Queenie Read Online Free Page A

stories. I didn’t want her to be cross with me.
    My heart thumped when she beckoned to me from the other side of the playground. Marilyn and Susan sauntered off smugly arm in arm, nodding their heads at me.
    I trailed miserably over to Miss Roberts.
    ‘Oh dear, Elsie. I hear you’ve fallen out with Marilyn and Susan again,’ she said.
    ‘Yes, miss.’
    ‘They said you kicked them?’
    ‘I . . . I couldn’t help it,’ I said. I looked down at my shoes as if they had a will of their own.
    ‘Did they kick you first?’ asked Miss Roberts. ‘You were limping as you walked across the playground.’
    I tried to stand up properly. ‘Sorry, miss.’
    ‘You’re the one who’s hurt, Elsie, not me,’ said Miss Roberts. ‘I know full well Marilyn and Susan tend to gang up on you, dear.’
    ‘Well, they didn’t exactly
kick
me, Miss Roberts,’ I said, hovering near the truth.
    She thought I was protecting them and gave me a little pat on the head. ‘Are you all right, Elsie?’ she said. ‘You’ve been a bit dreamy in class and you’re looking a bit peaky. Weren’t you very well yesterday?’
    I fidgeted uncomfortably. I so wanted to tell her all about Nan and how worried I was, but Mum said I wasn’t to breathe a word.
    ‘There’ll be hell to pay if they find out about the TB. We don’t want anyone poking their nose into our affairs,’ she’d said. ‘You don’t need to blab about Nan.
I’m
your mum – and don’t you forget it.’
    There wasn’t much chance of that. I decided I couldn’t risk telling Miss Roberts, so I said I’d just had a tummy ache yesterday. She didn’t look as if she really believed me, but she patted me on the head and said I could go indoors for the rest of playtime and read a comic.
    Marilyn and Susan were lurking nearby, and they nudged each other in triumph when they saw me go in the girls’ entrance, thinking I was in disgrace. I knew it was a privilege, not a punishment, to sit peacefully in the classroom reading ‘The Bash Street Kids’ and sucking at an old toffee paper. But I couldn’t feel happy. My stomach was in knots and I thought of Nan with every beat of my heart.

‘ DID YOU GO to see her, Mum?’ I asked, the minute I’d got indoors from school.
    ‘Yes, yes, of course I did. I took her a clean nightie and dressing gown, and her hair rollers and brush, and a stick of 4711 eau de cologne – I bought it specially,’ said Mum. ‘I packed up a little case for her. They were taking her in an ambulance to the sanatorium this afternoon.’
    ‘Will she get better there? Can she come home soon?’ I gabbled desperately.
    ‘No, of course not. She’s still very poorly and she’s got to stay in bed there and not budge for weeks,’ said Mum. ‘She has to get that cough better. And I don’t know what I’m going to do. Who’s going to look after you? You can’t come and live with me – they don’t take kiddies in theatrical digs, and anyway, there’d be nobody to keep an eye on you. Oh Gawd, what a shame you’re not a bit older, eh?’ She sucked in her breath through her teeth.
    ‘Mum?’
    ‘Shut it now, Elsie. I’m trying to think.’
    ‘Mum, Nan isn’t going to . . . to die, is she?’ I whispered.
    ‘What?’
    ‘She promised me she wouldn’t, but
can
you die of TB?’ I persisted, starting to cry.
    ‘Stop that,’ said Mum, but then she put out her arms and gave me a hug. I breathed in her Coty L’Aimant talcum smell and sobbed harder.
    ‘Nanny’s a fighter, you know that. Of course she’ll get better. Look, we’ll go and visit her at the weekend, and you’ll see for yourself,’ said Mum, pulling me properly onto her lap.
    ‘I’ll be able to see her on Saturday? You promise, Mum?’ I said, sniffing.
    ‘Oh, for Gawd’s sake, wipe that nose. I don’t want snot all over my best blouse.
Yes
, I promise,’ she said.
    * * *
    So on Saturday I marched along beside Mum, and inside my head I chanted,
See Nan, see Nan, see Nan
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