i f6c06dd9cf3fe221 by Unknown (100 books to read in a lifetime .txt) 📗

hand, dashed with her into their backyard, seized the big,

dilapidated pram, in which a two-year-old child lay sucking a dummy, and pushed it out into the cobbled back lane, down which they hurried, the pram tossing about like a cork on the ocean, past seven back doors with their accompanying coal and oozing lavatory hatches, round the bottom corner, across a piece of waste land where children were already playing among mounds of dirty snow and wet, brown grass, and into the front street of the houses opposite their own. About half way up, one of the houses suddenly changed its pattern;

above its window a large, yellow tin placard said, drink brook bond tea, and a gay old gentleman, on another piece of tin, asked you to look at him to see how fit he kept on ally sloper's sauce. The house window itself held tier on tier of bottle of sweets receding away from the gaze of the beholder to dim regions beyond, while, balancing on the front of every shelf, were boxes of hearts- and-crosses, sherbet dips, everlasting stripes, scented cachous and jujubes. In front of the window were large jars of pickled cabbage and pickled onions, and seven- pound jars of loose jam and lemon curd. Among these, at crazy angles, were placed Christmas wares of "Shops with real scales', dolls in the minutest of gauze chemises, work boxes miniature boxing-gloves and tram-conductor sets of hat and ticket puncher. Paper-chains hung in loops from the ceiling, together with huge red and green paper bells, of a honeycomb pattern. From the chains and bells, held by fine threads, dangled swans, balls, dolls, ships and fairies, all in fine glass and painted a variety of colours.

Annie and Rosie pushed the pram against the wall and joined two other children, who were endeavouring to get a first-hand view by hanging on to the high windowsill by their elbows and sticking their toes into the wall. "Ooh! ain't they luverly?" said Rosie, gazing in rapture at the display.

"I'm getting a great big doll," said the taller of the two girls in front, jerking her head round.

"Oh, you! You are always saying that. Cissy Luck!" snapped Rosie, without taking her eyes from the chains and their dangling splendour.

"I am, ain't I, Peggy?"

"Yes, she is," said her Companion; 'and she's going to take me into their house to play, ain't you? "

"Yes," said Cissy, pursing her lips, 'and she's going to play with my doll the morrer. "

There was a questioning silence while the two girls turned from the window and confronted Annie and Rosie. When no further remarks regarding the integrity of her statements were forthcoming. Cissy said to Annie, "Whatcher getting in yer stockin' ?"

Annie, whose eyes, like Rosie's, were fixed upon the magic array behind the glass, answered abstractedly, "Oh, I don't know yet, not until Santa Claus comes; I've sent him a letter."

Cissy and Peggy exchanged sidelong, incredulous glances. Then, suddenly throwing their arms around each other, they shrieked with laughter.

"You gone barmy?" asked Rosie, looking at them stolidly.

Annie smiled, feeling that she was the source of their enjoyment, but not knowing why.

"She says ... she sent 'im a letter," spluttered Cissy into her friend's neck.

"Well, what about it?" demanded Rosie, her square jaw thrust out.

"Ain't nowt funny about that."

The other two suddenly turned on her, their faces aggressive with knowledge; "She's a silly bitch! There ain't no Santa Claus; it's yer ma and da," said Cissy.

Rosie blinked rapidly; she knew this to be the truth, but, glancing at Annie, something in her friend's face caused her to deny this statement hotly: "You shut yer mouth up! There's a picture of Santa up there,"

she pointed into the window. Then, grinning broadly at Annie, she said, "That must be a picture of Cissy Luck's da!" This sudden piece of wit sent her off into loud guffaws, to which Annie joined her high-pitched laugh.

Cissy's face grew dark, her eyes narrowed, and her loose, lower lip pouted. She took a step forward, not towards Rosie but towards Annie.

This Annie Hannigan, with her thick lashes and fair hair, her big top coat and her woolly hat with the red pompom, who was she anyway? She wanted to destroy her, punch her face, kick

her, hear her yell; but there was Rosie Mullen, you had to be careful with Rosie Mullen!

"What you laughin' at?" she demanded of Annie.

"Laughin' about my da! You're the one to laugh, you are! You ain't got no da, like Santa Claus nor nobody else, so there! Me ma said so."

The eyes of the four children darted from one to the other, following this startling announcement. Annie's face showed utter bewilderment.

She made a mute appeal to Rosie, but Rosie was for once tongue-tied and hid her embarrassment by a sudden and violent rocking of her pram, to the delight of the youngest Mullen.

Annie's voice did not sound convincing to herself, when she heard it, for there were dreadful new fears attacking her, and, rising to the surface of her mind, hazy and troublesome impressions that weren't new:

"I have got a da, you know I have. I've got a da and a ma...."

"Don't be daft!" cut in Cissy.

"That's your grandma and your gran da we've all got grandmas and grand as But you've got to have a ma and a da too, and you ain't got any."

They stared at each other in silence; then Annie's head dropped slowly forward. A terrible emptiness was creeping over her, and a longing to fly away and never see Cissy Luck or anyone else ever again, to hide for ever and ever. But where could she go? The new fears were growing bigger every minute, like the dream she had in the night of the lion going to swallow her up.