Our Lizzie by Anna Jacobs Page B

nodded permission. Eva gestured to Lizzie to go ahead without her and lingered. She didn’t want to go home and have her mother weep all over her again. So she rearranged the books on a shelf and dusted the window ledge absent-mindedly.
    â€œNo home to go to, Eva?”
    She jumped in shock. “Ooh! I didn’t hear you come back in, miss.”
    Alice Blake hesitated. You shouldn’t have favourites, but she couldn’t help it with this child. If she had ever had a daughter—which she hadn’t and never would now that she was forty-five—she’d have wanted one like this. Clever and yet gentle. Thoughtful, too. “Are you all right, dear?”
    Eva nodded, but to her dismay, tears suddenly flooded her eyes.
    Alice looked down at the big blue eyes, bright with tears, and was betrayed into giving her pupil a quick hug, something she would not normally have done. But the girl was suffering. You got them every now and then, special ones like Eva. As if God had given you a reward for all the “unspecial” ones you had to deal with the rest of the time.
    â€œDid I get on the list for going to secondary school, miss? Did Mr. Dacing say it was all right?”
    â€œOf course you got on the list.”
    â€œI won’t be able to go there now, but—I’d like to think I was good enough. So could you leave my name on the list, please?”
    Alice Blake nodded.
    â€œDon’t tell Mam, though, will you? She’ll only ask you to cross my name out, say it’s a waste of time.”
    â€œNo, I won’t withdraw your name.”
    â€œI bet I’ll have to go part-time next year, like our Lizzie,” Eva whispered, staring down at her clenched hands. “But I want to go to secondary school and learn to be a teacher, like you. I want it so much . It’s just not fair!”
    â€œWe’ll have to see if we can think of something before then.” She felt sure Eva would be offered a scholarship to secondary school—the child was quite exceptional. It would be a crying shame if she lost her one big chance to make something of her life.
    Frowning, Alice Blake decided to go and see her old friend, Mavis Pilby, to ask whether the family could see their way to doing anything to help this most deserving case. The Pilbys did a lot of good in this town—well, they owned half of it, didn’t they?—so why not seek their help for Eva? And she could talk to the manager of the brewery. Mr. Kershaw had worked there a long time. Surely they’d be prepared to help the children?
    Eva was fiddling with a pencil. “Mam says I have to look for a Saturday job.”
    Alice sighed. That would be the beginning of the end. It’d be just Saturdays at first, then skipping school to “help out” wherever Eva worked when things got busy or some other worker was ill. She had seen it happen time and time again with the needy families. It would be terrible if it happened to this child!
    It was then that she had the idea. She didn’t say anything about it, of course. She always liked to think things through first. But if—no, she’d wait till later to work it all out. “Get off home, now, child,” she said gently. “And try not to worry. Something’ll turn up. It usually does.”
    Eva trailed out, feeling comforted. She’d never seen Miss Blake hug anyone before, not even when Jimmy Pikely broke his arm. She knew she was the teacher’s pet and she liked that. Who cared what the others said? Miss Blake was wonderful, with her gored skirts and her crisp white blouses. Even the dark aprons she wore at school were more elegant than other teachers’ aprons. Miss Blake had style .
    And it didn’t matter if she wasn’t good-looking. Where did being good-looking get you anyway? Eva sniffed scornfully. It got you into trouble with the lads, being good-looking did, like Mary Holden’s sister Flo. And then you