Street Child by Berlie Doherty Page B

faster his father jumped the more the flames in the fire had danced, like wild, yellow spirits. ‘Faster, Pa! Faster!’ the children had shouted, and the black shadow that leapt from his father’s feet had become a crazy, long-limbed prancing shape across the walls and the ceiling, and Jim had jumped down and run to do a skipping dance with him, and been lifted up to the beams. There he was, in the room again, while strangers watched him and ate Rosie’s sea-food in the cold street.
    ‘I’m very pleased with you, Skipping Jim,’ Rosie told him, breaking into his dream. ‘I’m selling more salmon than I can pickle. They’ll have to have it boiled plain if they want more, and like it!’
    He had been staying with Rosie a few days when he first saw the doctor. He and Rosie were going back to her cottage one afternoon when they heard a voice behind them calling, ‘Rosie! Rosie Trilling!’ and they turned round to see Lame Betsy limping after them, holding up her skirts as she tried to hurry through the mud.
    ‘I’ve been worriting about that boy,’ Besty panted. ‘Whether he’d find you, and whether you could give him a home, and how he was doing.’
    ‘He’s doing fine,’ Rosie laughed. ‘He’s a real little dancing man, ain’t you, Jim? But he can’t stay with me for long, he knows that. I’m in mortal fear of my grandfather finding him and throwing us both out. You know what he’s like, Betsy.’
    Betsy stuffed her loose hair back under her cap. ‘Well, I’ve got a fine plan!’ She held out her hand, plump and pink with cold. ‘You come with me, Jim. I’m going to take you to school!’
    Jim’s stomach churned with terror. ‘I hate school!’ he shouted. ‘I hate school-teachers!’ He tried to pull himself away from Betsy.
    ‘He’s not a school-teacher, Jim. He’s a doctor, so they say. And he’s a school going for the likes of you, Jim. He’s a queer soul, they say, and he stands on a box in the middle of the street and asks people to bring their children along to his school, and he don’t charge them nothing!’ She stopped for breath, banging her chest with her fist. She held out her hand again. ‘Come on, Jim! It’s a fine chance for you!’
    Jim felt tears scorching. ‘Please don’t make me! Don’t make me go to school!’
    But Rosie pushed him gently towards Betsy. ‘Go with her, Jim,’ she said. ‘Somewhere to go where you’ll be warm and dry. And it’s free! Wish I had a chance to go to school!’
    ‘But I want to help you, Rosie!’ Jim called out, but Rosie hurried away from them.
    Betsy pulled him along with her, squeezing out comforting words betwen her breathy wheezings.
    ‘You’ll hear Bible stories, I should think, and singlots of nice hymns. I don’t want you getting into bad ways, Jim, just because you ain’t got a mother and father. Look at that crowd! That’ll be him, talking now.’
    Besty pushed Jim to the front of the staring crowd. A thin man with spectacles and fluffy side-whiskers was standing on a box, turning from side to side. He spoke in a light, soft voice with an Irish accent which Jim could hardly understand. Some of the people watching him were laughing, and a group of ragged boys were jeering. The man didn’t seem to hear them, but just kept on talking in his gentle voice. Jim strained to hear what he was saying, and then caught the words that he dreaded. It was almost as if he had been hauled by the scruff of his neck into the long, dim schoolroom in the workhouse, with Mr Barrack slicing the air with his whistling rope.
    ‘God is love,’ said the doctor. ‘God is good.’
    ‘No he ain’t!’ Jim shouted. ‘He ain’t good to me!’
    Everybody broke into a roar of cheering laughter and shouts. One of the boys on the corner picked up a lump of mud and flung it at the doctor. It landed with a splash across his face, stopping up his mouth as he opened it to speak again. The doctor coughed and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. He was