She liked her lessons and writing on her slate with chalk, and at morning and afternoon breaks in the winter everyone got a cup of hot cocoa; but though she loved playing with her friends, nothing compared to being at home with her mam or going to the market and seeing everyone. The market was like a big family where she knew all the stallholders by name, and even if they were grumpy with each other they never were with her.

Curling into a little ball, she thought about the day ahead. She knew how it would pan out – every Saturday was the same and she liked that. It would begin when her mam called her down for breakfast after she had stoked up the range and got their porridge ready. Her mam’s porridge was lovely, thick and creamy, not stiff with salt like some folk had it. She’d hate that.

Then once they’d had breakfast and while she got dressed, her mam would lay the fire in the front room and in their bedrooms ready to light for when they came back from the market later on. She’d told Flora and Sally she always had a fire in her bedroom in the winter months so the room wasn’t too cold when she went to bed, and they’d been green with envy. Their mam didn’t read them bedtime stories either or settle them down with hot milk and a biscuit, but then they had umpteen brothers and sisters so she supposed their mam was too busy to do things like that. They were lucky to have each other to play with. She would have loved a twin sister. If her da hadn’t died when she was a little baby she might have had a sister to play dollies with, but he had so that was that.

The smell of her mam’s baking was reaching her even under the covers and she sniffed appreciatively. Her mam was always up and dressed and downstairs baking before she woke up, summer and winter, and she knew there would be boxes of scones and cakes and fruit loaves and sandwiches already stacked by the back door of the kitchen ready for when Matthew came. Her mam paid him to help her take all her wares to the market each day on his handcart. She was a bit frightened of Matthew even though her mam had told her he couldn’t help the way he talked and looked, and that something had happened to him before he was born which had caused him not to be like other lads. Her mam said she had to be kind to him and she was, even when she couldn’t understand what he was saying. Her mam seemed to know though, so that was all right.