MORNING SERIAL
SHE bent above the girl’s head and stroked it. ‘What is it, Rachel? Tell me what happened to you.’
‘Miss, miss, she jumped off the wardrobe, miss.’
‘I doubt it. Unless one of you dared her. Or pushed her.’
‘We didn’t so. We were messing about and she jumped. Ask her if you don’t believe me.’
‘Yes, well,’ said Issie, her hand still on the silent child’s head. ‘If she did fall off the wardrobe, it was because you lot were doing your usual trick of going round the room without touching the floor.’
She caught the sly look that flickered from eye to eye. ‘Matron, what happened?’ ‘The Jewish girl was trying to prove herself to the English by some stupid trick or other.’
‘How dare you call her a Jewish girl? How dare you? And how dare you speak in German? This is an English school.’
The Fraulein looked as perplexed as she was affronted.
‘But she is a Jew,’ she said in German.
‘I shall report you,’ said Issie in English. ‘I shall report you for anti-Semitism. British people don’t like it.’
‘Oh please, no. I meant no harm. I like Jewish people, Miss Dahl. I have no grudge against Jews, none in the world, they are a distinguished people, I don’t envy their wealth, never have, ask anyone.’
‘You disgust me,’ said Issie in German.
The child swivelled round and said, thickly, through bruised lips, ‘I fell off the wardrobe.’
‘She did, miss, she fell off,’ Nadine said.
‘Are you badly hurt? Show me.’ The child showed a bruise on her knee. Issie fingered it softly, testing its tenderness, asking Rachel to bend her knee and instructing the matron to bring cold water to bathe it.
‘Shall we send you to sick bay?’ she asked the child. Probably it wasn’t necessary; if people would go leaping around on furniture, they must expect knocks. But at least if she’d taken a tumble in some daft game, it showed she’d been joining in with the others. Perhaps she was on her way to acceptance.
> The Element of Water by Stevie Davies is published by Parthian in the Library of Wales series www.parthianbooks.com