No Friend of Mine by Ann Turnbull Read Free Book Online Page B

atmosphere around the works entrance. Braziers full of red-hot coals were burning, and some men were frying sausages. But the weather was cold – raw and windy, with flurries of sleet. Caps were pulled low over faces, headscarves tied tight. The pickets stamped their feet to keep warm, and Mary complained, “My jaw’s that stiff, I can’t shout.”
    “You weren’t doing too bad just now,” said Mum. “It’s not solid, then, the strike?”
    “They’re trickling back. It’s the cold; and Christmas coming…”
    Doreen nudged Lennie. Jimmy Morris was offering them sausages. Lennie took one. It was charred on the outside, but when he bit into it the inside was pink. It burned his mouth but he didn’t care.
    “Want a tater?” Jimmy was pulling baked potatoes out of the fire.
    They nodded, their mouths full of sausage.
    “Here. Give one to your mum, too.”
    The food kept them warm for a while. But later, walking home uphill, with the sleet stinging his face, Lennie began to feel martyred, especially when the bus went by, hissing on the wet road.
    “We can’t afford it both ways,” Mum had said.
    Lennie could feel the wet seeping in through the soles of his shoes.
    “My shoes leak,” he said.
    “There’s a jumble sale at Trinity Hall next week,” said Mum. “We’ll have to see what we can find. Doreen needs shoes, too. And a longer frock.”
    “And you need gloves,” said Lennie.
    Mum’s gloves were in holes. She always knitted them for the family but hadn’t got around to her own yet.
    “I know. I’ve got chilblains already.”
    Doreen jumped up and down to get her mother’s attention. “I need a fairy dress.”
    “Aunty Elsie will make that,” promised Mum. “She’ll enjoy doing it.”
    “And a wand,” sang Doreen. “And wings.”
    She flapped her arms and ran along the path ahead of them.
    “Fly away! And stay there!” Lennie shouted. He said to Mum, “I’m fed up with her being a fairy.”
    Mum laughed. “
I’d
have flown away if she hadn’t got that part. And what about you, Lennie? Doreen says you’re a footman or something?”
    “Second footman,” said Lennie.
    It was the sort of part he’d known he would get. Non-speaking. Nothing to do, really, except walk around behind the prince, feeling stupid. Even before Miss Quimby made the announcements, Lennie could have guessed who would get which parts. Ken Forton was the prince; pretty Sylvia Lee was Cinderella; Margaret Palmer was the fairy godmother; Bert Haines and Reggie Dean were the horse.
    Back end of the horse – that was the sort of part Lennie would have liked. Unseen but powerful. Well. He was stuck with second footman and Miss Quimby’s nagging: “Come on, Lennie, look lively.” “Head up, Lennie.
Try
not to look so vacant.”
    “Rehearsals on Monday,” he told Mum gloomily.
    And gloomily, on Monday, he went to school.
    At first it was as bad as he had expected. Sitting about, watching, while other people forgot their lines and missed their cues; having to sing in the choruses; being chivvied by Miss Quimby. Then they started on the scene where the prince visited Cinderella’s house with the lost slipper; and Lennie, attending the prince, and trying to keep his head up as instructed, tripped over a fold of curtain, lurched across the stage, and collided with an ugly sister. A ripple of delight ran through the watching children. “Lennie!” exclaimed Miss Quimby, exasperated.
    Lennie was embarrassed; but he saw, in that moment, the possibilities of his role. When they replayed the scene he did an impression of a clumsy yokel, bumping into the prince, and standing about deliberately looking vacant. “Lennie?” Miss Quimby began, but the audience rocked with laughter, and she let it go.
    The next rehearsal was on Thursday. By then Lennie had decided that the second footman’s problems were due to drink. He staggered about in imitation of Freddie Lloyd leaving the Red Lion on a Saturday night. The audience