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boy drummed up a group of his pals as the others started to move away. ‘That Mercy didn ’alf give me one.’
    ‘She’s a vicious little cow!’
    ‘Come on – let’s get ’er.’
    She saw them coming, circling her. No one stood up for her. The other children watched apprehensively.
    Mercy stood quite still, arms crossed tight over her chest. Her hair was longer now and the bright plaits reached halfway down her back. She was neat-looking as ever, frock straight and clean and hanging below her knees, feet together in her little boots, eyes flaring defiance.
    ‘Come on then, Mercy,’ one of the boys goaded as they danced round her. They started to run at her, mocking, then retreating back. ‘Gunna shout at us? Gunna scream? Go on – let’s see yer, Mercy-Nursie!’
    The taunting children circled, faces moving in and out of her view. ‘Mercy-Nursie!’ they chanted, ‘Mercy-Nursie, the Hanley bastard!’ Their voices meaner and meaner when they met no satisfying response, no tantrum or any sort of reaction, however much they goaded her about carrying the name of the orphan’s patron.
    Mercy looked up beyond them towards the red-brick school building. The freezing buffeted her raw cheeks. She felt she was watching everything from the other end of a long, long tube, like looking down through a chimney, the children’s faces turned up towards her from several storeys below. She felt nothing for them. She had learned to retreat somewhere deep into herself that no one could touch; nothing they said or did could hurt her. What she could feel, most immediately, was the itch of her rough wrapover vest round the tops of her arms, how her left boot was pinching her burning chilblains, the rough ache of her sore throat. But the other children she let flit around her, distant as summer swallows.
    One of the boys shoved Mercy’s shoulder hard and she reeled backwards, tumbled on to the hard ground, skinning her elbow.
    ‘Look, she’s gunna blart now!’ one of them cried triumphantly as tears of pain sprang into Mercy’s eyes. ‘Come on, let’s see yer. ’Er’s like a statue – can’t move ’er bleedin’ face!’
    I’m not crying for ’em, Mercy vowed. I’m never doing anything they want – never.
    She lay on the ground and curled into a ball on her side, face hidden in her hands. If she couldn’t see them they weren’t there. She’d killed them. They didn’t exist.
    The handbell to summon them all inside began ringing, growing louder as one of the teachers, Mr Paget, came out, his arm beating the bell up and down in the icy wind.
    ‘What’s all this?’ He strode across to the ring of children. ‘Get inside the rest of you. Go on – hurry up.’ The children fled, giggling with relief at avoiding trouble.
    ‘On your feet, child.’ As he bent down Mr Paget saw a dark, creeping line of blood along the girl’s wrist. With impatience he pulled her hands from her face and saw her nose was bleeding, huge, plum-coloured drops falling on her school dress. Though she had tears in her eyes she stared up at him with that blank yet insolent look of hers which seldom failed to aggravate.
    ‘What’ve you done?’ Mr Paget fished round irritably in his jacket pocket to find his handkerchief for Mercy to hold against her nose. ‘Someone hit you?’
    Mercy just looked at him.
    ‘Well did they?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘No, Mr Paget.’ He stared at her, tight-lipped. Who could fathom this child?
    ‘We’ve all had enough of this, Mercy. You cause nothing but trouble. I’m sending you back across the road and I don’t want to see you in school for the rest of this week.’
    This was Wednesday. A terrible crime, the worst, being sent home from school. It ‘besmirched’ the good name of the Hanley Homes if they got into any trouble outside.
    Mr Paget added grimly, ‘We’ll let Matron deal with you as she sees fit.’

    Miss O’Donnell’s footsteps were coming closer.
    ‘Come here, child!’ She loomed into view