it, even though she knows it’s her most painful and humiliating secret.
She got so worked up and nervous when we had to perform on stage that she wet herself. On stage. In front of everyone. But it didn’t really
matter
. I don’t know why she still gets all hot and bothered if I happen to bring it up. It was dead appropriate, actually, because that’s what real sheep do all the time. They don’t hang around the stable with their back legs crossed, holding it in. They go all over the place. Which is what Garnet did. And everyone thought it was ever so funny. Except Garnet.
I longed for brothers and sisters when I was a child. I particularly wanted a twin sister, someone to play with all the time, someone to whisper to at night, someone to cuddle when Biddy and Harry were yelling.
I can see it could have disadvantages though if you have a very bossy dominant twin like Ruby!
11
School
I CAN’T REMEMBER my first day at Lee Manor School. I asked my mother if I cried and she said, shrugging, ‘Well, all children cry when they start school, don’t they?’
I know I cried over my school dinners. I didn’t like meat very much and I hated fat. In those days school dinners were mostly fatty mince, stew with large yellow chunks of fat still on the meat, boiled beef and carrots, the fat tinged pink this time, and occasionally stringy roasts with long slender strips of gristle and fat. Fat fat fat. I tried chewing. I tried swallowing whole. I tried spitting it out into my handkerchief.
‘Come along, Jacqueline, eat up your dinner and stop being naughty!’
The world where children could choose their own school dinners was far in the future. I tried hard to eat the fat, tears pouring down my face, and then I’d throw up in the smelly lavatories.
The school dinners made their greasy mark upon each day, but I started to learn to read ‘cat’ and ‘hat’ and ‘mat’ and recite the two times table. I chalked pictures – three round blobs with stick arms and legs and smiles across their stomachs and wobbly printing underneath.
Mummy. Daddy. Me
.
I sang ‘
Daisies are our silver, buttercups our gold
’ and ‘
Jesus bids us shine with a pure clear light
’. I skipped in the school hall in my vest and knickers. I listened avidly at story time, sitting cross-legged, hands on knees, the way we were taught. I made friends with a little girl who had the two things I wanted most in the world: a baby sister and a tiny Yorkshire terrier. I can’t remember my friend’s name, or her cute sister’s, but the dog was called Rags and I loved him, even though he yapped hysterically when I tried to pat him.
I was making good progress at school, but then I got ill. I had measles badly, and then bronchitis, and then, unbelievably, whooping cough, all in the space of six weeks. I can remember those long hot days, coughing until I was sick, and the even longer nights, wide awake and staring into the darkness. I did my best to
stay
awake too, stretching my eyelids wide open, biting my lip, digging my nails into my fingers so that I’d make long ragged hangnails.
I was too scared to sleep because then the nightmares would start. Men would climb right through my bedroom wall and grab at me. They’d pursue me through the streets and chase me on dodgems at the fair. They’d jump out at me as I ran down long corridors. They’d shove me down stairs, throw me out of windows, topple me off towers. I’d fall and fall and fall and then wake up, heart thudding, head pounding, my nightie rucked up round my waist. I’d pull it down and tuck my legs right up inside and wrap my arms round myself and huddle under the covers.
Biddy had told me to say to myself, ‘It’s only a silly dream’ – but the men weren’t running after her, they were out to get
me
. I knew they were real, lurking in the wardrobe. Catch me ever tunnelling through to Narnia. I wouldn’t dare so much as open the door.
If it was really late and Biddy and
She got so worked up and nervous when we had to perform on stage that she wet herself. On stage. In front of everyone. But it didn’t really
matter
. I don’t know why she still gets all hot and bothered if I happen to bring it up. It was dead appropriate, actually, because that’s what real sheep do all the time. They don’t hang around the stable with their back legs crossed, holding it in. They go all over the place. Which is what Garnet did. And everyone thought it was ever so funny. Except Garnet.
I longed for brothers and sisters when I was a child. I particularly wanted a twin sister, someone to play with all the time, someone to whisper to at night, someone to cuddle when Biddy and Harry were yelling.
I can see it could have disadvantages though if you have a very bossy dominant twin like Ruby!
11
School
I CAN’T REMEMBER my first day at Lee Manor School. I asked my mother if I cried and she said, shrugging, ‘Well, all children cry when they start school, don’t they?’
I know I cried over my school dinners. I didn’t like meat very much and I hated fat. In those days school dinners were mostly fatty mince, stew with large yellow chunks of fat still on the meat, boiled beef and carrots, the fat tinged pink this time, and occasionally stringy roasts with long slender strips of gristle and fat. Fat fat fat. I tried chewing. I tried swallowing whole. I tried spitting it out into my handkerchief.
‘Come along, Jacqueline, eat up your dinner and stop being naughty!’
The world where children could choose their own school dinners was far in the future. I tried hard to eat the fat, tears pouring down my face, and then I’d throw up in the smelly lavatories.
The school dinners made their greasy mark upon each day, but I started to learn to read ‘cat’ and ‘hat’ and ‘mat’ and recite the two times table. I chalked pictures – three round blobs with stick arms and legs and smiles across their stomachs and wobbly printing underneath.
Mummy. Daddy. Me
.
I sang ‘
Daisies are our silver, buttercups our gold
’ and ‘
Jesus bids us shine with a pure clear light
’. I skipped in the school hall in my vest and knickers. I listened avidly at story time, sitting cross-legged, hands on knees, the way we were taught. I made friends with a little girl who had the two things I wanted most in the world: a baby sister and a tiny Yorkshire terrier. I can’t remember my friend’s name, or her cute sister’s, but the dog was called Rags and I loved him, even though he yapped hysterically when I tried to pat him.
I was making good progress at school, but then I got ill. I had measles badly, and then bronchitis, and then, unbelievably, whooping cough, all in the space of six weeks. I can remember those long hot days, coughing until I was sick, and the even longer nights, wide awake and staring into the darkness. I did my best to
stay
awake too, stretching my eyelids wide open, biting my lip, digging my nails into my fingers so that I’d make long ragged hangnails.
I was too scared to sleep because then the nightmares would start. Men would climb right through my bedroom wall and grab at me. They’d pursue me through the streets and chase me on dodgems at the fair. They’d jump out at me as I ran down long corridors. They’d shove me down stairs, throw me out of windows, topple me off towers. I’d fall and fall and fall and then wake up, heart thudding, head pounding, my nightie rucked up round my waist. I’d pull it down and tuck my legs right up inside and wrap my arms round myself and huddle under the covers.
Biddy had told me to say to myself, ‘It’s only a silly dream’ – but the men weren’t running after her, they were out to get
me
. I knew they were real, lurking in the wardrobe. Catch me ever tunnelling through to Narnia. I wouldn’t dare so much as open the door.
If it was really late and Biddy and
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