Matron, she supposed, was standing behind it for in answer to the knock she shot out like a jack-in-the-box.

‘Well, what is it?’

Margaret explained about the tray. ‘Nor,’ she added, ‘can I find a tray cloth nor a table napkin.’

Matron evidently didn’t want to admit she had none of these things. ‘Just bring it here as it is,’ she said, ‘with a knife and fork. I’ve all I need in here.’

As Margaret went downstairs she thought to herself: ‘All I need! I don’t suppose she has anything. Nor should she have, the old beast!’

In the kitchen, as Margaret called it to herself, though she added ‘it’s more like a scullery really,’ she carefully poured off some of the gravy into one of the porridge bowls and added a potato. The plate was too hot to carry upstairs so she held it in the skirt of her frock. ‘Then she’ll see the lace,’ she thought. ‘I’d like her to see that.’

Margaret had intended to carry Matron’s food into her room but she got no chance for once more Matron shot out, this time to snatch the plate and the knife and fork from her, shouting:

‘Get on down, you, and scrub the hall.’

Margaret went down but not to scrub the hall. She had removed most of the cold porridge from one bowl and shared it out amongst the other bowls; now into the gravy she mashed the potato. She listened at the bottom of the stairs; there was no sound from above, so, with the bowl in one hand and a spoon in the other, she crept round to Simon.

He was still asleep, so very gently she woke him up, whispering all the time: ‘It’s all right, Simon, it’s me, Margaret.’

When he was awake enough to take things in he smelt the food and he actually smiled.

‘Can you feed yourself or are you too bruised?’ Margaret whispered, ‘for I’m supposed to be scrubbing the floor.’

At that moment they heard Matron unlock her bedroom door.

‘Margaret Thursday!’ she shouted.

‘What is it?’

‘Where’s the fourth potato?’

‘Bad,’ said Margaret. ‘I had to throw it out.’

Matron apparently accepted this, for after some mumbling she went back to her room.

There was no need to ask Simon if he could feed himself for the food was finished.

‘Oh, Margaret!’ he whispered. ‘I could have eaten six times as much.’

Margaret smiled. ‘Just get out of here and you can eat as much as you like for ever and ever.’

But any hope of immediate escape was crushed when Matron came downstairs. Margaret, having heard the bedroom door opening, was apparently hard at work scrubbing when Matron called:

‘Take this plate and wash it up. Then you’ll just have time to finish the floor before I lock you up for the night. And you won’t be alone, there’s a boy under the stairs has got himself knocked about a bit. I don’t want him loose tonight, so you can look after him.’