magnolia-buildings

opened the cellar door, the boys would be caught like rats. And what would Mum say if Val were sent to an approved school? 1 Yet it wasn't possible in London to do everything according to the law and have some fun. Val couldn't

the forced door. That idiot Ginger had not shut it properly! "They've been in here again," said a man's deep voice.

"I'll give them something3 when I catch up with them."

will say that everyone must stay at school the whole week long? 5 That will be awful! And what if the police open the cellar door? What then?

Heavy feet came past the cellar and stopped. The boys held their breath.6 Suppose someone hiccoughed now?

The deep voice said, "I can't waste time here. You'd better report 7 that door, Evans."

The heavy feet passed the cellar door again. The boys could hear that the policemen tried to fix the broken door.

Ginger and George started to get out. Val pushed them back. "Use your brains!"8 he whispered scornfully.' "This is maybe a trick. No one must move till I say so, see?" While pushing the boys backwards in the darkness he hit Ginger in the stomach with his elbow.

"Oh! You hurt me, Val."

"Shut up! I won't have you in the gang, see?"

Mum was busy all day. It was washing-day. She had just brought up the dry things as the children returned from school. Len walked slowly upstairs, leading Ruby by the hand.

Ruby was a small girl from Jamaica, with woolly hair tied into bunches with two red bows. All the way up the stone stairs she sobbed loudly. Her nose was runningx and her knees were scratched and bleeding. Len kept talking to her in a soft voice.2 "Come along up then,3 Ruby. You'll see, Mum will make it all right."

Ruby was still sobbing when Len knocked on the door

of the flat. "What on earth — " 4 began Mum, as she opened the door. "Now, Len, why are you making such a noise? Don't you know it's washing day and I am busy? I've just brought in the washing."

Ruby sobbed louder.

"They were teasing her at school," said Len. His mouth was trembling at the thought of the other children's cruelty. "So I brought her home, see. It's not fair, Mum. It's not her fault if she's black."

"Oh, oh," sobbed Ruby.

Mum who was really as soft-hearted as Len, wiped Ruby's nose with her apron, picked up the sobbing little girl and carried her into the flat. Len followed behind like a worried sheep-dog who had found a sick lamb.

"There, lovey," 1 said Mum, sitting down with the child on her lap. "What a shame, really! Look at her knees! Len, pass me the towel, no, the damp one, silly." With a practised hand she wiped the small black face and then put a sweet into the girl's mouth.

"What's your name, lovey? Ruby? Well, isn't that a pretty name? 2 And what a smart check dress you've got, and lace on your petticoat! Why, aren't you the smartest girl in London?"

Len leant against Mum's chair. He was glad that Mum had made Ruby stop sobbing, for he hated tears; but he wasn't sure that he liked to see her on Mum's lap. That was his place.

Ruby stayed to tea, and Len was sent to tell her mother where the child was. Ruby was a nice little girl and soon cheered up over her chips and doughnuts.

"I've got a bike," she said cheerfully.

"It's a shame, really," said Mum. "I'll speak to the teacher. Go on, lovey, have another 3 doughnut. Live and let live, 4 that's what I say. Go on, child, eat your cake and Dad'll take you home."

Auntie Glad looked a little surprised when she came in to tea and saw the small black visitor, but she said nothing, as usual. She always kept her thoughts to herself.5 She just went and brought her own special cup and saucer painted with roses. Alf's wife could do whatever she liked. After all 6 it was Alf's house.

So Dad took Ruby home and even gave her a threepenny coin. But he only knocked at the door of Ruby's flat and then went quickly away, because he didn't want to explain that the white children had been so cruel.

Mum said to Ally, "I must speak to the teacher."

"It won't be any good,"1 said Ally, "the children don't do it when the teacher is there."

Later in the evening Mum said to her neighbour: "You never know what Len'll bring home next. He is so softhearted."

Chapter IV

THE ELEVEN PLUS EXAM2

The next excitement was the Eleven Plus exam. Doreen

much.

"I wish they'd do away with 6 this Eleven Plus exam," said Mum. "Don't be so excited about it, Dor. If you pass, it will only mean a lot more homework and your Dad will have to keep you when you ought to be earning a living."6 "Don't you want me to succeed, Mum?" asked Doreen

fiercely.

"Not if you come out in spots and the family can't turn on the T. V. because you can't concentrate. I'll take you to the doctor tomorrow to get you a tonic."

"I can't go to the doctor and waste a whole morning," cried Doreen.

Mum sighed and gave up. "Well, do as you like," she said.

But the night before the Eleven Plus exam Ally woke up because poor Doreen was sick. Ally got frightened and ran to wake Mum.

Mum was used to night alarms. She at once got up, seized her old coat and told Ally to put a kettle on.

Poor Mum looked very tired herself. There was a lot of curlers on her head and her eyes were still swollen with sleep when she went quickly into the girls' room and put the shivering Doreen back to bed.

"There, lovey, Mum's here. Don't cry."

The child, her teeth chattering,1 lay down while Mum covered her with all the things she could find at hand.2 "Well, well, you have got yourself into a fine state 3 because of this exam!" Mum glanced at Doreen's face, green between two red rat-tails on the pillow. "I've a good

mind 4 to keep you in bed tomorrow."

"No, no!" Doreen tried to get up but fell back, feeling dizzy. "I've got to get through the Eleven Plus. I've just got to take it,B Mum. I'll never be a teacher if I don't."

"There are other things you can be,"6 said Mum. But she knew in her heart that Doreen was destined to be a teacher, for ever since she could walk she had played at schools. She had sat7 her dolls in a row and taught them, she had taught grandma's kitten, and even Len too. Her favourite toy had always been a blackboard.

"Teach, teach," cried Mum. "Can't think where you get it from. Well, you never know with kids. There's Glory Ally with her head full of nonsense about film stars and glamour, and Val, who can get into prison at any moment for all I can see.8 Oh, dear,8 what a family I've got! Not to mention 10 what Len brings home."

Doreen tried to say something, but suddenly her face grew pale and she was sick again. When she lay back tired and empty, Ally brought in the hot-water bottle. Mum could not stay with the girl any longer. She had to get

dressed and go to work. Doreen lay with shut eyes, thankful for the warmth.

She somehow managed to get up and dress by eight o'clock. At breakfast there was a discussion about whether Doreen should go 1 to school. Auntie Glad took no part in the discussion. Perhaps she had decided that the best way for her to live in her brother's house was to make herself invisible. She seldom spoke at meals. The only time when she talked was late at night to Mum. She spoke in a low voice and Ally, lying in bed, wondered what these mysterious stories were about.

Doreen didn't eat anything. She could hardly swallow some tea.

"You ought to be in bed, my girl," said Dad in an angry voice. He hated the children to be ill.2 "Girls needn't pass any exams. I never passed anything in my life, and I get on all right, don't I?"

"Oh, let her go," said Mum. "If she's sick, she's sick, and can come home again. But she must have a try 3 or she will never forgive us for stopping her. I'll go with her and tell the teacher she was sick."

Mum told Doreen to put on a large scarf and led her out into the cold morning.

"Will you be able to get there?" asked Mum. Doreen nodded bravely. There were blue shadows under her eyes and her nose was red with cold.

"If you feel sick, ask the teacher to let you go home," said Mum.

Doreen nodded again. She was afraid to speak. All she could think of was that she must get to her desk and sit there. "If I can do part of the exam," she told herself, "they will have to let me finish it another day." She had made up her mind 4 to become a teacher and go to some distant land to teach the native children. So she simply couldn't give up the idea. This plain, shy girl was as much an adventurer as 6 Val or Ally, but she was more determined than they.

a quarter past nine. Mum stopped and looked at the shop. "They must have something to stop sickness," she said. "I've heard of such things. Let's come in, Doreen, and they will give us something that will help you."

"No, Mum, no!" cried Doreen. "I'll not go. It'll make me worse again."1

"Don't be silly," shouted Mum and pushed the girl to the door. "Do you want to be a teacher or not? Then just you do 2 what Mum says."

When they entered the shop Mum said to Mr Jimson behind the counter, "I want something to fix this girl's stomach."

Mr Jimson grinned. He knew Mum well, for she often came to buy her tonic or some corn-plasters. "What's the matter with the young lady?" he asked.

"She's got her Eleven Plus today and she's sick, poor thing.8 Now hurry up, please. We've got a quarter of an hour to get her right."4

"Well,1 well," exclaimed Mr Jimson. "Don't worry. I'll give the young lady a cocktail that would fix an earthquake. Just a minute," and he disappeared.

"You sit down, Dor," said Mum, sitting down herself and sticking her swollen legs out before her. "Just as cheap to sit."5

Doreen sat down trembling.

"Now," said the chemist's voice. "You drink this up.

can't," she gasped. The cocktail burnt her throat and it had a strong, peculiar taste.

"Drink it up," commanded Mum. "We've only got five minutes left."1

Doreen shut her eyes and drank. It was like flame inside her stomach. But she had to pass the exam. She had

The first paper was the essay. There were four subjects from which to choose, but Doreen did not hesitate. She recognized her subject at once.

"What I want to be when I am grown up," she wrote at the top of her page. "If I cannot be a teacher and go to some distant country to teach, I shall die of grief..." She wrote and wrote in her clear neat handwriting, all the things that

she had never told anybody, all the deep wishes of her heart. She described the joy she would find in teaching, and her wish to make othei people like learning. The medicine had given her a strange, wonderful freedom, so that the words came easily off her pen, and the things she wrote were unusual for an eleven-year-old girl.

The medicine helped her in arithmetic as well, but it was beginning to lose its power by the time she came to the intelligence test.1

Her stomach felt empty now2 and her head was beginning to swim. But her determination held. She made heiself solve such problems as: "If James is the brother of Henry and Henry has six children, what relations are those children to James's father?" She examined and placed in proper order all sorts of squares and dots, found synonyms and answered alphabet questions and so on and so forth. Her neat, precise mind helped her when the medicine lost its power.

And then, 30 strange is the working of the nervous system, the very moment3 the examination was over, she felt quite well and went home to eat an enormous dinner.

"How did you get on?" asked all the family. "All right," said Doreen. "Pass the bread, Val."

"There,4 what did I say?" Mum said triumphantly to Dad. "Only nerves, see?"