Free Roxy's Baby by Cathy MacPhail Page B

real to her yet, even though she had her own little bump now. She still couldn’t think of him or her as a person whose future she had to consider.
    Mrs Dyce told them next morning that Agnes had been ‘safely delivered of a little boy’.
    It sounded like an announcement from a newspaper to Roxy. Proclaiming a royal birth. ‘Can’t we see her … and the baby?’ Roxy wanted to know.
    â€˜They’ve both gone already,’ Mrs Dyce said. Roxy noticed she didn’t even look at her.
    â€˜I don’t see why Agnes couldn’t have come back. She wasn’t keeping the baby anyway.’ Roxy knew she sounded annoyed, but she didn’t care. She wanted an answer. ‘What’s the point of sending her away?’
    Roxy was sure she could see a flash of anger in Mrs Dyce’s eyes. But it passed so quickly she couldn’t be sure.
    It was Anne Marie who jumped in with an answer. ‘Sure they can’t make any exceptions, Roxy. Isn’t that right, Mrs Dyce?’
    Mrs Dyce’s benign smile was there again, for Anne Marie. Maybe it’s just me she doesn’t like, Roxy was thinking. I seem to have that effect on people. Roxy almost smiled at the thought. It pleased her to be a thorn in anyone’s flesh.
    â€˜Unfortunately, that is the case. We’ve tried it other ways, Roxy, and there’s always one of the girls who’s disturbed or affected.’ Mrs Dyce made to leave the room, but Roxy hadn’t finished yet.
    â€˜Can’t we just see a picture of the baby?’ Roxy watched Mrs Dyce’s back straighten and she turned slowly, the smile still in place.
    â€˜I’ll see what I can do,’ she said, and then she left them.
    But they never did see a photograph of Agnes’s baby. Mrs Dyce never mentioned it again and none of the other girls asked. So, finally, neither did Roxy. But it bothered her, like so many things here.
    Yet she had only been treated with kindness and concern. That was the thought that kept intruding. Why was she so suspicious? She was worrying herself fornothing. Always looking for a dark side of human nature. She decided to forget about it and just enjoy the summer.
    The temperature soared as June moved into a sweltering July and Anne Marie grew too big and heavy to walk with Roxy, so Roxy took to wandering and exploring by herself. She loved the smells of the countryside, trying to pick out the different scents that came from each flower. Not a day now went by when she didn’t think about her mother. What was she doing this hot summer? Worrying about her? Or had she forgotten her wayward daughter already?
    When she had walked with Anne Marie they had always stayed on the well-worn paths, but that was never Roxy’s way. ‘If there’s a sign that says NO TRESPASSING, that’s where Roxy will go,’ her dad had always said to her, with pride. Yet that was the part of her personality that only ever seemed to annoy her mother. And worry her too. The part that would do what she wasn’t supposed to.
    Now, here she was, pushing her way through the long grass, thick and rich and crackling dry with summer, and heading towards the wrought-iron gates thatlay at the bottom of the long drive. The gates that kept the world out, and kept the girls in. She didn’t use the main path because she didn’t want anyone, the Dyces, or even Stevens, to see where she was going, afraid they would stop her, suspect her of disobeying the rule and straying outside. The gates were ornate and from a distance it was hard to make out what the design of them was. It was only as she came closer that she could make out what the swirls and curls were.
    Dragons. Dragons rampant and threatening, wrought-iron fire shooting from their nostrils.
    The rusted gates were chained closed. And Roxy didn’t like that at all. Mrs Dyce had asked her not to go outside, but she hadn’t mentioned anything about being locked