Free Lucy Charlton's Christmas by Elizabeth Gill

Lucy Charlton’s Christmas
    It was just before Christmas when Miss Sheane called Lucy Charlton in to her study. It was a place that many of the schoolgirls dreaded, because each end of term you were called in there to explain why you had not done well in every subject but Lucy didn’t feel like that. Miss Sheane, the Irish headmistress at Lucy’s school in Newcastle upon Tyne, was an ally to those girls with ambition and Lucy had wanted to be a lawyer from since she was a small child in her father’s office. She even liked Miss Sheane, and she knew that Miss Sheane liked her, so went inside with no feeling of trepidation. She found the Headmistress smiling at her, but also half frowning as though she had a problem she could not solve and so it proved to be.
    She asked Lucy to sit down, and since there was a good coal fire burning and the day had barely got light and it was now just after lunch, Lucy sat. She liked that Miss Sheane did not disappear behind her desk but sat down opposite to her. Miss Sheane gazed into the fire for a few moments and then she said,
    ‘Lucy, I need your help.’
    They were the sweetest words in Lucy’s world. This was what she had been born for – to help people – so she smiled across as confidently as she could and said she would do her best.
    ‘The girl, Shamala Henderson, I’m worried about her and I can’t think what to do.’
    Lucy knew the girl. She had started school that autumn. She lived with her aunt in Jesmond, but other than that all Lucy knew about her was that she had dark skin, black hair and black eyes. She rarely lifted those eyes, and didn’t talk to other girls, and, because she was different, she had been shunned from the first. She was a year younger than Lucy and it was rare to make friends with anyone younger, so Lucy had not had that much contact with her.
    ‘She’s failing here and her aunt – ’ Miss Sheane stopped, trying to choose her words ‘– her aunt does not seem to be able to help. She won’t come to the school and when I tried to go to their home she appeared to be out.’ What Miss Sheane meant, Lucy thought, was that Shamala’s aunt had hidden behind the sitting room curtains or if she had a maid the maid had said that she was out.
    ‘Shamala hasn’t made friends as I hoped she might,’ Miss Sheane continued. ‘I know she is . . . a little different, but she has intelligence and common sense. The trouble is, there are so many things lacking and everything I have tried to do has not worked. I thought somebody more her age might be able to help. I’m not holding you responsible for anything here, Lucy, and I know it’s almost the end of term but perhaps you could try in some subtle way to help her over the next day or two. After that, something tells me it may be too late.’
    Lucy didn’t know what Miss Sheane meant, but she thought the Headmistress had good instincts. Lucy told her that of course she would do what she could, but privately thought that Miss Sheane was asking a lot. After all, Lucy stood out. She was a prefect and next year was almost certain that she would be Head Girl, so it could be that Shamala was already intimidated by her and wouldn’t accept Lucy’s help.
    Lucy went back to the lower sixth room where her classmates were drinking coffee and sitting about as senior girls did.
    The fifth formers and all the other girls were outside. Unless it was pouring with rain, in which case they would be obliged to stay in their classrooms at break and watch it pour down the windows, they were out in the garden. The girls from the lower school played games in the big patch of tarmac at the back of the school, but the older ones tended to congregate in the garden. So she put on her coat and went outside.
    She had not realized it was so cold. They had hockey that afternoon and the very idea made her shiver. The school gardens had belonged to the house that the school had originally been and reached down as far as the river