Mrs Hughes had said nothing, merely screwing up her mouth until her lips had all but disappeared. ‘I might relax the six o’clock rule . . .’ she began, but Glenys, sensing that for once she had the advantage of the old woman, forestalled her.

‘It’s all right, Mrs Hughes, we’re managing very well,’ she had said. ‘Mo and I, of course, simply remain in our warm classroom until we can go to the Glas Fryn, and Jimmy has found a friend whose parents are delighted to welcome him after school hours, when I must admit I should not like to think of him wandering the streets.’

Mrs Hughes sniffed. ‘I take it you’re referring to that idle woman Mrs Dai Bread,’ she said disdainfully. ‘She’d take anyone in she would. I’d not like a lad of mine . . .’

But here Glenys had held up a warning finger. ‘No gossip if you please, Mrs Hughes,’ she said briskly. ‘I saw Miss Teleri Jones this morning and she hopes to be back in school in a week, so we shan’t impose on your – your hospitality for much longer.’

But now the snow had stopped and Jimmy was sitting on the top of his friend’s pigsty wall waiting for Wynne to appear. The baker’s son was no lover of school and already Jimmy knew that he was being blamed for Wynne’s erratic attendance, but as the weather worsened more and more children who normally came in to the town from villages several miles distant failed to arrive, and Wynne assured him that once the ice on the pond was thick enough to bear there would be more absentees yet. Jimmy reflected now, as a spiteful little breeze blew down the neck of his corduroy jacket, that his first opinion of Mrs Hughes had not only been the right one but was also shared by at least half the townsfolk. Their landlady was known to be what Jimmy would have called clutch-fisted and Wynne described succinctly as mean as hell, but however much she might grumble about the extra work involved in accommodating two children as well as the supply teacher, everyone knew there was little fear of her giving them notice. It would have meant losing their rent money, and this she was obviously not prepared to do.

Sitting on the pigsty wall, Jimmy swung his legs backwards and forwards and thought about the weekend ahead. A party of boys and girls from Wynne’s school meant to go sledging, taking a packed lunch and indulging in all the ploys which the snowy weather allowed. Wynne had told him that parents usually provided the young snowballers with flasks of hot tea and hefty cheese sandwiches, and Mrs Dai Bread had offered to supply Jimmy’s food as well as her son’s.

‘An’ after school on Friday you and me will go off and make slides,’ Wynne had said. ‘You won’t have a sledge, bein’ as how you’re stayin’ with the old witch, but she might let you borrow an old tin tray or somethin’.’