Chapter 4

The Spencer Orphanage was a modest three-storey building half-way down Claremont Road. One of the attractions for Holly was that it had a bus stop right outside and she could take a single bus from the end of Foley Road straight there, a journey of about ten minutes. The reception desk was manned, as usual, by Jill Mason, who looked up and smiled at Holly as she entered the cramped reception area.

“Holly, you look lovely! Good morning” she said, pausing over her keyboard. Holly wondered if her blouse and skirt really did look lovely or whether the comment applied to her happy face which she always had when entering the home. Either way she was buoyed by the comment.

“Hi Jill, here for the music rehearsal I think”

“Hey, before that, could you look in on Sandy and Jake? It’s the anniversary of their loss, tough day for them.” Jill turned the Visitor’s Book around and Holly signed in.

“Course, I’ll find them, see you later” said Holly, turning for the wide, stone stairs.

The second floor was far noisier than Reception, with children walking along the corridors while chatting animatedly, just as she would expect in any school. Sandy was easy to spot with her short dark hair and bright red dress, but it took a little while to find her brother who was building a house out of Lego. She walked over to the shelves at the end of the classroom, pulled out a couple of books and encouraged Sandy to sit down on a bean bag with her near her brother who was intent on building windows into the structure.

“Hey, shall we read for a little while?” asked Holly, opening the first book. “This is about two kids who visit their friends in the summer holidays.”

Sandy looked at the book, then at Holly. She was ten and her brother was about a year younger. “Holly, why are you here?” she asked.

“Well, I’m supposed to be helping with the music show, but I thought I’d drop by and say hello to you two before that starts,” said Holly, showing the cover to Jake.

They read together for about twenty minutes, alternating one chapter each until they were half way through the book. Jake eyed his Lego building, anxious to continue it as well as protect it from demolition by other children who wanted his bricks. Sandy however was enthralled by the story and drifted against Holly’s shoulder as they took over from Jake’s chapters and just read together, occasionally discussing what they might have done in similar situations as those in the book. Holly knew it was that detail, guidance and those revelations that Sandy cherished far more than the fact that the characters arrived late at their friends’ house. She wondered what they remember of their parents, whether they relived the day that they were taken out of school by a lady from the Police and told that their parents had been badly hurt in a car crash even though they had been pronounced dead at the scene and the drunk driver found face down and semi-conscious in woodland by the side of the road.

Holly touched Jake’s shoulder and said goodbye to him, then hugged Sandy and kissed her head before walking up one more flight of stairs to the auditorium. Several staff members greeted her warmly, thanked her for coming and for all the event planning work that she had put into the big occasion. She had assigned herself three contestants to chaperone through the rehearsal and went around the room to catch up with them and help them do their best. The next three hours were hectic, complete with on-stage meltdowns, tears, laughter and one or two excellent performances that caused the room to fall silent. She signed out at Jill’s desk just after twelve twenty and caught the bus five minutes later back to Foley Road, bought some sliced ham from the shop then walked the final few hundred yards to her lodging.

“Hol, afternoon!” said Addie from the kitchen. She was seated at the little table, eating lunch. “Hey, I would have made some for you if I’d known you’d be back,” she said. There was a salad in front of her with what looked like cheese, pickle and maybe beef.

“Don’t worry, I picked up something just now. Hey, and thanks so much for the money, that was way more than I had spent.”

“No problem. My Mum and Dad seemed to have got a pay rise so I did too.” Holly buttered some of her loaf and arranged the ham, lettuce, tomato and pickles into a thick sandwich, then sat at the table and ate, pleased with the mix of tastes from the sandwich. “So. Budget. What news?” asked Addie.

“Oh yeah, I did the budget, came out to a lot more than I had figured once I included everything that we really needed to buy. Just for six months.”

“And?”

“Seventeen grand or thereabouts”

“Jeeze, that’s a big no-no, right?”

“Oh yeah. Not even worth thinking about,” said Holly over her shoulder as she made coffee.

“Time to move on?” asked Addie as Holly sat back down.

“I think so, just not now, not before his final exam,” she replied, stirring her coffee. She thought back to the previous night and their lightning session.