Bad Little Girl(14)

‘Oh thank you!’ Claire beamed and shuffled forward. ‘It’s a nice house. I don’t think I’ve ever been inside. It’s quite big, isn’t it? And cosy, like you said.’ The girl frowned, and drew circles in the dirty floor with one frigid finger. ‘How long have you been living here?’

Lorna was amused despite herself. ‘I don’t live here!’

‘Don’t you?’ Claire was mock surprised. ‘But it looks just like a real home here.’

The girl considered for a moment. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’

‘Yes, please.’

Lorna handled the tea set seriously and silently. ‘I don’t have any biscuits,’ she said with a frown, handing Claire an empty plastic cup.

‘Oh I have biscuits. Here.’ Claire feigned opening a packet and offering it to the girl, who looked scornful, but pretended to take one anyway. It grew darker, colder inside the house.

‘Well Lorna, I have to be leaving before the gates close. Why not come with me?’ A tiny movement in the gloom could have been a shake of her head. ‘We’ll give your mum a call. She’ll be looking for you, and how will she find you, all hidden in this house?’

‘I don’t want to be found,’ said the girl, frowning.

‘But she’ll want to find you. I heard you singing just now, lovely singing. You’re one of the angels in the play, aren’t you?’ Claire had her hand out, waiting for the girl to take it, but Lorna ignored it.

‘I’m not an angel. Ruby Franklin told on me and now I’m not an angel.’

‘What happened with Ruby?’

Lorna ignored that. ‘Mrs Hurst said I had to be a villager instead. Villagers don’t talk.’

‘Ah. Well, villagers are very important in the story, too.’

‘They’re not. Not like angels.’

‘Well, to tell the truth Lorna, I’ve always thought angels look a bit silly.’

The child peered at her doubtfully. ‘They’re not silly. They’re from heaven.’

‘Well, they look silly to me. Silly wings, and silly white clothes, and flying about playing a harp. I’d much rather live in the world and be a villager.’

‘Why?’

‘Well. If you’re an angel you can’t eat food, or have a pet, or watch TV, or do anything fun. You have to be extra good all the time and that must be a bit boring.’

Lorna let slip a little huff of surprised assent. She shifted her weight. ‘Were you in school plays?’

‘Certainly. Once I was a door. And once I was a wall. And twice I was a cloud.’

‘A door!’ Lorna laughed. ‘How could you be a door?’

‘Well, I think maybe I was a bit naughty and so they made me be a door as a punishment or something. I would have loved to have been a villager.’ Claire had been too shy for a real part, and so the teacher had made her hold the cardboard stable door. But the punishment story would resonate more with Lorna.

There was a silence. Claire shivered. ‘I’m cold now, Lorna. Let’s go. I have chocolate fingers in my bag but it’s in the staffroom. Let’s go there and warm up a bit, and you can have a couple if you want while we wait for your mum.’ She backed out into the dark, windy playground. After a long while, Lorna appeared, all eyes in the gloom, and something dropped something onto the floor. A yellow highlighter pen. ‘Lorna, did you drop something?’

The girl turned blank eyes towards her. ‘No. I can’t see anything.’

‘This pen?’

‘No.’

‘Oh. Well, let’s pick it up and take it inside. We’re always running out of pens in the infants. What do you do? Eat them?’

Lorna giggled, ‘Can’t eat pens!’

‘Well, they’re always disappearing. Come on, it’s cold. Lorna, where are your shoes?’

‘In the house thing.’

‘Go and get them, and your socks too!’

The girl squirmed and looked at the floor. ‘They’re too small. Hurt my feet.’

‘Well, go and get them anyway.’

The shoes, when she produced them, were cracked and one sole flapped like a gaping mouth. Claire helped her on with her dirty socks and tried to shove her feet into the shoes, but they were clearly too small. ‘How have you been wearing them?’

‘I take them off when I’m sitting down.’

‘But you have to walk in them sometimes, don’t you?’

‘Tiptoes.’

‘OK, look, let’s – jam them on somehow. Look, if we press down the back you can put them on like slippers. See? You really need some new ones . . .’

‘Can I have those chocolate fingers?’

‘Let’s get into the school. Can you walk with your shoes like that? Just shuffle then. Come on, let’s get out of the cold.’

They’d walked inside together, and the shoe situation had been the thing Claire had remembered about the incident, not the crayons. And in light of what had happened after that, the memory of how the whole thing started had hardly seemed significant. Until the staff meeting. But, like she’d said, crayons went missing all the time. And a few of them were in the playhouse? Lorna had picked them up? What did that signify? Nothing.