Free The Bad Penny by Katie Flynn Page A

in the dining room was forbidden but Patty, with Peel Street still on her mind, decided to take a chance. When the duty teacher’s back was turned, she asked Selina whether she could have a word with her in the common room later.
    ‘Of course,’ Selina whispered, also keeping her eyes on the teacher, who was reprimanding someone at another table for eating too quickly. ‘Is it a private matter?’
    Patty nodded bashfully and adjusted the neck of her smock; in her hurry she had tied the tapes rather too tightly. Selina suggested that it might be more prudent to go into one of the empty classrooms, since the sight of a senior girl chatting with a child of seven would give rise to the sort of curiosity which neither girl wished to arouse.
    When the meal was over, the children filed out in table order and presently Patty found herself in one of the junior classrooms, perched on a desk with Selina smiling comfortably at her. ‘Well?’ the older girl said. ‘What can I do for you, Patty Peel?’
    Patty hesitated, but only for a moment. She had so many questions that she wanted answered! However, to begin at the beginning was always a good plan, so she took a deep breath and plunged into her story. ‘Selina, I’m seven years old, but I never gets no visitors. I think me mam and dad are dead – at any rate, when I were in the baby class, Miss Merrell telled me they were dead – but even so, wouldn’t you think I’d have other relatives? But none of them ever comes to see me, nor sends me so much as a line, come Christmas. Then, on our walk this afternoon, Miss Briggs brought us home by a different way and we found ourselves walking down Peel Street. Now I thought, it bein’ so near the Durrant an’ all, and my name being Peel … well I thought it might mean something.’
    ‘Yes, it does mean something, though not what you’re thinking,’ Selina said. ‘Do you mean to say nobody has told you that you’re a foundling? There’s nothing wrong in that,’ she added hastily as she saw the puzzlement on Patty’s face, ‘I’m a foundling myself. It simply means that your mam and dad weren’t able to look after you, so – so they left you somewhere safe, where you were bound to be found by responsible people who would take good care of you.’
    Patty digested this, then said doubtfully: ‘But what difference does that make, Selina? I mean I’m still the child of Mr and Mrs Peel, aren’t I? The same as you’re the child of Mr and Mrs Roberts?’
    ‘Well, no, it doesn’t mean that,’ Selina said gently. ‘In fact, your beginnings are a lot more romantic than that, Patty dear. Your mother may have been very young and perhaps she did not want anyone to know that she had given birth to a baby, so she wrapped you in a nice, bright red blanket and left you snugly under a hedge on Peel Street. I’m positive she must have waited to make sure someone found you, and indeed you were found quite quickly, for though it was a rainy night your blanket was almost dry when a scuffer came along, walking his beat, and saw you. He brought you to the nearest orphan asylum, which of course was the Durrant, and left you in Matron’s charge. But because they did not know your mother’s name, or anything about her, they named you partly after the scuffer, whose name was Patrick, and partly after the street.’
    ‘So I’m not Patty Peel at all then?’ Patty said doubtfully. ‘It’s just a make-up? Is it the same for you, Selina? Is there a Robert Street somewhere in Liverpool, where you were found?’
    Selina laughed. ‘No, not a Robert Street. I was dumped on Lime Street station, but there was a note pinned to the shawl I was wrapped in. It said This is Selina. Please take care of her . And the porter who found me was called Roberts, so … well, that was the surname they chose for me, since I already had a first name.’
    ‘I think that’s nice, that your mam cared enough to name you,’ Patty said wistfully. ‘I wish