Birmingham Rose Read Online Free PDF Page A

street still littered with the debris of the storm.
    ‘Our dad says the roof’s gone off Woodgates,’ Jo said.
    Rose wasn’t listening. She was picturing herself one day walking to the school as a teacher who’d stand up grandly in front of the class. She’d wear clothes just like Miss Whiteley’s, a straight grey skirt and a white blouse with a frill down the front, and a little fob watch like hers pinned on to it. She’d be very calm, she’d know ever such a lot and all the children would love her.
    ‘What are you going to be when you grow up?’ she asked Geraldine, trying to sound like Diana.
    Geraldine peered at her, bemused. ‘You all right?’ she asked. ‘What’s the big idea?’
    ‘What are you going to be when you grow up?’ Sam mimicked her. ‘Getting big ideas, Rose? It’ll be the factory or the big house for us. What else is there?’ Sam scuffed his already well-worn shoes along the pavement. ‘We’re not exactly going to be King and Queen of England, are we?’
    ‘I want to be a teacher,’ Rose said.
    Sam snorted with laughter and Geraldine looked horrified.
    ‘You don’t want to be like Miss Smart, do you?’ she asked. Miss Smart was a sour woman, given to almost savage outbursts of temper. It was whispered that she’d been jilted on the eve of her wedding a few years before.
    ‘No,’ Rose said. ‘But Miss Whiteley’s nice, isn’t she? And she knows about ever such a lot of things.’
    Geraldine looked puzzled. ‘What d’you want to do that for? I’d never do that. I’d like to be a singer or one of them dancers they have on at the Hip.’ She preened and posed in her skimpy dress along the pavement as if it was the stage of the Hippodrome.
    ‘Geraldine!’ her brother said. ‘Everyone’s looking.’
    ‘You’re both daft,’ Sam said. ‘Dream away. I’m going to be Rudolph Valentino. But it’s only dreams. People like us don’t ever do anything different, do we?’
    This dampened Rose’s enthusiasm straight away.
    ‘Who d’you know who’s ever been anything special then?’ Sam continued.
    ‘Mom says Dad was doing all right before he went to the war,’ Rose said.
    ‘It was still the factory though. And nothing’s the same now, is it? That’s what Albert says.’ Sam always looked to his older brother, whom they scarcely ever saw, as the source of all information and authority. ‘Anyhow, you have to stay on at school to be anything special, and there’s fat chance of that.’
    Rose felt very down in the dumps after that. Was Diana going to stay on at school? No one she knew in the court had carried on after they were fourteen. She’d never questioned it before, how you couldn’t do anything much with your life unless you had money.
    Rose knew that some time during the morning her mom would bundle up Sid’s Sunday suit and shoes and they’d be down to the pawnbroker’s at the end of the street until Friday when she got her money from the factory. Sid joked grimly sometimes that they ought to get 2d extra for the shoes because he only ever wore the one. Rose wondered if her mother was going to pawn her new dress.
    That day she stared adoringly at Miss Whiteley as she stood in front of them next to the blackboard, the portrait of the king behind her head. She imagined Diana standing there with her curls tied back, telling them all about rivers and jungles and the kings and queens in history books. And then she tried to put herself in the same position, as she had on her walk to school before all the things Sam had said. All she could think of now were the thick darns on the elbows of her cardigan and her faded old clothes and the way she spoke, which was different from Diana.
    I could never be like Diana, she thought.
    As she turned from chalking up some names on the blackboard, Sarah Whiteley noticed Rose at her wooden desk wiping her eyes with the back of her hand and sniffing.
    ‘Are you feeling unwell, Rose?’ she asked kindly.
    ‘No, Miss