The line ahead of me started filing into the classroom and Catherine pushed me to make me follow, so I pushed her back and she fell over and that meant everyone in the line behind her fell over too. Toppled like dominoes. She cried and Miss White told me off, but I couldn’t hear her over the pulse of my inside clock.
Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.
• • •
I wanted to see the policemen again after school, but their car wasn’t parked where it was normally parked and I didn’t know where else to look. I hung around outside Steven’s house for a long time and the policemen didn’t come, so I started walking to the playground. I was nearly there when I saw Donna coming toward me, pulling a little girl by the hand. She didn’t look like any other little girl I had ever seen in real life. She was wearing a puffy blue dress with matching blue shoes, and there was even a blue bow in her hair. It was long hair, and orange-colored, like tiger fur. She didn’t have any mud on her knees. She didn’t even have any mud on her socks. She didn’t look like she came from the streets at all.
The thing about the streets was that everyone living there was poor. Some people were a bit less poor, and you could always tell who those people were because they called things “common.” Betty wasn’t that poor, and the things her mammy called common were pink clothes, tinsel, knee socks, saying “what” instead of “pardon,” tinned fruit, shorts, salad cream, not taking your shoes off inside the house, tulips, saying “toilet” instead of “loo,” felt-tip pens, toothpaste with a stripe in it, loud music, cartoons, and icing. Also, on the table in the hallway of Betty’s house there was a big glass jar where her mammy and da put their pennies so they wouldn’t weigh down their pockets. That was another way you could tell someone wasn’t that poor—they didn’t think pennies were real money; they thought they were just the same as stones or bottle tops. I once asked Betty what they did with all the pennies when the jar was filled up to the top.
“I think Mammy takes them to church for the donation bucket,” she said. “But it hasn’t been full up in ages. Not since before you started coming to my house.”
“I think we should talk about something else now,” I said.
So I knew Betty was richer than me, and I knew I was richer than the kids in the alleys, but we were all still basically poor. That was why the little girl looked so different, and that was why I stared. She didn’t look poor at all.
“Hi,” said Donna. She put her hands on the little girl’s shoulders the way mammies do when they want to show off their kids. “This is Ruthie. I’m looking after her.”
“Why’s she wearing them clothes?” I asked.
“Her mammy dresses her nicely. She showed me all the clothes in her wardrobe. They’re all like this.”
“Is she rich?”
“Nah. They live in an apartment. It’s tiny. They’re waiting to move into a house.”
“How comes she looks like that, then?”
“Her mammy spends all her money on her. Every single bit of money she has. She just only ever spends it on Ruthie.”
“It looks like a doll dress.”
“Yeah. My dress is nice too, isn’t it? It’s new. My nana made it for me.” She held out the skirt of her dress, which was made of a curtainy sort of material with little tassels on the edge. “I think this dress is just as nice as Ruthie’s. Don’t you?”
“No,” I said. “You look like a lamp. Where’s her apartment?”
“Near the high street. But her mammy still let me take her here even though it’s far. She said I seemed like a dispensable girl.”
“What does that mean?”
“Grown-up and good. Do I really look like a lamp?”
“Yup.”
Ruthie was getting bored. She wriggled out from under Donna’s fingers. Donna leaned forward so their faces were almost touching and spoke in a syrupy voice. “Do you want to go into the playground with Donna, Ruthie? Do you want Donna to push you on the swings?”
Ruthie stepped backward and screwed up her nose as if Donna’s breath smelled bad. That made me like her a little bit more. When we got inside the playground she ran to the only baby swing left on the poles and tried to climb in by herself, but it was too high and she kept slipping. She shoved Donna away the first three times she tried to lift her, so Donna came and stood by the roundabout with me. The fifth time Ruthie pulled herself up and fell back down she yelled at us to help. It took both of us to get her into the seat. When I tried to push her she screamed and slapped my hand, so I slapped her back. It was a hard slap—it left a pink mark on her soft arm—but she didn’t cry. She looked half cross and half impressed. Donna tried to push her and she screamed even louder, so we went and sat on the roundabout and let her flap around by herself.
“She’s got so many toys at home,” said Donna.
“How many?” I asked.
“More than you’ve ever seen before in your whole wide life. Her mammy gets her everything she wants.”
“Why?”
“Just does. But my mammy says it’s bad for kids to have everything they want.”
I didn’t think it would be bad for me to have everything I wanted. I watched Ruthie thrashing in the swing, crumpling up her dress. I didn’t think Ruthie was a very good person. If I had had a dress as pretty as that I would have sat still all day to make sure it didn’t get creased or dirty. I didn’t properly know Ruthie, and I hadn’t ever seen her flat or her toys or
