Theatre Shoes Read Free

things out at Ferntree. It did not, Sorrel decided, matter very much if bits of your life became peculiar as long as there was something somewhere that stayed itself. Up till this minute Ferntree had been the something somewhere. To her horror, thinking about no more Ferntree made her eyes suddenly full of tears. She was horribly ashamed. Crying in a train! What would people think of a girl of eleven crying in a train! She sniffed, pushed up her chin, threw back her plaits and, as a way of getting rid of the tears, shook her head, then she muttered, “Smut in my eyes,” and turned to Mark.
    Mark was making awful faces at his shoes. It was the only way to stop himself from crying. Not going back to Wilton House! He thought of his friends, of his chances for the second football team, of how one of the boys had said he would bring him back a forked bit of wood off a special sort of tree which only grew in the woods near his home and made a simply super catapult.
    â€œI daresay,” Sorrel said to him in a wobbly voice, “schools are all right in London.”
    Mark gulped and made even worse faces.
    â€œPretty sickening it being this term. I was going to have a special do for my birthday.”
    Sorrel’s voice wobbled more than ever.
    â€œI expect we wouldn’t mind so much if it wasn’t there’s been such a lot of changes. I mean, our coming to grandfather and then the Germans landing at home so we couldn’t go back there even for a holiday.”
    Mark tried so hard that a woman with a baby in the corner looked at him and nudged her husband.
    â€œShocking faces that kid makes.”
    â€œThen Dad …” said Mark.
    Sorrel knew that their father was the last person they dared think of, so she scuttled on, stammering she spoke so fast.
    â€œThen grandfather dying and us having to leave the vicarage.”
    Mark’s tears were gaining.
    â€œAnd now not going back to school.”
    Hannah could not lean forward because the thin woman with her rights kept her wedged, instead she pressed Sorrel’s toe with her foot.
    â€œWhat about us having a nice bit of something to eat. You’ll none of you guess what I’ve got in our basket.”
    The basket was on the rack. Neither Sorrel nor Mark felt like eating, but they were glad of something to do.
    â€œIf Holly gets up,” said Mark in a sniffy voice, “I can climb on her bit of seat and get the basket down.”
    An American soldier was standing by the window chewing gum. He gave a slow smile.
    â€œAll right, son, I’ll pass it.”
    He took the basket off the rack and put it half on Hannah’s knees and half on the skinny knees of the woman with her rights. It would have seemed an accident, only as he turned away to loll back against the window he gave Sorrel and Mark a very meaning wink.
    That wink somehow cheered things up. A world where grown-up people could do funny things like that could not be as depressing as it had looked a few minutes ago.
    Hannah, quite disregarding her next-door neighbour, opened the basket. The woman with her rights spoke as if each word was a cherry-stone she was spitting out.
    â€œDo you mind moving that basket on to your own knees.”
    Hannah beamed at her as if she were being nice.
    â€œI’m sorry, I’m sure, but fixed like we are it’s hard to know whose knee is whose.” The rest of the people in the carriage, because of too little space and too much tobacco smoke, had been half asleep. Now, as if Hannah’s voice was the breakfast gong, they all sat up and looked interested. Hannah was pleased; she liked conversation to be general. She drew everybody in with a glance. “We had an early breakfast and we’re a bit low-spirited. Nothing like something to eat as a cure for that.”
    In her basket Hannah had egg and cress sandwiches, and in a little box some chocolate biscuits. Eggs were not a surprise because at the vicarage they