Miss Purdy's Class by Annie Murray Read Free Book Online Page A

vermin ?’
    ‘Er, yes, I suppose they are,’ Mr Purvis agreed, his plump face colouring. He edged his arm away and picked up a slice of limp toast.
    Gwen sighed and downed the last of her tea. Meals at the table with Ariadne made her sympathize with how a fly must feel caught in a cobweb, though in fact Ariadne more or less ignored her: it was Mr Purvis she was spinning her thread round and round. But Gwen felt more uncomfortable than ever after what happened last night. Or at least, what she thought happened.
    Ariadne served tea at six-thirty sharp. Gwen left her room and started off down the murkily lit stairs, assaulted by the depressing smell of boiled swede. Mr Purvis appeared at the bottom and started up the stairs with surprising energy. She saw his bald pate moving towards her through the gloom. He looked up, suddenly noticing her, murmured, ‘Oh! Sorry!’ and flattened himself to one side to let her go by, but as she passed him he began to turn again, too quickly, to continue up the stairs. They all but collided and as they did his hand closed over her left breast, just for a second, so that afterwards she was left wondering if she had imagined it. Yet she knew she hadn’t. She kept her eyes on her plate and ate up her singed bacon as fast as possible. Ariadne wiped her full lips with her hanky and complained about the cold.
    Gwen prepared herself hurriedly for school – a deep blue ribbon in her hair today – and rushed out, screwing up her eyes against the sudden bright sunlight. She knew now exactly the right time to catch the tram and could get to Canal Street on time in order not to incur Mr Lowry’s fury.
    Two weeks had passed in a blur. Each night she came home to the house in Soho Road exhausted, washing herself in a basin of water and sinking into bed early, not even kept awake by the sound of Mr Purvis’s trumpet. After a time it had become clear that Mr Purvis’s repertoire consisted only of one tune, which he told her was ‘I Dreamt I Dwelt in Marble Halls’, a piece of information which just about helped her to recognize the trumpet’s wandering vagaries. At least it didn’t stop her sleeping. It was a struggle even to stay awake long enough to write to Edwin, though she did manage it twice a week, sending him cheerful letters full of the doings of school, and receiving equally jolly ones from him about his life in the parish. He always signed off his letters, ‘Look after yourself, old girl. Much love, E.’
    She was getting used to Canal Street School’s routines, and the sheer size of it compared with the tiny church school in Worcester – the high ceilings and windows, the ominous groans of the plumbing, the smell of disinfectant and the ragged, grubby state of the children. As the days passed the mass of faces began to settle into individuals, and she learned their names and, gradually, their characters: the naughty ones; the ones like Joey Phillips and Ernie Toms, who always had the elbows of their jumpers out and holes in the seat of their pants; the little boy who scratched and scratched all day, his skin encrusted with the last stages of impetigo; the tooth-decayed grin of Ron Parks; and the vague, slow-witted look of the blonde girl, Alice Wilson.
    And there was Lucy Fernandez. Lucy stood out, with her long, dark-eyed face and thick hair, and her lurching gait, hampered by the caliper on her leg. She was a timid child in class, and during Gwen’s turns on dinner duty, she watched Lucy hugging the edges of the playground, obviously trying not to attract attention to herself, keeping out of the way of the able-bodied girls as they flung themselves about with their hoops and skipping ropes. The others called her the ‘cripple girl’. This was not usually meant unkindly, just as a statement of fact. The only one who started to hang about at Lucy’s side was Alice Wilson. Gwen found this strange to begin with as Lucy was clearly a very intelligent child who picked up everything