Sapphire Battersea Read Online Free PDF Page B

bigger than the ten-year-olds at the hospital and I didn’t look much older either. Emma herself had grown curves, whereas I was as straight up and down as any of the boys.
    I drew myself up as tall as I could, my head held high. ‘I shall just have to
act
grown up,’ I said.
    The other girls gathered round to wish me luck. Some sighed enviously, but the timid ones clutched each other, glad that it wasn’t their turn just yet.
    ‘Aren’t you scared, Hetty? I’d be all of a tremble, going off to the outside and being with all those strangers.’
    ‘I’m not the slightest bit scared,’ I lied.
    I tried to eat a hearty breakfast in the dining room just to show them. I remembered that Monica had been in such a state she’d had to rush outside to the privies to be sick after a few spoonfuls of porridge. Even fierce Sheila had been very pale, her high forehead wrinkled with anxious frown lines. She had given me a sudden hug after breakfast and murmured, ‘Don’t ask me why, but I shall miss you, Hetty Feather.’
    I did not feel the same way for any of these girls I had grown up with, but I felt a terrible squeezing of my insides when I looked down the long, long table and saw Eliza, craning her neck to peer at me forlornly.
    We were not allowed to get up from the breakfast table till the bell went, but it was dear Nurse Winterson on meal duties, and she was never strict. I clambered off my bench and shot along the room to Eliza. I threw my arms around her and hugged her hard.
    ‘Oh, Hetty!’ she wailed, pressing her face against my flat chest. ‘I shall not be able to bear it here without you!’
    ‘Of course you will, Eliza. You have many, many friends,’ I said, which was true enough. Eliza was a sunny, cheery little creature with curly hair and dimples. Everyone wanted to be her friend. Even the fierce matrons softened when they saw her. No wonder my Jem had found it easy to forget me and lose his heart to Eliza.
    Nurse Winnie came over to us. She was shaking her head, but smiling too. ‘Now, now, Hetty dear, I know it’s your last day, but you know the rules well enough. Go back to your bench, dear.’
    Eliza burst into floods of tears.
    ‘Oh, please may I kiss Eliza one more time?’ I begged.
    ‘Of course,’ said Nurse Winnie. Her own eyes were brimming. ‘Do not worry about Eliza, Hetty. I promise I will look out for her.’
    I kissed Eliza five or six times on her rosy cheeks, wiping away her tears with the soft cuffs of my new dress. ‘There now, darling. Don’t take on so . You will be fine,’ I promised.
    Nurse Winnie put her arm round me as she walked me back to my bench.
    ‘I will miss her so,’ I said, struggling not to weep myself. ‘But I will not worry about her. It’s poor Gideon who breaks my heart. Oh, Nurse Winterson, please, please, please may I go and find him and say goodbye?’
    ‘Oh, come now, Hetty! You know perfectly well that I can’t let you go to the boys’ quarters!’
    ‘No, but you could perhaps turn your back and not notice if I slip out. I promise I’ll be ten minutes at the most. Oh
please
, dear Nurse Winterson. I shall miss
you
so much. You’ve always been my very favourite nurse.’
    ‘And you’ve always been the most artful of my girls,’ said Nurse Winnie – but she turned her back.
    I rushed right out of the room before she could change her mind. I thought I would still have difficulty in getting to the boys’ dining room. I passed several nurses, but none of them stopped me. Then I caught sight of myself reflected in a window. I didn’t look like Hetty Feather the foundling any more. I looked like a maid in my grey dress, albeit a very miniature version. I stood staring at myself for a full minute, turning this way and that. It was exciting being this new person, but very odd, as if my own head had been stuck on an entirely different body.
    The bell rang for the end of breakfast, and I came to my senses and scurried off to the boys’ wing. They