down the passage, leaving Daisy mutinous, if pale-faced, behind her.

‘Watch out for the Hawk,’ she muttered to Rita. ‘She comes from nowhere!’ Then she stuck her tongue out at the retreating figure. ‘Don’t mess with the Hawk, Reet.’

By the end of afternoon school, Rita was beginning to feel at home in her new classroom and she was sorry that it was Friday and there would be no more school until Monday. Miss Davis, her teacher, had given them all some spellings to learn, and said there would be a nine times table test on Monday. Rita had the words carefully written in her new spelling book. She wasn’t worried about the table test; Miss Hassinger had been very strict on learning tables and Rita already knew her nine times. But the thought of no school till Monday made Rita’s heart sink. Just Laurel House. A weekend of being shut up in Laurel House, with no escape… Unless, of course, Mum came to take them home. But as the crocodile wound its way in through the gate, Laurel House closed round her, so that for a moment Rita felt she couldn’t breathe. She looked round for Rosie, but she was much further back in the croc, with the other babies, and she couldn’t see her. The moment they were indoors, Daisy was pulling her into the kitchen.

‘Come on,’ she urged, ‘or we’ll get blackcurrants!’

‘What?’ Rita had no idea what she was talking about, but she hurried anyway. She had quickly discovered that Daisy knew her way around, and if she stuck with her she’d be all right. They were first into the kitchen and Mrs Smith gave them a large basket each and sent them out to pick gooseberries.

‘And don’t let me catch you eating any,’ warned Mrs Smith. ‘I want them baskets full, sharp as you like.’

It took Rita and Daisy over half an hour to fill their baskets, and while they were picking Rita plucked up courage and asked her new friend some questions.

‘How long you been here, Dais?’ she asked.

Daisy paused in her picking for a moment. ‘Here at Laurel House? Forever.’

‘My mum’ll come and get me an’ Rosie when she gets home,’ Rita said.

‘Sez you!’ retorted Daisy, adding as an afterthought, ‘Home from where?’