Free Ruby's War by Johanna Winard Page A

can’t be long off dinnertime. I think they’re saying their prayers.’
    In the chilly entrance hall, Ruby tugged nervously at the hem of her short gymslip. She hoped that the teacher would put her in the same class as the girl she’d met on the swings. If she had a friend, then staying at Granddad’s might not be so bad: she would be at school all day, and at weekends she and the girl could take Bess for walks, so Jenny couldn’t say she was in the way.
    After a few minutes, a serious-looking boy with thick glasses came out of the classroom carrying a handbell.
    â€˜Is your teacher in there?’ Jenny asked. ‘Will you tell her I want to see her?’
    The boy went back inside. When the classroom door opened again, a tall lady with wiry, marmalade-coloured hair followed him into the hallway.
    â€˜Can I help you?’ she said. ‘I’m Miss Conway.’
    Miss Conway wore a custard-coloured blouse buttoned to the neck. An oval lattice-work brooch of dull, silver-grey metal sat between the points of the collar. She was what Ruby’s Auntie Ethel would have called ‘a good class of guest’. Above the sound of closing desk lids and excited voices, Jenny explained that she’d brought Ruby to start at school that day.
    The teacher didn’t reply but led the way to the front of the classroom. A large, brown desk stood on the top of a plinth. Miss Conway climbed the three steps and gazed around.
    The room fell silent. There were about fifty children inthe class, some sitting in pairs at heavy iron-legged desks, others behind long tables arranged around the walls. They were all between thirteen and fifteen. The girls wore jumpers or cardigans in different colours and styles; none of them wore gymslips. The younger boys wore grey, green or black pullovers, and most of the older boys wore jackets. Ruby could see the girl from the recreation ground sitting in the middle row next to a pretty girl with curly hair. The girl from the swings and the pretty girl smiled and whispered together as if they were best friends. Miss Conway brought a thick leather strap down sharply on the desk, making the exercise books dance and ending the quiet hum of chattering voices. Then with a nod to the child nearest to the door, she dismissed her class.
    Once the children had filed out, the teacher took her seat, picked up a smart fountain pen, peered at them over her half-moon glasses and asked for Ruby’s age and full name.
    â€˜Her mother’s dead, you see,’ Jenny explained. ‘So she’s come to stop with me and my … husband for a while. He’s her grandfather. Nothing’s settled, you see.’
    Jenny’s lie made Ruby’s cheeks begin to tingle and she stared at the parquet floor. In the next-door classroom, chairs scraped and feet scuffled. Then the door in the wooden partition separating the two classrooms opened. A small boy wearing wellingtons and an oversized jacket came in, carrying an unsteady pile of exercise books. As the door closed behind him, the thin partition shuddered.
    Miss Conway winced. ‘Quietly please, Edmund,’ she said.
    For a moment the small boy froze. Then, realising there was no escape, he moved gingerly forwards – wellingtons squeaking – towards the front desk, where he dropped his burden and fled.
    From the shelf behind her desk, Miss Conway selected a book –
Lives of the Saints
– and chose two pages for Ruby to read aloud. They were about the life of Saint Catherine. Then she asked her to take two shillings and sixpence from a pound.
    â€˜She seems to have been quite adequately trained,’ she said, gazing at the piles of inky books on her desk. ‘If she’s fifteen, she is able to start work.’
    Ruby looked up at the tall windows and listened to the sound of the children in the playground. She wondered if the girl from the swings and the pretty girl with the dark curls were out