The Runaway Girls, page 1
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
The Great Exhibition
About the Author
JACQUELINE WILSON wrote her first novel when she was nine years old, and she has been writing ever since. She is now one of Britain’s bestselling and most beloved children’s authors. She has written over 100 books and is the creator of characters such as Tracy Beaker and Hetty Feather. More than forty million copies of her books have been sold.
As well as winning many awards for her books, including the Children’s Book of the Year, Jacqueline is a former Children’s Laureate, and in 2008 she was appointed a Dame.
Jacqueline is also a great reader, and has amassed over twenty thousand books, along with her famous collection of silver rings.
Find out more about Jacqueline and her books at www.jacquelinewilson.co.uk
About the Illustrator
NICK SHARRATT has written and illustrated many books for children and won numerous awards for his picture books, including the Children’s Book Award and the Educational Writers’ Award. He has also enjoyed great success illustrating Jacqueline Wilson’s books. Nick lives in Hove.
In memory of lovely Sophie Nelson –
my wonderful copy-editor for many years
1
The smell of Sunday dinner stays in the house all afternoon. It seeps into the velvet curtains and floral wallpaper in the dining room and wafts all the way upstairs to the schoolroom. Roast beef, golden Yorkshire pudding, gravy, crispy roast potatoes, carrots and peas, and then rose-red plum tart with vanilla custard.
I don’t get to eat it, of course. The New Mother insists it is far too rich for a little girl. I have a small portion of minced beef and a scoop of mashed potatoes. They stick in my throat without gravy. I am allowed custard for pudding, but not plum tart. I have prunes. They are plums that have died, horrible wrinkled black things that stain the custard a dirty brown. They have stones inside. I put them in a ring around the rim of my bowl and count them.
Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief!
Nurse told me the rhyme and said I would end up marrying one of these men when I grew up. I imagined them all crowding into the nursery: the tinker with his pots and pans, the tailor with pins in his mouth, the soldier with a musket, the sailor dancing the hornpipe, the rich man greedily counting gold coins, the poor man in his threadbare suit, the beggar man with his cap held out, the thief snatching my gold bangle.
I decided I didn’t want to marry any of them. I’d prefer to be a single lady like Nurse.
I sometimes played the tinker, tailor game with my marbles too, scooting them across the slippery nursery oilcloth. Nurse used to kneel down and play marbles with me, but Nurse isn’t here any more and I am not allowed to play with any of my normal toys on a Sunday.
I am only allowed my Sunday doll. She lies in a long brown cardboard box like a little coffin the rest of the week. She is too valuable to play with daily. The New Mother gave her to me when she came back from Paris with Papa. She is a grown-up doll in an elaborate blue silk costume and a miniature matching parasol. She wears tiny white gloves on her hands, and kid boots on her feet with buttons like pinheads. Her blonde curls are mostly hidden by her bonnet. I am not allowed to take it off to brush them. I mustn’t undress her either, but I’ve peeped up her skirt to check she’s wearing drawers. They are white and edged with lace.
I’ve called her Ermintrude. She looks very haughty, as if she doesn’t like me touching her. She has a beautiful wax complexion, pale with pink cheeks, and blue glass eyes that stare at me.
She is staring at me now. I think she is as bored as I am. I stand her on the windowsill in the sunlight so she can look out into the garden. I am not allowed to go down and play there while it is so very hot. This is Sunday rest time.
Why do I always feel so restless when it is rest time? Miss Groan is certainly resting. I can hear her snores from her room next door. The grandfather clock downstairs in the hall chimes the three-quarters hour. Why does time go so s-l-o-w-l-y on a Sunday?
I’m not allowed to read any of my storybooks either, only the Bible. I have had enough of the Bible already today. I have spent two endless hours in church this morning, fidgeting on the hard pew seat, with Miss Groan digging me in the ribs to make me sit still. She made me learn ten verses of the Bible by heart this morning before breakfast, though I think I have forgotten them already.
I am sure Miss Groan chooses the hardest verses deliberately. Miss Groan is my governess, and my goodness she makes me groan. She signs her name Miss J. M. Groan. Those initials filled me with delight when she first came to our house. I so hoped she was called Joan Moan Groan! She’s actually boring Jessica Mary.
Jessica Mary sounds attractive, like a jolly little girl in a story, but there is nothing jolly or little or girlish about Miss Groan. She is a plain woman with a big nose and a big chin. Have you ever seen a Punch and Judy show at the seaside? Miss Groan is the spitting image of Punch. She has a little stick just like Punch’s too. She prods me with it when I am too slow to learn. When I am naughty she hits me with it. She does, truly. Well, a little rap across my knuckles. That’s hitting, isn’t it?
I am sure nursery governesses are not allowed to hit their pupils. I plucked up my courage and told Papa when he was next at home – he has to go away a lot on business. He sighed and said, ‘Oh dear, Lucy Locket! Have you been behaving badly? Still, it’s not Miss Groan’s place to chastise you. I’ll have a word with the wretched woman.’
I am not really called Lucy Locket. My name is Lucy Alice May Browning, but Papa calls me Lucy Locket after the girl in the nursery rhyme.
Lucy Locket lost her pocket
Kitty Fisher found it
Nothing in it, nothing in it
But the ribbon round it.
He used to sing the rhyme to me when I was very little. He still repeats it sometimes, when he can’t think of anything else to say to me. We don’t really know each other very well. Papa is away on business a good deal, and when he is home he stays in his study most of the day. Sometimes when he passes me on the stairs he seems surprised, as if he’s forgotten he has a daughter.
When we went to the seaside this Easter I was allowed to play on the beach with three other little girls. It was such a treat for me because I’d scarcely played with other children before.
I met the girls when we were all queuing for a donkey ride. I was quivering with excitement as I waited. I’d never seen such beautiful animals, so quiet and docile, with big brown eyes and huge ears. My donkey was called Neddy and he seemed to like me, snuffling quietly when I stroked his neck. I wanted to stay on his back for ever.
The other girls loved their donkey rides too, and so we all drew donkeys with our tin spades in the damp sand. The other girls were all barefoot with their drawers rolled up to their knees, so I kicked off my shoes and stockings too, and bared my own legs. Perhaps Papa thought this immodest, because he came hurrying up to us when we started paddling in the sea.
‘Come along at once, Lucy Locket. Your mother is getting chilly,’ he said.
But he wasn’t looking at me. He was talking to one of the other little girls. He thought she was his daughter. We weren’t even especially alike, though we were both fair and wore our hair in ringlets. If I hadn’t protested he might have taken that little girl back to our lodgings instead of me. Perhaps he would have preferred her. The New Mother certainly would.
She’s not my mother. My mamma died when I was a baby, which is very tragic for me – and of course for her. I miss her terribly even though I didn’t have a chance to get to know her very well. I am sure we would have loved each other more than anything in the world. I don’t love my stepmother. I detest her.
It is a sin to detest a parent. I have learned the whole of the Ten Commandments over many Sundays and there it is on the list: Honour Thy Mother and Father. I honour my father, but it’s impossible to honour the New Mother.
I have very vivid memories of the day I first saw her. Papa said he’d met a lovely young lady who was going to be my new mother. We didn’t get off to a good start.
‘Hello, Lucy, dear! Won’t you come and give me a kiss?’ she said. I was wary of this beautiful lady with her dark shining hair and her piercing eyes and her fine satin dress. I ducked my head and wouldn’t go near her.
‘Beg pardon, madam, sir! She’s just a little shy,’ said Nurse.
‘Or perhaps a little wilful,’ said the New Mother silkily. ‘I think she needs a firm hand.’
I think I knew from that moment on that I was doomed.
When she came home from her honeymoon with Papa she changed my life for ever.
‘You’re getting to be a big girl now, Lucy. You don’t need to be molly-coddled by that old nurse. She’s not really suitable – she’s far too lax. You can wind her round her little finger. I shall find you a governess.’
So Miss Groan arrived and dear Nurse had to leave. We both wept bitterly.
‘Where will you go, Nurse?’
‘I’ll try to find another position
‘You’re my family, Nurse, and I shall always love you. When I am a little bigger I will come and find you and we will stay together then for ever and ever,’ I said, sobbing.
‘I will always love you too, Miss Lucy, and never ever forget you,’ said Nurse.
After she left I cast myself down on the floor and cried for hours.
‘Really, Lucy! You’re far too old for these temper tantrums!’ said the New Mother. ‘Such a fuss about a silly old nurse. I daresay you’ll have forgotten all about her in a couple of months.’
As if I could ever forget Nurse! She looked after me from when I was born. She was almost like a mother to me and I loved her very much. She was satisfyingly plump so I could nestle into her. She was soft and yet she gave support, like a pillow. She smelled a little like a pillow too, of freshly ironed linen and lavender water, with her own warm Nursie smell underneath.
When I scraped my knees or had a stomach ache or woke up in the dark after a bad dream, Nurse would pick me up and cuddle me and it would all be better in an instant. I didn’t mind that I didn’t have any friends my own age to play with. I had Nurse instead. She played with my dolls with me, making them talk in tiny voices, and she marched all my Noah’s Ark animals up and down, roaring and neighing and trumpeting. She even once had a turn on Rufus my rocking horse, though he creaked in protest.
Nurse kept her own big pot of jam in the cupboard and gave me a spoonful after I had to swallow any nasty medicine. She also spread it on our bread and butter and flavoured our bland bowls of rice pudding and semolina and tapioca with great dollops of raspberry conserve.
She didn’t ever punish me severely. If I was clumsy she’d say something comical like, ‘Whoops a blooming buttercup!’ If I was naughty she’d tut with her tongue and say, ‘Really, Miss Lucy, you’re a bad little girl today. Let’s put you back to bed and then get you up again so it’ll be tomorrow and you’ll be a good girl again.’
It worked too. We acted it out, and I made little snorty noises pretending to be asleep, and then Nurse woke me up and she’d say, ‘Are you my good little girl now?’ and I’d yell, ‘Yes!’ and then we’d burst out laughing. Nurse and I spent half our time laughing.
I don’t have anyone to laugh with now. I moped about the house when Nurse left and I was sitting glumly on the stairs when the doctor came to visit the New Mother. She wasn’t exactly ill, but she was tired all the time, perhaps because she was getting surprisingly stout. The doctor bent down and shook his head at me.
‘You’re looking very peaky, little one,’ he said. ‘So pale and wan! No wonder you’re not thriving in this sooty old city! I think I shall prescribe some sea air for the whole family.’
So for Easter Papa took lodgings at the seaside. I had never been before and I loved it there. It was wonderful, especially because Miss Groan was not invited! She went to stay with her sister while Papa and the New Mother and I had our holiday. The New Mother’s maid Jane came too, to help me button and lace all my underclothes, and to unbutton and unlace each item at night-time. She tied up my hair into curling papers at night and brushed my ringlets in the morning, but otherwise she left me alone and concentrated on the New Mother.
The sea air didn’t seem to agree with her, and she spent most of her time reclining on the sofa in the lodgings with the blinds drawn. Papa kept her company or went out fishing with his gentleman friends. He decided we must go home early. I didn’t get to play with the girls on the beach again. I didn’t get another ride on Neddy.
‘I wish we didn’t have to go home,’ I said miserably when we were on the train. ‘I haven’t got anyone to play with there.’
‘For heaven’s sake, Lucy, stop moping,’ the New Mother snapped. ‘Why do you have to make such a fuss about everything? Oh, dear lord, why does the carriage have to jerk about so? And the seats are so uncomfortable even in First Class. My back is aching terribly.’
‘There there, my dear,’ said Papa, patting her tenderly. ‘We will be home soon.’
When she dozed off at last he turned to me and whispered, ‘I think you might find someone new to play with very soon, Lucy Locket.’
I didn’t understand what he meant, not until a few weeks later. Suddenly the house was in turmoil, the servants running up and down the stairs, and the doctor arriving in his carriage.
‘What’s the matter, Miss Groan?’ I asked.
‘You will find out soon enough, Lucy,’ she said. ‘Now, let us apply ourselves to our arithmetic. We’ll start with simple addition.’
There was a simple addition to our family that day. The New Mother had a New Baby!
I was taken to see her late that afternoon. The New Mother was lying back on her pillows in bed, her black hair about her shoulders, looking beautiful in a new white lace nightgown. She actually smiled at me.
‘Come and meet your little sister, Lucy,’ she said softly. ‘Hush now, because she’s asleep!’
I crept forward towards the bed. The New Mother was holding a white shawl. I could just see a glimpse of pink head through the crochet stitches. She seemed a very little sister.
‘What’s her name?’ I whispered.
‘Angelique,’ said the New Mother proudly.
‘She’s our little angel,’ said Papa, his eyes brimming with tears. ‘Isn’t she beautiful? Almost as beautiful as her mother.’
The New Mother uncovered the baby’s face. Beautiful? She looked very red and wrinkled to me, but I knew it wouldn’t be tactful to say so.
She came with an enormous amount of possessions for such a tiny person: endless sets of white clothes, plus bonnets and booties and mittens, and even a tiny white fur-trimmed coat. It was nearly summer when she arrived so she didn’t really need it, but she wore it for her first outing in her perambulator and Papa laughed delightedly and called her his Baby Bunting.
She does seem exceptionally sweet in her tiny clothes, but she looks a nightmare when they all come off. She doesn’t wear drawers – she has to have napkins, and they get in an alarming state. I’ve watched, astonished, while Nurse changes her.
She is not my Nurse. She is a new nurse, just for the baby. She’s not a bit like my own dear Nurse. This one is gaunt and pinched and wears a starched apron that crackles when she walks. She sleeps in my Nurse’s old bed. Angelique doesn’t sleep in my bed in the nursery; she has a brand-new cot with lace curtains by the window. The walls have a new wallpaper – tiny pink rosebuds in a pattern. There are new floral curtains and a fluffy white rug on the floor. It isn’t my nursery any more. It belongs to Angelique now.
I have a new schoolroom instead. It is pale green and beige, with a desk for me and another for Miss Groan, and a blackboard with chalks. It used to be a spare bedroom, very dull. It still is. The tiny room next to it is my new bedroom. I have my books and my dolls and my Noah’s Ark crammed in with me, which is cosy, but there is no room for Rufus my rocking horse. He’s to stay in the nursery. I had to give him to Angelique, though I protested fiercely.
‘He won’t like it at all! He needs to be exercised every day and Angelique is still far too little to ride him,’ I said to Papa and the New Mother.
Papa chuckled. He likes it when I say childish things, but it irritates the New Mother.
‘Really, Lucy dear, you’re too old for such nonsense! You know perfectly well that the rocking horse isn’t real. You must stop this silly fancy now you’re a big girl.’
‘Then could I perhaps ride a real horse?’ I asked. ‘I’ve seen girls my age riding ponies in the park.’
Papa looked at the New Mother enquiringly.
‘Oh, please, please, please, Papa!’ I said, jumping up and down.
‘Calm down, Lucy dear. I think you had better concentrate on your lessons with Miss Groan for the moment. We shall think about riding lessons in the summer,’ said the New Mother.
She always calls me Lucy dear, but it certainly doesn’t sound like an endearment. It’s as if she’s calling me Lucy nuisance, or Lucy naughty, or Lucy plague. And now it is summer, but the riding lessons haven’t started.
