Clover Moon Read online

  I lightly stroked her little pencilled face and fondled her fluffy hair. I was filled with a strange mixture of joy and sadness. It was magical that I could conjure her up on the page, but dreadful to remember I’d never see the real Megs ever again.

  The girls came crowding round to see my drawing and seemed impressed.

  ‘Draw me,’ Mary-Ann demanded.

  I flattered her as I sketched, exaggerating the curls and length of her hair and adjusting her features, making her eyes much bigger, with long lashes, so that she looked like a real fairy princess. Mary-Ann smiled at herself, thrilled.

  Now every recreation time I had a queue of girls lining up to have their portraits sketched. Millie was the last to get hers done, and I tried extra hard with it, elongating her little squashed-up face and giving her a fancy new hairstyle.

  ‘Is that really me?’ she breathed when I showed her.

  In truth it wasn’t really a proper likeness but I nodded solemnly all the same. Millie stared at the page, her plain face glowing. ‘Me!’ she repeated happily. ‘Me!’

  I sketched the four little girls too. Elspeth and Moira were enthusiastic, both managing to sit still long enough for me to capture a likeness. Jane was another matter.

  ‘Draw me, draw me – me, me, me!’ she demanded, but she couldn’t keep still for a single second. In the end I drew her running wildly round and round the room, arms out, legs leaping, hair flying out behind her, deliberately blurring her features to show that she was moving fast. It was unmistakably her and Jane kept pointing at it, roaring with laughter.

  ‘Now Pammy,’ I said.

  She shook her head, putting her hands over her face, making it impossible. I had to sketch her a few lines at a time when she didn’t realize I was watching her, and then she didn’t seem to like her portrait – though I’d given her longer hair and made her look less lost and lonely.

  ‘It’s you, Pammy. Don’t you look pretty?’ I said, but she shook her head vehemently.

  I tried drawing as a way of helping the four little girls to read. Sissy had tried to teach them their A B C but with no success. Jane wouldn’t listen, Pammy wouldn’t look, and even Elspeth and Moira couldn’t seem to understand that the black squiggles Sissy wrote on their pages had any meaning.

  ‘Could I try something, Sissy?’ I asked. ‘I just need to nip to the kitchen.’

  ‘I don’t think dough letters would be a good idea,’ she said quickly.

  ‘No, this won’t make any mess whatsoever,’ I promised.

  I ran downstairs to the kitchen where Cook, now totally recovered, was making a large apple crumble.

  ‘Could I please borrow an apple for five minutes, Cook?’ I asked politely.

  ‘Borrow it, missy? I think you mean eat it – and you’ll be sorry, because it’s a sour cooking Bramley and you’ll be doubled over with stomach ache for the rest of the day.’

  ‘I’m not going to eat it, I swear,’ I said, grabbing it quickly.

  I ran upstairs and produced the apple. Of course Jane wanted to eat it, so I wasted a lot of time persuading her that it wouldn’t taste nice. She didn’t agree, so eventually I let her have one small bite. She screwed up her face, shuddered and spat it out immediately.

  ‘Nasty apple!’ she said.

  ‘Yes. I told you! But clever you for knowing that this is an . . .?’

  ‘Apple,’ said Jane.

  ‘Yes, apple. Now, I’m going to draw the apple for all of you. Watch!’ I took a bright green crayon, sketched a big round apple on the page and let them take turns at colouring it in. They weren’t very good at it, of course, and went over the lines, and inevitably the pencil lead got broken, but it was soon sharpened.

  ‘Now, we’re going to write the word apple underneath. Watch me do it. A-p-p-l-e. What does the word say?’

  ‘Apple,’ said Elspeth and Moira.

  ‘Apple,’ said Jane, after much prompting.

  Pammy didn’t say anything at all, but she did look at the picture and the word.

  ‘Now let’s write the word apple again on a fresh page. I’ll write it first. Then you take turns copying it. You can each choose a different colour.’ I wrote the word apple. Then Elspeth. Then Moira. Then Jane made an attempt, though her letters went wildly up and down and looked like scribbles. I tried to encourage Pammy to have a go. I put a coloured pencil in her hand but she wouldn’t close her fingers round it.

  ‘Never mind. Maybe you’ll try to do some writing tomorrow,’ I said. ‘Let’s read our words now. Elspeth, what does this say?’ I pointed to her word.

  ‘Apple,’ she said.

  ‘Yes! Well done. It says apple!’ I said, making a big fuss of her.

  Moira read her word. Jane shouted her word at the top of her voice. Pammy didn’t read but she looked at the four words that said apple on the page as if she knew what they were.

  ‘The word apple is made up of all these letters. The one at the beginning is a. A is for apple. Remember!’ I said.

  The next day I took a brush and gave each child’s hair twenty strokes. I counted each one aloud – they might as well learn their numbers too! I wasn’t sure Pammy would let me brush her hair but she stayed still when I attempted it. I brushed very carefully indeed because she still had big patches of bare scalp, though there were now little fine downy hairs growing.

  ‘You’re going to have pretty curls soon, Pammy,’ I assured her.

  Then I drew the brush and had each child draw some bristles. It became a very, very bristly brush, but still recognizable. I had them tell me what it was, and then I wrote the word brush, and three of them wrote the word too. Then we read the word.

  ‘Brush! And the letter at the beginning of the word is b. B is for brush.’

  Just before bedtime I gave them another impromptu lesson because I happened to see a big white cat prowling in the little back yard. I bribed him with a sliver of cheese, picked him up in my arms and rubbed my cheek against his furry head until we’d properly made friends, then lugged him indoors and up the stairs.

  Elspeth and Moira and Jane were all desperate to stroke him. I took Pammy’s hand and tried to make her touch him too but she clenched her fists.

  ‘What is this lovely furry creature called? Is it a . . . dog?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s a cat!’ said Elspeth, giggling.

  ‘Of course it’s a cat. Shall I draw it?’

  ‘Oh my goodness,’ said Sissy, bustling in. ‘What’s a cat doing here?’

  ‘He’s part of our reading and writing lesson, Sissy,’ I said.

  ‘Well, can’t it wait until tomorrow? It’s nearly bedtime.’

  ‘But the cat might not be here tomorrow. Please, Sissy! Just this once can they be a few minutes late for bed?’ I cried, and the little girls begged too.

  ‘Well, Miss Ainsley isn’t going to be at all pleased if she finds out,’ said Sissy. ‘But very well, go ahead, Clover. I can’t quite see how puss here is going to help, though. I’ve heard all the girls in your dormitory say you can do magic tricks. Have you taught him to miaow the alphabet?’

  ‘Don’t laugh at me, Sissy. You watch! Who’s going to hold the cat on her lap to keep him still while I draw him?’

  Elspeth and Moira wanted to be picked. Jane was desperate, shouting, ‘Me, me, me!’

  ‘Ssh, Jane! If you’re going to hold him you have to be very quiet and still or you’ll frighten him. Do you think you can manage that?’

  Jane nodded emphatically. I wasn’t so sure but decided to take a chance. I put the cat on her lap and she stroked him carefully, making sure not to ruffle his fur the wrong way. The cat fidgeted anxiously at first, but then settled down and started purring.

  ‘He likes me!’ Jane whispered.

  ‘Yes, he does!’ I said, sketching quickly, just in case the cat changed his mind.

  ‘He doesn’t need to be coloured in because he’s white, and the page is white, but you can each draw a whisker,’ I said.

  Pammy didn’t dra