Far From Home Read Online Free Page B

boys, she hoped none of them would wander up Tea House Hill and discover the strange box before she and Cora had a chance to get back there.

4
A NEW ORPHAN IN THE
CRACKER BOX
    C ora and the other girls were sitting on benches lining each side of the long table when Clarissa took her place at the end, placing her crutches against a stool. She sat facing Imogene, one of the older girls. Everyone called her Emma Jane when they weren’t calling her Miss Tattle-tale. Imogene was always trying to get in the mistresses’ good graces by looking for someone to tattle on. Clarissa hoped Miss Tattle-tale wouldn’t discover that she and Cora had been up on Tea House Hill.
    Missus Frances, a stout, light-haired American, looked Clarissa’s way with a deep frown on her white face; her cheeks were like dumplings against her nose, itself a pinch of white dough. Clarissa felt her heart rising in her throat, as if it would choke her. She expected the whip of Missus Frances’s voice to chase her and Cora to bed without supper. The woman’s grey eyes shifted away, and Clarissa’s heart settled.
    Missus Frances lifted her head high and opened her mouth wide to offer thanks for the meal. The children looked at her, ready to follow as her voice lifted to sing the grace.
    â€œPraise God, from Whom all blessings flow;
    Praise Him, all creatures here below;
    Praise Him above, ye heavenly host; Praise
    Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.”
    Once grace was finished, Clarissa dipped into her rabbit pie, trying not to think of the rabbit all in one piece, like the wild rabbits that hopped among the trees across from the orphanage. She stuck her spoon into the large tub of blackberry jam on the table and spread a heaping spoonful on her slice of buttered bread. Biting into it, she looked longingly towards the stainless steel water jug, swallowing dryly. No water until you have finished your meal. That was the rule. Clarissa chewed her food slowly, hoping it wouldn’t get stuck in her throat. By the time she got to the last bite, she was so thirsty she gulped her glass of water and got a stomach cramp.
    After supper, Clarissa hobbled towards the stairs with Cora beside her. The girls turned at the sound of the orphanage door opening. They smiled as Dr. Grenfell came inside with a little blond girl by the hand.
    Clarissa was always glad to see the Englishman, someone the orphanage helpers called “the man himself”, sometimes with as much reverence as if they were referring to “the Man Above.” He seemed almost as important as God. The mistresses scurried about putting everything in place whenever they heard that Dr. Grenfell was on his way. Clarissa knew he wasn’t God. Although Dr. Grenfell had used his knife and his medicine to make some people walk on two feet again, he had left her in pain and on crutches. She looked towards the frail little girl holding the arm of a wooden stick dolly dangling beside her.
    â€œThis is your home now, Trophenia,” Dr. Grenfell was saying in a gentle voice, looking down into the child’s upturned face.
    The door to the mistresses’ office opened and out came Miss Elizabeth and the long sweep of her navy dress as she hurried towards the doctor. She smoothed dark hair pulled back into a bun and parted at the crown, showing an even line of white skin. Then she lifted her chin, her jaw as streamlined as a ship’s prow, and gave the doctor her best smile, the one she saved, like good clothes, for special occasions. The doctor glanced at her and nodded. “Another child to be in your care, and Frances’s,” he said in his crisp English voice. Then he smiled kindly at the children running to gather around him. He listened to news about their activities until Miss Elizabeth, with apologies to the doctor, shooed them off to the activity room, where they were allowed to spend an hour before bed.
    Clarissa lingered in the distance and watched the new