by Daisy Styles
‘Timms, the housekeeper,’ he gasped, under the strain of his heavy load. ‘She doesn’t like you,’ he added with a wink.
‘She’s made that perfectly obvious,’ Ava replied.
The makeshift dormitories in the south wing had been built in what must have been a series of connecting drawing rooms, all with high ceilings decorated with swirling stucco plasterwork and fioor-to-ceiling windows draped in blackout blinds.
‘In there,’ barked Timms, before turning her stiff-as-a-ramrod back on the trainees and walking away, disapproval evident in every step she took.
‘She’s a regular bundle of laughs!’ tittered the cheery red-headed girl.
‘Don’t worry, you won’t be seeing much of her,’ Peter assured them with a chuckle.
‘Thank God for that,’ thought Ava.
The yawning girls selected their bunk beds, then made their way along the dark, bewildering corridors to the bathroom, which had a line of sinks running along one wall and a line of lavatories running along the opposite wall.
‘Oooh!’ exclaimed an impressed trainee as she switched on a tap. ‘Hot and cold water – more than we get at home.’
‘Thank goodness!’ joked another trainee, as she dashed into the nearest cubicle. ‘One minute longer and I would have wet myself!’
Ava cleaned her teeth, washed her face, then dabbed her skin with a few blobs of Ponds Cold Cream, a parting gift from Audrey. As she settled herself in a bottom bunk, Ava pulled a blanket and a scratchy, starched single sheet over her body, then looked nervously up as the woman on the top bunk bounced around, causing the bed springs to sag and twang over Ava’s face.
‘Will I ever get to sleep?’ she wondered, as a few girls started to snore. A few even sniffed, as if they were crying.
Ava eventually slipped into a deep, exhausted sleep, and the smile that had been on her face all day remained there through the night. It was the smile of a girl who just couldn’t wait to see what tomorrow would bring.
THE BEGINNING
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PENGUIN BOOKS
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Penguin Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com
First published 2017
Copyright © Daisy Styles, 2017
The moral right of the author has been asserted
Cover photo © Colin Thomas; background © Getty Images
ISBN: 978-1-405-92977-6