Free The Bad Penny by Katie Flynn Page B

mine had named me. And to be left under a hedge …’
    Selina laughed. ‘Patty Peel’s a lovely name,’ she said bracingly. ‘Much nicer than Selina Roberts, if you ask me. I’m just so thankful that they didn’t call me Selina Lime, after the station, you know. But why did you start wondering about your relatives, Patty dear?’
    ‘I’ve wondered before,’ Patty admitted. ‘But I just thought me mam an’ dad must have died, and me relatives must be living far away. Only when I saw Peel Street I thought – I thought … and I looked at the houses, real posh they are on that street, Selina, and I couldn’t help wonderin’ if I had cousins or – or aunts or somebody living there. Come to that, why did my mam choose Peel Street? I bet it were because she lived there … you never know. I could ask around.’
    ‘Matron would be furious if you tried any such thing. Even if you managed to escape and get back in again without someone on the staff seeing you, you can be sure some interfering busybody would tell her,’ Selina warned. ‘Look, queen, I used to worry about my mam an’ dad, just as you do, but I could see there weren’t no future in it. What’s important … well, what’s important to me, at any rate … is getting out of this place and getting a proper job so’s folk won’t need to know I come from Durrant House. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with the place, because they do their best and we get a decent education if we’re bright enough to make use of our lessons. But when I’m grown up I want a good job, a husband and kids of my own, and I’m telling you my mam and dad don’t matter to me any more. After all, if I’d mattered to them they’d not have dumped me on Lime Street station, even if they did give me a name. And what’s a name, after all? I used to think if my mam didn’t care enough about me to hang on to me, bring me up, then she’d no right to go givin’ me a silly name like Selina. I would have loved to be called Polly, or Jane, or even Mary, like everyone else,’ she ended, her voice wistful.
    ‘Well, I think Selina’s a lovely name,’ Patty said obstinately. ‘But I’m glad we’re both foundlings, not just me. Are there others, do you know? And how did you find out about me, anyroad?’
    ‘Now that I’m old enough to be useful I help Miss Freeman, the secretary,’ Selina explained. ‘All our files are in the basement and sometimes, when it’s raining and I’m bored, I go down there and ferret around. I noticed that my file wasn’t in with all the others but was on a different shelf … yours was there too … and I read them to see why we were kept separately. As for other foundlings, there are several, but I shan’t tell you who they are. Matron doesn’t go blabbing information like that about in front of the whole orphanage because she knows some people would jeer at us if they knew. But you and me, we’re too bright to have the wool pulled over our eyes. Even if I’d not told you, you’d have found out for yourself, in the end. So no harm done, eh?’
    ‘No, no harm done,’ Patty echoed, hearing the tone in Selina’s voice which meant that the questions must come to an end. She slipped off the desk, then hesitated. ‘Thanks ever so, Selina, for telling me. I wonder if all the other kids know, though? I mean, I never have a letter or anything like that and no one visits me. You’d think they’d have guessed – but I didn’t, did I?’
    ‘No. But in fact if you take a bit of notice of other people in your class you’ll find that there are several girls with one parent, or brothers and sisters, or aunts and uncles, who don’t get letters or visits, either. Your mam and dad can’t visit you because they don’t know where you are, but there’s no excuse for the others. And I’ll tell you what, I’ve just had a really corking idea. When I leave, next year, I mean to go into nursing. I had my tonsils out when I was ten and ever