Free Rock Me Gently by Judith Kelly Page B

expression that Ruth used? It was like putting a poultice on a wooden leg. Well, that was too bad. So what? They could all go to hell. I didn’t care.
    The evening wore on and the lowering sun lit up tiny insects in the evening air as they described arcs and things unknown. Michael played his guitar, and some of the others started to sing along, their voices mixing with the crickets. Occasionally someone would fumble the words, and then they’d laugh and tease each other. I sat hugging my knees. The distance between us was insurmountable. I did not inhabit the same sphere.
    Finally Cydney turned to me. ‘I guess we should go if we have to be up by five tomorrow morning. We gotta be in the orchards by six to pick apples.’
    ‘Super dooper, Gary Cooper!’ I said and they all burst out laughing. But to my ears, the sound was false.

Chapter 6
    29 October
    Every day someone gets hit. Sister Mary hit us all last night with the cane. We stood in a circle and held out our hands. My thumb is still swollen.

    3 November
    Sister Mary banged my back against the wall. She hit my face. My nose was bleeding. I was really scared because it hurt. She put me in St Joseph’s cupboard. Why did she pick on me? It’s not fair. I was sent to bed and some girls made a cradle for me.
    Winter was darkly on its way and the convent was large and draughty, with treacherous cracks that the cold air crept through. Standing huddled against the wall in the playground one day, with patches of ice still on the gritty concrete, I thought I would never be warm again. My hands were bluish with cold and I dug them deep inside my tunic pockets. I remembered with longing the unbelievably luxurious clothes I used to wear: knitted mittens, thick woollen socks, my red pixie hat.
    The playground was just a bare yard, surrounded on one side by squat thorn bushes and on another by a row of tall poplar trees. The afternoon sun did little to contain the cold wind whipping around. My feet felt so numb I thought they would fall off. I stamped them on the ground. The steam came out of my mouth like cigarette smoke. I put my fingers to my mouth like I was holding a cigarette, and breathed out.
    Groups of girls circled around the bushes, eating leaves and calling it bread and cheese. Bored of my fake cigarette, I began chewing the ends of my hair, a habit I had acquired recently during punishments of silence. These were moments when time seemed to slow down to a stop. Just one word from a nun, and we had to stand still with our hands on our heads for ten minutes or an hour or two hours or however long she said, until the silence became thick and crushing. I had felt it like a tangible thing, swelling like a balloon under so much emptiness.
    At those times, my life stretched away in front of me, every boring bead-like minute of every boring bead-like day lining itself up to be got through. Now I always had one lock of hair that was pointed and wet.
    Almost three months had passed without any word from Mum. Whenever I thought of her it was like a vacuum pushing in my chest. Was Sister Mary really hanging on to her letters, like Frances said? She had no right. Or was it just that Mum hadn’t written to me? I felt a rage rising in me as I stood against the cold playground wall.
    Shoving away from the wall, I threw out my arms for balance and began to spin wildly, round and round. The cold air pulled against my arms, trying to stop them from going so fast, like dragging them through water. I kept going, faster. Eyes closed, little steps in a circle, my heels scrunching on the gravel, really fast - the convent, trees, the hedges all waiting to stop my feet. So what if Mum doesn’t write? I don’t care, I don’t care - I tottered and fell to the ground, on my back, gasping. I could almost feel the spin of the world beneath me.
    I opened my eyes. Dizzy. I had to lie there till it was over, trying to grab and hold on to the swooping red-brick building and grey clouds through