Ruby McBride Read Online Free PDF Page A

your betters and combat the delinquent lifestyles you have so far been subjected to. What we do not need here at Ignatius House are unruly, naughty little guttersnipes with too much to say for themselves. Our aim is to produce quiet, orderly and well-mannered children who understand the meaning of moral rectitude. It is our Christian duty to rescue you from the life of crime and the corrupt environment you have hitherto known in order to rehabilitate you. In short, we will turn you into newly reformed, Christian boys and girls.’
    Ruby had understood little more than one word in ten, nevertheless she felt outraged by the lecture. She might only be a child but she knew when she was being insulted. ‘We didn’t lead no life of crime. Mam allus did her best for us. Give us a right walloping, she would, if we did owt wrong. But she loved us. And she allus said we should mind our manners and say our prayers every night. So we don’t need to be reformed, thank you very much.’
    This outburst caused Sister Joseph to halt in her tracks and stare down at her charge open-mouthed. The long, terrible silence which followed seemed to stretch into eternity before she found her voice. ‘Never, in all my years at Ignatius House, have I encountered such gross insubordination. Indeed, I fear the task of salvation is going to be more difficult than I imagined. Your defiance, 451, will be curbed. And I shall personally see that it is.’ Whereupon, she plucked Billy from Ruby’s grasp and carried the little boy away, kicking and screaming.
     
    Ruby did her utmost to conform, if only for the sake of her brother and sister, but it made no difference. As punishment for her insolence on that first day, she was denied any opportunity to see her brother, even at playtime in the afternoon. At least she and Pearl could be together but Ruby knew Billy must miss them dreadfully, and worried about him all the time. He would be sobbing his heart out every night, probably wetting his bed even more than usual, and feeling desperately alone and unwanted. Ruby worried over how his chest was, or if his eczema was still troubling him. She asked the other children if they had seen him but nobody had. Boys were only allowed to stay at the home until they were ten, and were kept in a separate wing of the house although they were generally allowed to visit their sisters during recreation hour.
    But not Billy.
    One night in the dormitory when Ruby was on her way to the bathroom with Pearl, who was afraid to go alone in the dark, a hand grasped her shoulder, making her squeal in alarm.
    ‘’Ere, are you the sister of Billy McBride?’
    ‘Yes, I am. Why, have you seen him?’
    ‘Don’t tell anyone I said so, but the other boys are giving him hell. My brother Sam’s in the same dormitory and he told me. Billy’s the littlest, see, so they’re making him do all the work, and making him suffer summat shocking if he don’t do it right.’
    ‘Are you telling me our Billy is being bullied?’ Ruby was appalled, a rush of anger flooding through her at the thought that anyone, particularly boys bigger than him, could bully her little brother who would never hurt a fly. She must do something to stop it, at once. But what? What could she do? Her mind was in such a turmoil of emotion, Ruby hardly heard the girl’s next words.
    ‘Aye, and our Sam says he’s had three cold baths this week already for wetting his bed. If he don’t get “cured” soon, he’ll catch bloody pneumonia; that’s if he isn’t beaten to a pulp first. Either way, he’s a right mess. Getting worse, not better.’
    ‘How is he worse? What do you mean, a right mess?’ But her informant had gone, slipping away in the darkness as quietly as she had come.
    Ruby decided she could wait no longer. She saw little point in asking the nuns for help. They’d done nothing so far and Sister Joseph never would, not in a month of Sundays. Besides which, she’d already branded her as a liar.