by Frances Vick
She had a handful of lost hair bands and crushed milk cartons when she heard singing from one of the dank playhouses in the infant section.
A cracked falsetto: ‘Follow the starrrrrr, for he-eeee is born!’
Old plastic seats, in the shape of toadstools, their paint peeling off, had been dragged over to block the playhouse entrance.
‘For he-eeee is born in Beth-lee-hemmmm.’
She edged closer, and coughed. The singing stopped.
‘Knock knock!’ said Claire. ‘Can I come in?’ She heard a gasp, and some scrabbling. ‘Knock knock. It’s just Miss Penny, don’t be afraid. It must be a bit cold in there? Aren’t you cold?’
‘It’s not cold,’ said a voice. ‘It’s cosy.’
‘Well, it’s very cold out here. Can I come in and get warm for a minute?’
There was a pause, and the child moved the toadstools away from the doorway. It was dark in there, but Claire could see a scabbed little elbow and one bare foot.
Claire crouched down and waddled into the playhouse. It smelled of old leaves and damp. Lorna Bell sat cross-legged and stern in front of a dirty tea set.
‘Oh thank you!’ Claire beamed and shuffled forward. ‘It’s a nice house. I don’t think I’ve ever been inside. It’s quite big, isn’t it? And cosy, like you said.’ The girl frowned, and drew circles in the dirty floor with one frigid finger. ‘How long have you been living here?’
Lorna was amused despite herself. ‘I don’t live here!’
‘Don’t you?’ Claire was mock surprised. ‘But it looks just like a real home here.’
The girl considered for a moment. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’
‘Yes, please.’
Lorna handled the tea set seriously and silently. ‘I don’t have any biscuits,’ she said with a frown, handing Claire an empty plastic cup.
‘Oh I have biscuits. Here.’ Claire feigned opening a packet and offering it to the girl, who looked scornful, but pretended to take one anyway. It grew darker, colder inside the house.
‘Well Lorna, I have to be leaving before the gates close. Why not come with me?’ A tiny movement in the gloom could have been a shake of her head. ‘We’ll give your mum a call. She’ll be looking for you, and how will she find you, all hidden in this house?’
‘I don’t want to be found,’ said the girl, frowning.
‘But she’ll want to find you. I heard you singing just now, lovely singing. You’re one of the angels in the play, aren’t you?’ Claire had her hand out, waiting for the girl to take it, but Lorna ignored it.
‘I’m not an angel. Ruby Franklin told on me and now I’m not an angel.’
‘What happened with Ruby?’
Lorna ignored that. ‘Mrs Hurst said I had to be a villager instead. Villagers don’t talk.’
‘Ah. Well, villagers are very important in the story, too.’
‘They’re not. Not like angels.’
‘Well, to tell the truth Lorna, I’ve always thought angels look a bit silly.’
The child peered at her doubtfully. ‘They’re not silly. They’re from heaven.’
‘Well, they look silly to me. Silly wings, and silly white clothes, and flying about playing a harp. I’d much rather live in the world and be a villager.’
‘Why?’
‘Well. If you’re an angel you can’t eat food, or have a pet, or watch TV, or do anything fun. You have to be extra good all the time and that must be a bit boring.’
Lorna let slip a little huff of surprised assent. She shifted her weight. ‘Were you in school plays?’
‘Certainly. Once I was a door. And once I was a wall. And twice I was a cloud.’
‘A door!’ Lorna laughed. ‘How could you be a door?’
‘Well, I think maybe I was a bit naughty and so they made me be a door as a punishment or something. I would have loved to have been a villager.’ Claire had been too shy for a real part, and so the teacher had made her hold the cardboard stable door. But the punishment story would resonate more with Lorna.
There was a silence. Claire shivered. ‘I’m cold now, Lorna. Let’s go. I have chocolate fingers in my bag but it’s in the staffroom. Let’s go there and warm up a bit, and you can have a couple if you want while we wait for your mum.’ She backed out into the dark, windy playground. After a long while, Lorna appeared, all eyes in the gloom, and something dropped something onto the floor. A yellow highlighter pen. ‘Lorna, did you drop something?’
The girl turned blank eyes towards her. ‘No. I can’t see anything.’
‘This pen?’
‘No.’
‘Oh. Well, let’s pick it up and take it inside. We’re always running out of pens in the infants. What do you do? Eat them?’
Lorna giggled, ‘Can’t eat pens!’
‘Well, they’re always disappearing. Come on, it’s cold. Lorna, where are your shoes?’
‘In the house thing.’
‘Go and get them, and your socks too!’
The girl squirmed and looked at the floor. ‘They’re too small. Hurt my feet.’
‘Well, go and get them anyway.’
The shoes, when she produced them, were cracked and one sole flapped like a gaping mouth. Claire helped her on with her dirty socks and tried to shove her feet into the shoes, but they were clearly too small. ‘How have you been wearing them?’
‘I take them off when I’m sitting down.’
‘But you have to walk in them sometimes, don’t you?’
‘Tiptoes.’
‘OK, look, let’s – jam them on somehow. Look, if we press down the back you can put them on like slippers. See? You really need some new ones . . .’
‘Can I have those chocolate fingers?’
‘Let’s get into the school. Can you walk with your shoes like that? Just shuffle then. Come on, let’s get out of the cold.’
They’d walked inside together, and the shoe situation had been the thing Claire had remembered about the incident, not the crayons. And in light of what had happened after that, the memory of how the whole thing started had hardly seemed significant. Until the staff meeting. But, like she’d said, crayons went missing all the time. And a few of them were in the playhouse? Lorna had picked them up? What did that signify? Nothing.
7
Nobody had answered the phone at Lorna’s house, and Claire wrestled with the school database till she found the address, because Lorna didn’t seem to know the exact address, just the name of the estate Claire was familiar with through court notices in the local paper.
The caretaker had been hovering around them for the last half an hour, hissing impatiently. He wanted to close up.
‘Well, Lorna, it looks as if I’m taking you home.’ Claire helped the girl on with her coat and pushed the heavy door to the playground with one shoulder. Lorna skipped ahead towards the lone car in the car park.
‘I’m going to your house?’
‘No! I’m taking you to your house.’
‘Can I come to yours instead?’
‘Oh Lorna, no. Your parents will be worried about you. Your brother too.’
‘They won’t.’
Claire didn’t really want to carry on down this path, because she was sure Lorna was right. The caretaker turned all the lights off before they got to the car. Lorna stumbled in the dark, and pulled on Claire’s coat.
‘It’s spooky out here.’
‘You can get in the front and I’ll make sure the heating’s on. Right, now. I know your address, but I’m not sure exactly how to get there. Can you tell me when we’re close by?’
Lorna folded herself stiffly in the front seat of the little Fiesta, her toes only just touching the floor. ‘I don’t know it in the dark,’ she murmured.
‘Well, it gets dark early now, it’s nearly Christmas. Do you have Christmas at home Lorna, or do you go to your grandparents?’
The girl was drawing pictures in the window fog. ‘Oh yes. Yes, all the grandparents come over, and my aunti
es and uncles and we have a big party,’ she replied tonelessly.
‘That sounds lovely.’
‘It is,’ said Lorna, turning around, suddenly animated, ‘it really is. There’s lots of cake and crackers. And sweets. My Uncle Dale does magic tricks. And we play games too.’
‘What kind of games?’
‘Um. Party games? And sing-songs. Christmas songs. It’s fun.’
‘It sounds like fun,’ said Claire, thinking about her Christmases – alone with Mother, barely different from any other day really. ‘It sounds like a lot of fun.’ They were driving through the town centre now, past the forlorn little shopping arcade, the freezing bus stops, the all-day drinkers.
‘And then we all go to the fair.’
‘A fair on Christmas Day?’
‘No, not the fair,’ the child groped for a different word. ‘The circus? And we feed the animals because my Uncle Dale knows the owners. They have elephants and little dogs that do tricks and my mum’s friend swings on the trapeze. They say that I can join the circus when I’m sixteen. I can balance on the string thing.’
‘The high wire?’
‘Yeah. And the day after Christmas we go to the seaside.’
‘A bit cold though?’
‘Yes, really cold. But we like the cold. And we all have a big barbeque on the beach and we have races and I always win. I always win.’
She stopped just as abruptly as she’d started, and Claire felt unbearably sorry for this girl whose Christmas must be so desolate. Lorna was tenderly stroking the seat. She seemed to be blinking back tears.
‘It’s nice in here. It’s really clean. Smells nice.’ She touched the hanging air freshener. ‘Is it this?’
‘Yes. It’s eucalyptus.’
‘Eu-ca-lyp-tus.’ Lorna smiled, turning, sunny again. ‘That sounds funny when I say it.’
Claire rummaged in the glove compartment.
‘Are you hungry, Lorna? You’ve only had those chocolate fingers – here, I have these funny crisps. It might take the edge off.’
Lorna opened the bag suspiciously and sniffed at them. She picked the smallest one and chewed meditatively.
‘Do you like them?’
‘They’re weird.’
‘They’re plantains.’
‘What?’
‘It’s a kind of fried banana. Like a tropical banana. Do you like them?’
She swallowed with difficulty. ‘Yes.’
Claire laughed, ‘You don’t have to have them. They’re not everyone’s cup of tea. I eat them because they’re healthier than real crisps. Help keep me trim.’
‘But you’re not fat. You’re beautiful.’
Claire felt her face go pink. Nobody had ever said that to her before. ‘That’s a sweet thing to say.’
‘It’s true. You’re the most beautiful of all the teachers. And the kindest and the loveliest.’
‘Oh! Golly!’
‘Where do you live?’
‘Very close by actually, just there,’ she lied, pointing at the venerable old houses on Norma’s street. For some reason she didn’t want to tell the girl that she lived alone in a flat.
Lorna was drawing on the window again. ‘I’m hungry. Can we go to your house and have a sandwich?’
‘Oh, no. Not really. We have to get you home, won’t be long now, you can wait ten minutes?’
‘I’m really hungry though.’
‘Ten minutes, Lorna. Mum will probably have supper for you when you get home, and you don’t want to ruin your appetite, do you?’
‘I can’t!’ she whined. An ambulance passed suddenly, and the girl’s stricken face was horribly illuminated in the blue light. ‘We might get lost on the way and it’ll take ages, and she won’t have tea anyway.’
‘We have to get you home.’ Claire was shaky though. It wouldn’t be so bad to take her for a sandwich, would it? But she’d told her that silly lie about living nearby . . . she’d have to take her to Mother’s, and, no, she couldn’t do that. Norma would never let her forget it.
‘Please let me come to your house? Just for a minute? Just to use the loo?’
‘Lorna—’
‘Just to use the toilet?’
‘I thought you were hungry? Now you need the loo? Lorna, don’t you want to go home?’ Silence. ‘Lorna, if there’s something wrong please tell me.’
‘Nothing wrong,’ she muttered into her chest.
They didn’t speak for the rest of the journey. Housing estates slid past the windows, settled in their concrete nests like decaying fortresses.
The house wasn’t that hard to find. Unlike the dark Victorian streets of the centre of the town, the estates at the fringes had been built with adequate street lighting. A warren of square brick houses with square blank windows and PVC doors sprawled out into scrubland, with Lorna’s the last house on the left.
The girl sat like a big broken doll while Claire unbuckled her seatbelt, then allowed herself to be led towards the house. Inside, dogs were barking, and they hurled themselves against the door when Claire rang the bell. Claire had never really liked dogs, never trusted them to stay calm, but she told herself not to be silly, and held Lorna’s hand firmly. It was a long time before the dogs were pulled away from the door, and it opened to show an impossibly small boy glaring through thick glasses. He was almost as small as Lorna, but obviously older. Thickset around the chest, he tailed off into spindly limbs. His toes turned in.
‘I called earlier on but there was no answer. Carl? I’ve brought your sister back from school.’ The boy said nothing but his frown deepened. Lorna shimmied under his arm and dashed into the house. ‘Is your mum in? Or dad?’
‘No.’
‘Oh. Well, when can you expect them back?’
‘Dunno. You’re Miss Penny.’
‘Yes! How are you, Carl?’
‘You told me off once for climbing the gate.’
Claire could count on the fingers of one hand the times she had actually had to tell a child off, and at least two of them had involved Carl. Five or six years ago, he’d managed to scale the fence leading to the main road and she’d had to shout at him to get him down. He hadn’t been in her class; in fact he’d left the school altogether the following year. He seemed a lot calmer now. Medicated? Undoubtedly.
‘How’s school?’
‘At Heathfield. Want to be a mechanic.’
‘Good for you. How old are you now?’
The boy thought slowly. ‘Twelve?’
‘OK, do you often look after your sister? I mean after school?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Can you get her some dinner? She’s hungry.’
‘I’m all right now.’ Lorna appeared munching a sandwich. ‘I’m OK now, Miss.’
‘Oh. Are you sure? Right, Carl, do you have a mobile number for your mum, or dad?’
‘Pete has a phone.’
‘Pete?’
‘Don’t know the number though.’
‘Look Lorna, if I leave a note for your mum, can you make sure she gets it?’
Both children stared at her blankly. ‘I’m going to write a note and I want you to make sure that your mum gets it, OK?’
Carl, bored, wandered away. Claire tore a page out of her notebook and swiftly wrote:
I’m afraid nobody picked up Lorna from school today, so I brought her home myself. Can you give the school a call on Monday?
Kind regards.
Claire Penny.
‘Now take care of yourself Lorna. I’ll see you at school tomorrow. Please make sure Mum gets the note?’
‘Yes, Miss.’ The girl was chewing solemnly. ‘Thank you, Miss.’
‘OK now. Goodnight!’
The girl suddenly hurled herself at Claire and hugged her with all her strength.
‘Thank you Miss Pretty Penny!’ and then she was released; the girl ran inside and slammed the door.
Later, after the longish drive back home, a piece of paper fell out of her coat pocket as she wa
s hanging it up.
A picture. Two figures with wide smiles and bulbous limbs, hovering above some scribbled green grass. A rainbow arched over their heads. At the top, in large firm letters, was written YOR KIND.
Claire kept it beside her bed that night so it would be the first thing she saw when she woke up in the morning. The girl had said she was beautiful! She thought about that, and about the hug, and smiled.
8
Claire didn’t expect Lorna’s parents to read the note, let alone comply with it. Parents rarely called when they were asked to; it wasn’t that sort of school. You had to cajole, threaten and force them into coming to meetings. So it was a surprise when, the following morning, there was a Post-it note stuck to her coffee mug:
Lorna Bell’s mum called. Call her back. She’s in all day.
It took Claire a while to convince James to see them. The staff meeting about the vandalism had only just ended, and he had yet another fractious chat scheduled with Reverend Gary that afternoon. Only the threat of some kind of social services scandal changed his mind. On the phone, Rabbit Girl displayed the same faint, fearful defiance but she agreed to come, and arrived on time, provoking more surprise. She wore thin leggings and an impossibly tight bomber jacket and her eyes were red-rimmed with cold. She hesitantly offered a red, chapped hand to Claire and nodded at James, before taking one of the cheap plastic chairs nearest the door, as if ready for a swift exit.
‘Mrs? Ms Bell, thanks for coming in on such short notice. Just an informal chat, really,’ James smiled. ‘We were a bit concerned that Lorna was left at school yesterday. Now, I know it’s hard to keep track of children’s different schedules – believe me I know! And I also know that you live a long way away, and it can be difficult to get anywhere on time, with the bus schedules the way they are!’ James spoke quickly. ‘Or do you have a car?’ The woman blinked. James coughed and consciously slowed his speech. ‘So we’re not judging you, or, or upset with you, or anything. But . . .’ He spread his hands, waiting for some kind of response. The woman’s lips twitched and she hunched further into her jacket.
