She did get well again. Nurse Griffin made her exercise, stretching and bending her leg and knee every day. When the dressings were finally taken off, the scars began to heal. She had missed weeks of school.
‘I’m throwing you out of the infirmary, young lady,’ laughed the nurse. ‘It’s high time you were back with your friends, but you must come down and let me see you every third day. No rolling in the dirt or getting mud in the scar, now! You must keep it clean! Do you understand?’
‘Yes, nurse,’ Blue promised.
Walking back along the corridors and up the stairs towards the dormitory, she realised how much she hated being an invalid, being enclosed and confined. But her heart sank when she opened the door and saw Joan’s things on her locker and the other girl reclining on her bed.
Mary immediately stepped forward to Blue and squeezed her arm.
‘Blue’s back!’ she said loudly, ‘she’s better now.’
Joan kept her head down, ignoring her.
‘Are you deaf? Didn’t you hear me? Blue’s back and you’re on her bed. She wants it back.’
Blue swallowed hard. For some bizarre reason she felt she was going to cry. All she wanted to do was climb quietly into bed and go to sleep.
‘There’s a bed down there.’ Joan pointed to her old bed in the corner.
‘She doesn’t want that bed,’ insisted Mary. ‘She wants her own bed, her old bed back!’
The silence hung in the air. All the girls in the room stopped what they were doing and listened.
‘Blue sleeps beside me,’ insisted Molly, standing beside her. ‘She’s my friend and she reads me stories.’
Joan blushed. Blue guessed she would never in a million years read a story for the little girl beside her.
‘Go on, Joan, shift!’ said Big Ellen.
‘Why should I?’
‘Because we all say so,’ said Big Ellen, ‘that’s why.’
‘Go on, Jo, please let her have her old bed back,’ begged Lil.
But Joan still sat there, while all of them stood around her. She was waiting for someone to grab hold of her and toss her off the bed. In the end she got up slowly, considering.
‘Okay. She can have her stupid bed back. Who’d want to sleep between a bed-wetter and a cry-baby, anyway!’ she said nastily.
For a second, Blue thought that Mary, Lil and Molly would attack the girl. But they held back.
‘Thanks,’ she murmured, grateful, throwing herself down on the soft mattress.
Disgruntled, Joan took her things from the small, shabby bedside locker and marched back down to her old bed, flinging herself on the mattress.
At school Mrs Brady made a big fuss of Blue and warned the others not to bump into her or trip her up. The other girls were curious and asked about her accident and did burns hurt. Blue pushed the pain and anger she felt to the back of her mind as she showed off her scar.
She met Sister Regina on the stairs and stared right at her. She could see the nun’s face redden as they passed each other. ‘I was praying for you, child,’ was all she said.
* * *
Halloween passed, Mary finding the brass ring hidden in her slice of the barmbrack Mrs MacFadden had made, swearing that she would be the first married of them all. Poor Lil got the hard green pea of poverty. During November they prayed for the souls of the dead and Blue thought only of Jess as she knelt and prayed in the chapel, still not believing that the girl who’d wriggled and joked beside her and turned cartwheels in the corridors was gone.
For Christmas Larch Hill was cleaned and polished as never before. A huge fir tree was put up in the recreation room and Sister Monica supervised the erection of the carved wooden crib in the hallway. Blue had to go to Nurse Griffin to have her leg dressed before the nurse went away for her holiday. Nurse Griffin was rubbing a special oil on to the puckered skin around her knee when Lil ran in.
‘Blue, come quick. It’s Molly!’
Blue jumped up. She couldn’t bear it if anything had happened to the little girl.
‘What is it?’ she asked, anxious.
‘It’s good news. It’s her da. He’s come for her. He’s taking her home.’
‘Her da!’
‘Yeah. He lives in Liverpool. That’s where Molly’s going. She’s packing her things right now while her da talks to Sister Regina.’
Molly going! Blue couldn’t believe it. She got to the dormitory in double-quick time, her knee and hands forgotten.
Molly’s dark eyes were shining. Blue had never seen her look so happy. ‘I told you my daddy would come back for me. I told you!’
Blue swallowed hard. Molly deserved to be with her father, to share a life with him again. She had missed him so much, pined for him, cried for him.
‘Here, let me help you, Molly,’ she offered, bending down and taking the few washed and worn garments that Molly possessed and folding them up. Lil went and got a thick brown paper bag for the clothes from the cupboard on the landing. She slipped two nightdresses from the home in with the clothes, and some extra vests and knickers too.
‘Daddy says we’re going to live with my Auntie Maureen and he’s got a grand job on the buildings in England.’
Blue tried to smile.
‘Isn’t it great, Blue! I’ll be with my daddy.’
‘It’s the best news I’ve heard in a long time, Molly, the very best news.’
Lil watched as Blue brushed and tidied Molly’s hair and buttoned up her heavy, red wool coat. She had grown so much it barely fitted her.
‘Now listen, Molly, you’ll remember at night to wake up and go to the toilet, won’t you?’
Molly nodded solemnly. ‘I will.’
‘Now, give us a hug before you go!’
Molly jumped up on Blue’s lap for the very last time. Blue buried her face in the dark curls, hoping to remember Molly’s scent forever.
‘Molly, hurry on. Your daddy’s waiting downstairs for you!’ called someone from the landing.
Like a whirlwind, Molly grabbed the bag and ran down the stairs, the rest of them waving and calling goodbye. Blue watched as her father scooped the little girl up in his arms and Molly left Larch Hill children’s home forever.
Two days later Santa Claus came to Larch Hill in his big red suit and white beard, laughing and giving out presents to all the boys and girls. Blue got a tennis ball, a set of colouring pencils, a pair of gloves and some sweets. Sitting at the big table on Christmas day, eating turkey and gravy, Blue had thoughts only for her two missing best friends, Molly and Jess.