The Runaway Read Online Free PDF Page B

was also observing the groups of boys and girls and Faith thought she knew how the child was feeling. An outsider herself all through school, she remembered the feeling of isolation, the fear of attracting attention, afraid of the teasing and name-calling, which was all the attention she could expect.
    In her own case it had been the ill-fitting and old-fashioned clothes she had been made to wear, together with her thinness, her straight, unwashed hair, the big boots that wouldn’t have been worn by any other pupil, except perhaps in a Dickensian play. Having a foster-mother who had unexpectedly given birth to a child of her own had meant she was way down the queue for anything new.
    The girl she was watching wore stockings that wrinkled over her skinny legs and her feet seemed too large. As Faith watched, memories swooped back as fierce as a blow. She too had been small and fragile at this child’s age – seven or eight. The second-hand clothes she had worn would not have been a problem if they had fitted, most children had new only once or twice a year, but the garments had been handed to her foster-mother as hand-me-downs from other children and fit was a secondary consideration. What she was given, she wore.
    She turned away and forced a smile as she saw her friend Winnie approaching.
    ‘There’s a rush it is to get out in the mornings,’ Winnie puffed as she slowed down, too breathless to speak for a moment or two. ‘Seeing the kids into school, then going back to clear up and get the meal on. Lucky I am that Paul is home today or I wouldn’t have made it.’
    ‘I’m glad you did, Winnie. Now where shall we go, Dilys Jones’s café?’
    They settled into a corner where they could see the comings and goings and ordered tea, and lemon-and-honey biscuits. Winnie stared at Faith and said:
    ‘Serious you looked, standing there watching the children. Dreaming about your own baby were you? Or do you miss teaching?’
    ‘Both, I suppose. But today it was mostly because I was watching that sad little girl who always stands alone.’ She smiled at Winnie. ‘I was like that, a loner. And teased? You’d never believe!’
    ‘Never! What reason did they find to tease you?’
    ‘Because I was dressed like a scarecrow and looked like scrag end of mutton!’ She laughed and Winnie joined in. Then, serious again, she said. ‘I’ve got Matt now and soon there’ll be the baby. But I’ll never forget that loneliness. It’s hard to explain the feeling of having no one else in the whole world. Mam and Dad must have died or they’d have found me, but I might still have a sister and my dream is one day to find her. Perhaps she found me once and ran away seeing what a scraggy, miserable thing I was,’ she added jocularly.
    ‘Come on, Faith, I can’t imagine you being anything but lovely.’
    ‘I look more like the best end of mutton, now, with this lump.’
    To change the subject that was obviously upsetting her friend, Winnie asked, ‘Have you tried to find your sister lately?’
    ‘I’ve been trying since I was old enough but it seems hopeless. Everything was in such a muddle. When we were evacuated, believe it or not, there was no rule about keeping families together. We were separated and I was only one year old, and Joy just three; what chance did we have to insist we stayed even near each other? She could be anywhere, and if she married she’d have a different name too. I don’t know where to try that I haven’t tried before.’
    ‘Is that why you’re refusing to marry Matt? Keeping your name in case Joy comes looking for you?’
    ‘Partly.’ Faith admitted.
    ‘Was your childhood really unhappy?’
    ‘You know I was fostered? Well, my last foster-parents had a daughter within a year of my arrival and after that I wasn’t really wanted. I don’t blame them. When I arrived they were childless and she didn’t know she was already expecting their daughter, Jane. They could have sent me back to the home,