The Girl from Hard Times Hill Read Online Free Page A

told her. ‘If I do as badly as I can, there’ll be nothing she can do about it.’
    â€˜Oh.’ Pam still looked doubtful. She scuffed her feet. ‘Why didn’t you come and say so yesterday, then? I was miserable, and you never came to find me!’
    â€˜I couldn’t. They wouldn’t let me go out.’
    â€˜Why not?’
    â€˜My dad came home from Germany.’
    â€˜What!’ Pam gazed at me. ‘Really?’
    â€˜Cross my heart. He’s not going back, either. He’s home for good.’
    â€˜Oh Megan – why didn’t you say so before?’ Pam flung her arms round me. ‘That’s really exciting! Are you terribly happy?’
    â€˜Yes, of course I am. Well, it does mean I have to share my room with Shirley now – and you can imagine what that’s like. Awful.’ I made a face. ‘Last night she kept kicking me, and then she needed to go in the night, and she knocked the chamber pot and it slopped right over the rug. I had to fetch Nana to help clean it up. And everyone keeps fussing over Dad, and I think he’s forgotten how old I am…but of course, it’s marvellous,’ I added quickly.
    Pam began dancing around the playground.
    â€˜And now you’ll never go to Germany, and we’ll be best friends forever!’
    â€˜Does that mean you won’t go roller-skating without me?’
    â€˜Oh.’ Pam stopped with one leg in the air. ‘Hmm. Well. I do
really
like roller-skating.’
    â€˜Yes, but what about me? I love roller-skating too! And Grandpa says my skates can’t be mended, and it’s ages till my birthday.’
    Pam hesitated a moment. ‘I’ll tell you what. Whenever we go roller-skating, you can have shares in my skates. Half the time I’ll use them, and half the time you can. What do you think?’
    â€˜Oh, Pam! That’s really kind!’
    There were tears in my eyes. I was so lucky to have such a good best friend.
    I was a bit cooler with Davy when I saw him, though. He gave me a little smile when we were waiting to go into the classroom, but I ignored him.
    As for Miss Bulmer – I felt her gimlet eye on me a few times, but I didn’t take any notice. In fact I started whispering with Ann Evans, who sits next to me, and every time I caught Pam’s eye across the aisle I started giggling, and in the spelling test I got three wrong, which is unusual for me. I thought I saw Miss Bulmer pursing her lips, but I didn’t pay any attention. When I heard her stalking up the aisle though, I kept quiet. I didn’t want a rap on the knuckles!
    At dinner-time I went home as usual. I normally love dinner-time – Nana is a good cook, and Mum makes sure that the Littlies behave for once, andGrandpa comes in from work and often Uncle Harry does too. Everyone always asks me what happened at school that morning. But today all the grown-ups were just talking, talking, talking with Dad the whole time.
    â€˜Do you think they really need all this help we’re giving them,’ Uncle Harry asked Dad, ‘when we’re still so short of everything here?’ He meant the Germans. Dad looked serious and started talking about how bad things were in Germany, and then all the grown-ups started on about rationing, and when (if ever) things might get easier.
    â€˜Of course, they weren’t any easier before the War – and I’d rather have rationing than the Great Depression,’ said Nana tartly. I couldn’t remember those times. I cleared my plate as quickly as I could, and escaped back to school.

    Still, I began to get used to Dad being around. I didn’t spend much time with him, as aunties and uncles and old friends kept dropping by to see him, so there were often grown-ups sitting round the kitchen table,chatting and smoking and drinking cups of tea, while music played on the radio.
    Then again, quite often he and Mum would go out. I’d