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told Nell about the sixpence being from Mr Finnigan but once she’d seen it, what else could she have done? But Nellie wouldn’t let on, not if she knew she was going to get some sweets. She stared at the couple of lines she had written but her mind was a million miles away from what she was supposed to be doing.
    She raised her head, glancing round at the rows of wooden desks and Mrs Price dressed all in black at the front of the class.The room was already warm and muggy and as her gaze went to the window she wished she was outside.
    She hadn’t liked what Mr Finnigan had done to her last night. It hadn’t been like the kissing and cuddling or when he stroked her arms and belly when she sat on his lap and he moved her up and down over the hard thing in his trousers. Last night he had hurt her when he’d put his hand inside her knickers and pushed his finger into her private place. She liked being his special girl, she did, but this new thing had frightened her and last night she had been too sore to pee before she went to bed. She was still sore.
    Tears smarted and she blinked them away. She wriggled slightly on the hard wooden seat, trying to get comfortable, but the ache between her legs was still there.
    Why hadn’t Mr Finnigan stopped when she had wanted him to? But he had said she would like it. She hadn’t liked it, it had been horrible, and she had been glad when Eve and Nell had come and he’d had to stop. But he had given her a whole sixpence.
    Her small fingers closed over the coin in her pocket and she felt the thrill of her wealth again. And he had promised to buy her an even nicer hair ribbon than Hannah’s when it was her birthday in a few weeks’ time. She cast a sidelong glance at her friend. Hannah’s new red ribbon had been a bone of contention for days. And it was true what she’d said to Nell, Mr Finnigan didn’t like babies and with the new bairn being another little lad she would still be his special girl.
    ‘Mary Baxter?’
    She became aware Mrs Price was frowning at her and quickly bent her head to her work. Mrs Price wasn’t as nice as she had been before her husband was killed at the pit. These days she was moany and her face was all tight and not a bit pretty. Mr Finnigan said she was pretty, bonny he called her. Like the fairy queen in that fairytale he’d told them the other night.
    The thought went some way to mollifying the aggrievement she’d felt after the fright of the night before, and with Mrs Price’s eyes still on her she gave all her attention to the story and began to write.
     
    The summer was a hot one relieved only by the odd shower or two which had barely dampened the thirsty ground. The water cart had been out often spraying the dusty dry roads. But now it was the last week of September. The fields of corn that Eve had passed on her way to work now lay fallow, and the mornings had become fresh with mists that hinted of chilliness. The field behind the Cunninghams’ property saw flocks of swallows gathering to migrate, their screaming cries becoming more urgent as the month progressed, and the garden was full of bumble-bees and butterflies making the most of the gentle sunshine of late summer.
    The vicarage’s apple and plum trees at the end of the garden were weighed down with fruit and the day before, the gardener had propped his ladder against the gnarled trunks and worked most of the day filling basket after basket with blushing apples and Victoria plums.To Eve’s delight Mrs Cunningham had given her two baskets to take home that morning, on top of which she’d told her she could leave at midday rather than two o’clock as was usual on her half-day due to the fact the vicar and herself were going out to lunch after church.
    As she walked home Eve found herself smiling in anticipation of the pleasure the windfall of fruit would give to the household. There hadn’t been too much to smile about lately. The new baby had proved to be a fretful child who cried