Sabrina Fludde Read Online Free PDF Page A

night. Mrs Bytheway was in favour of closed circuit TV but Fee said it would make no difference. He turned to the girl, as if to see what she thought, but tiredness had overwhelmed her. Her face lay on the table within reach of the last of thechocolate sauce, but too exhausted to do anything about it.
    â€˜We’ve got to get that poor child back home!’ Mrs Bytheway said.
    â€˜She hasn’t got a home – can’t you see that?’ Bentley said.
    â€˜Of course she’s got a home! Everybody has,’ Mrs Bytheway said.
    â€˜No, they haven’t,’ Bentley said. ‘At least, not her. I mean, look how pale she is. And look how she eats. And the way she watches us, as if she doesn’t know if she can trust us? She’s been living rough – it’s obvious!’
    When the girl woke up again, the argument had been settled. Bentley had unfolded a sofa bed in front of the fire, and Fee was making it up with crisp white pillows and bedcovers. They were keeping her for the night and would ‘sort her out in the morning’, according to Mrs Bytheway. She got the girl to her feet, walked her to the sofa bed and forced her into pyjamas, carting off her clothes, declaring, ‘If I do nothing else tonight, I’m going to wash these filthy things.’
    Among them was the sweater, which she muttered over, calling it her ‘poor, ruined birthday present’.
    The girl fell back to sleep, realising for the first time that this was the very house from which she’d snatched the sweater. But she was too tired to care, and there was nothing she could do about it anyway. The curtains were drawn, the sheets smelt sweet and the crackle of the fire was hypnotic. Her stomach was full of stew, dumplings and chocolate pudding, and she fell asleep again. She didn’t hear her dirty clothesbeing piled into the washing machine. Didn’t wake up when a hot-water bottle was tucked under her feet, nor when the Bytheways went up to bed, turning out the lights.
    She fell into a drowning deep sleep until morning, and awoke at first light. Someone was moving across the floor. She heard them drop something on her bed, then creep away. Through slits of eyes, she saw that it was Mrs Bytheway. She left the room, closing the door behind her and, a moment later, closing the front door too.
    Her footsteps clattered down the alley, and the girl sat up. The fire was cold, and grey light came prying through the cracks between the curtains, dimly revealing a pile of ironed and folded clothes at the bottom of the bed. The girl took a closer look and found that they included the sweater, folded up for her, an unexpected gift. But before she had the time to appreciate it, the girl noticed her blanket too.
    Her special woolly blanket, which she’d brought with her from her old life! The girl grabbed it and rubbed its feathery edge against her cheek, relieved that though it smelt of washing powder, it still felt like the same old blanket. Then, holding it in her arms, she fell back to sleep.
    Only when she awoke later, in the full light of day, did she realise that the blanket wasn’t quite the same, after all. She lifted her head, and there upon her pillow was a mass of colour, all the grime washed away. No longer was the blanket a dull uniform grey. It was covered with embroidery. Birds flew over it, and flowers blossomed. Mountains rose upon its soft woollen cloth, and rivers ran away from them.Woodlands stood tall, and the sky above them was as blue as skies can only be in dreams.
    In astonishment the girl looked at a row of white swans, a gang of men towing a square-sailed boat and a palace in an embroidered town with trees and roads and little houses. Underneath them all, five letters had been embroidered with gold thread
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They ran along the bottom of the blanket, where the river turned to sea. The girl touched each of them in turn. And even then she couldn’t quite believe that here, as