Miss Lilli Temple stood at the front of the room (it would not be appropriate to call such a dull and dark and draughty room a classroom) in her faded pink dress that was probably once very nice, and a pair of worn old shoes.
She was attempting to teach the orphans Math. How could they be expected to learn anything in a room where dark and eerie shadows were abundant, and there was not even a blackboard to write a sum?
Miss Lilli Temple wished she had the confidence to speak up, to look Mr and Mrs Carter in the eyes and tell them, “This is not good enough.”But Lilli had always been a shy girl, at school herself she had been bullied relentlessly. Her Mother thought that that was why she became a teacher; because her good heart did not want other children to suffer as she had.
Miss Lilli Temple’s dream of being a teacher had almost been over when she had found that after serving her full time at school, nowhere wanted to take on a young girl of nineteen with no experience; and then when the war started schools seemed to be shutting down all over the place. It was only when she was contacted by Mr Carter, that her hopes were revived. He had told her that he owned a big, old house called Streisand Manor in the country and he was housing some orphaned evacuee’s who were all in desperate need of education.
Mr and Mrs Carter had warned her before she took the job that they were strict Catholics who believed in discipline and liked to keep themselves very much to themselves. They had told her that they ran a very strict house and that she would be expected to abide by the rules, just the same as the children; they told her that they were very much in charge. Miss Lilli Temple had been so excited however, that she had hardly listened to any of this and took the job anyway. In fact, the whole conversation was only recollected after her first day at Streisand Manor; but by that time it was too late...
Of course, Miss Lilli Temple was free to leave; she could hand in her resignation and go back to her parents small house in the city, but her good heart melted at the thought of leaving those poor innocent children alone with the Carters, for them to hire someone just as bad as them; to hire someone who agreed with their daily beatings to ‘keep the devil out of the children’s bodies’ and their meagre meals so that ‘the children do not have too much energy to run wild’.
The orphans half closed, tired eyes stared up at her from the make shift desks blankly as she asked who knew the answer to her last question. One child had fallen asleep in the corner and all of the other looked as if they were about to follow, and Miss Lilli Temple’s good heart beat fast withfuriousness.
Clomp, clomp, clomp...
The children’s previously tired eyes became alert and awake immediately, as they all knew what that sound meant. Mr Carter was coming to give his daily beatings.
The children scattered from the desks in urgent haste, to where the soft glow of the stung-up oil lamps was ceased by ominous shadows. Their cold, bare feet hitting the hard floor, were scrabbling and scrambling into boxes, out into corridors, six people trying to fit inside one cupboard like contortionists at the circus. The poor scared orphans found refuge wherever they could, but they felt safe nowhere in these hopeless sanctuaries; they knew he would find them, seek them out one by one and wrap his icy fingers of terror around their little hearts.
This time their punishment would be worse, so much worse. It always was when they tried to run, they all thought unanimously.
Tucked away in their dark hideaways, the children heard the wooden door swing open in venom, they heard Mr Carter shouting at Miss Lilli Temple, and they heard Miss Lilli Temple replying that she did not know where the children were, although it was obvious that she did.
They heard the swish-thwackof the whip as Mr Carter tried to ‘cleanse Miss Lilli Temple’s lying soul’ and they heard the blood curdling screams that followed every thwack.
Everything was silent for a very long time. Hours passed before the petrified orphans summoned the courage to peek from their cupboards and boxes. When they did they saw blood, and lots of it. They crept over to the body lying on the floor of their classroom and stared at it in horror; for a very long time...
