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the kitchen to hear the bad news.

      ‘Maddy’s disappeared,’ said Mrs Plum. ‘Gone to ground. Have you the foggiest where she’d go, Gregory?’

      It made him feel grown up that she always consulted him in a crisis, as if he was important.

      ‘I think I know where she’ll be, miss–up the garden by the big tree, in our Victory HQ. You’ll find her there,’ he offered, feeling so sorry for young Maddy ‘I’ll fetch her back if you like,’ he offered. ‘She won’t have gone far, not in the dark.’

      ‘I’ll come with you.’ Mrs Belfield jumped up from the kitchen table.

      ‘Give me five minutes so she don’t run off,’ he said, knowing that if it were him he wouldn’t want grownups fussing. Maddy was a funny kid, even for a girl.

      Greg crunched up the allotment path whistling ‘Colonel Bogey’ so she’d know it was him. ‘I know you’re up there, Maddy Belfield. I’ve brought some cocoa and syrup with condensed milk…Poor Mrs Plum is doing her nut wondering where you are,’ he yelled, watching the steam come out of his mouth into the chill air.

      ‘Go away! I’m not talking to anyone,’ she shouted back.

      ‘Don’t be daft. It’s freezing out here. Come down while it’s still hot.’

      ‘I don’t care!’

      ‘Yes you do. You don’t want the dog to catch a chill, do you? It’s sitting on the icy ground.’ There was silence and he saw her peering out into the darkness. He shoved the mug into the hand dangling from the tree.

      ‘The vicar’s wife says we can cook chips in the frying pan tonight if we clear up afterwards.’ That was their favourite treat when The Rug wasn’t around.

      ‘I’m not hungry.’ Maddy sniffed at the cocoa as if it was poison. ‘What’s it like being an orphan?’ she added. Her glasses were all steamed up from the hot drink.

      ‘It’s just a label you get stuck on you. It don’t mean anything. I’ve got no mam and dad, never had, and what you never had you don’t miss,’ Greg said, which wasn’t exactly true but he wasn’t sharing that with anyone. ‘I’ve had loads of aunts and uncles, some good and some rotten…I just heard your bad news. I’m really sorry. You’re not really an orphan, though, you know.’

      ‘I was just trying it on for size,’ Maddy answered, hugging the the hot mug for warmth. ‘My parents aren’t ever coming back. I don’t know what to do.’

      ‘But you’ve got yer gran and yer auntie. You’ve got family. Orphans have no one.’

      ‘I don’t want to go back to Brooklyn Hall, not now.’

      ‘It’s a bit stuffy there but it were a good do this afternoon for the little ones, and you belong with that lot, up there. Mrs Plum is your real Auntie.’ Greg didn’t want to admit he’d had a right good nosy around and grabbed as much grub as he could.

      He felt sorry for Maddy and that was why he had taught her to ride her bike and get her balance, even if she looked a bit odd with her patch and glasses, her eye flickering all over the show. She was no Shirley Temple, not like Gloria, but he quite liked her funny stare.

      ‘If you ever run away again, promise to take me with you,’ she begged. ‘I’m not stopping where I’m not wanted. Mummy and Daddy are drowned so I’m like you now.’

      ‘No you’re not and never will be. They’ll look after you up at the Brooklyn. Mrs Plum cares about you. She’s a good ’un.’

      ‘But I’m useless at everything and Grandma ignores me,’ Maddy sighed.

      ‘Come off it! You’re top of your class, not a dunce like me. I’ve missed so much schooling…’

      ‘You make things with your hands. Enid can dance. Gloria can sing. Everyone likes her…’

      ‘Gloria’s a right little show-off.’

      ‘You don’t like her?’

      ‘She’s only a kid, OK as girls go,’ he said quickly. It didn’t pay to take sides between girls. He’d learned that one early after being bashed up in the first hostel near Leeds when he’d tried to stop a fight between two girls. ‘Look, here’s Mrs Plum coming to find you. She’s been worried.’

      ‘I don’t want to see her,’ Maddy snapped, darting behind the tree branches, spilling her drink and leaving a trail of milky cocoa for the dog to lick up.

      ‘Oh, don’t be daft, it’s not her fault…She’s doing her best to help. It is Christmas,’ Greg replied, not knowing what to say now.

      He looked up at the tall outline of the trunk, how it branched from the base into a V shape, outlined against the whiteness. ‘Old Winnie would like this tree,’ he said, making his fingers into a Churchill V sign. ‘A proper V for Victory Tree is this. Come and see,’ he smiled, pushing his fingers in her face. ‘See!’

      Maddy came down, stood back and looked up. ‘You’re right. It is a V shape. How clever of you to give it a name. It’s our Victory Tree now. I like that but it doesn’t change anything. I’ll never ever have another Christmas again…It’s all lies, isn’t it?’

      ‘Oh I don’t know, I did rather well from Father Christmas. It pays to keep an open mind,’ he smiled, thinking of his smart new blazer, long trousers and proper brogue shoes, his racing car annual and some shaving tackle.

      ‘But you said there wasn’t any Father Christmas. So if it’s true, why pretend?’

      ‘Because it makes grown-ups pretend and give us presents and treats, they play games and sing songs just for a few days in the year. It’s make-believe but we get a holiday and people get boozed up. This’s been the best one I ever had,’ he argued.

      ‘But it’s all lies, all of it,’ Maddy insisted.

      ‘I think some bits are worth keeping, with this war being on and all…’

      ‘I don’t understand you. One minute you say one thing and the next you change your mind,’ she snapped.

      ‘Well, that’s one thing I did learn in the orphanage…not to believe everything other people tell you. You’ve got to think your own thoughts and look after yourself. When it’s bad I do a bunk, when it’s OK I don’t,’ he replied. He’d been let down so many times by being shoved here and there, smacked for nothing, made promises that were never kept.

      ‘Was it really bad?’

      ‘Sometimes, and other times…’

      ‘There you go again, not giving me straight answers.’

      ‘I wish I could,’ Greg smiled. ‘Here comes your auntie, plodding through the snow. It’s time you went home before we all freeze to death.’

      Poor kid, he thought, as the two figures walked slowly in front of him in silence. What a horrible Christmas present. He’d long ago stopped wondering why he was put in a home. He liked to think his parents were killed together and only he survived in a car crash. The thought that someone had just dumped him there and gone off and forgotten him…When he got wed and had kids he’d make sure his children were close by his side.

      Grandma was sitting in the drawing room, knitting socks on three needles. She didn’t look up when Plum and Maddy entered the room. They sat down on the sofa together opposite her.

      She paused with a big sigh. ‘Well? What is it now?’

      ‘Maddy’s got something to tell you,’ said Aunt Plum, squeezing Maddy’s hand to give her courage to say the hard words and not cry.

      ‘Mummy and Daddy aren’t coming here,’ she said, waiting for Grandma to put down that blasted grey sock and ask why.

      ‘What’s it this time? Theatricals are always so unreliable,’

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