them had been kept back for any reason. She had been gearing herself up all day for what she had to tell them, and wanted to get it over with. After that she needed to steel herself for her visit to Arch, in the hope he would be feeling benevolent enough to agree to her taking the mattress.
Fifteen minutes later, the multitude of pupils streaming through the door and filling the playground had thinned down to a few last stragglers, and still there was no sign of Aidy’s brother and sisters. It was worrying that not one of them had made an appearance yet. She was just about to go inside and make enquiries when she spotted Marion’s teacher, Miss Amelia Siddings, emerging from the door dressed for home. She was a very pretty, slim woman who hardly looked old enough to have left school herself. She smiled on spotting Aidy and changed direction to join her.
‘Did one of the Greenwood children forget something? The caretaker will help you find whatever it is, I’m sure. I just saw him in classroom three as I was leaving. You should still find him there. Please excuse me won’t you, only I’m in a rush to get home tonight.’
Probably got a date with a handsome man, Aidy thought. She said, ‘My brother and sisters certainly have forgotten something, Miss Siddings. Forgot to come out of school!’
Amelia Siddings looked taken aback for a moment before she responded, ‘Oh, but aren’t you aware they were all sent home mid-morning? Not only your sisters and brother but half of the school, it seems. It appears we have a measles epidemic and Marion, Betty and George have certainly succumbed to it, according to the headmistress. The children who were affected started showing the signs of being ill soon after assembly and Miss Frinton immediately recognised what was ailing them all. Thankfully I had the illness as a child so I’m immune to it. Hardly pleasant for a child to suffer, but I understand it is really nasty for adults to go through.’
Aidy was looking stunned. So Betty had been showing the first signs she’d caught this awful disease the previous night, and Aidy herself had just dismissed it as over-tiredness. And Marion wasn’t just blackmailing her grandmother into a cuddle and a story, she really wasn’t feeling well either. George wouldn’t complain of feeling under the weather even if he was, seeing it as not the manly thing to do. Guilt swamped her for not taking more notice of her siblings. Then panic reared within her. The three of them had been sent home that morning? That meant they would have encountered their father before she’d had a chance to explain it all to them.
Much to Amelia Siddings’ surprise, Aidy turned tail and ran off like the devil himself was on her tail.
She burst through the door into the back room and stopped short, taking in the scene before her. Her grandmother lay on the sofa, her face tight with suppressed anger and frustration, lips pressed together firmly. It was obviously she was fearful of saying something that could result in catastrophe for them all. Arnold lay sprawled in the armchair, his nose buried in the racing pages of a newspaper. He looked a sight cleaner than he had done when he had arrived, obviously having had a thorough wash down and a shave. Aidy just worried how much extra fuel he had used heating up all the water.
On hearing her enter, without lifting his eyes from what he was studying, he growled, ‘Good, yer home. That fire needs banking up.’
She fought to stop her temper flaring. ‘And couldn’t you have done that?’ she evenly responded.
He did lift his head then to smirk at her. ‘Why should I when I have my lovely family around to wait on me hand and foot?’
She almost forgot herself then, to tell him where to go, but remembered her primary concern. She addressed Bertha. ‘I understand the kids were sent home from school this morning, suffering from measles. Where are they?’
It was her father that snarled back at her. ‘Where they should be. In bed. I don’t wanna see their faces down here until they’ve been given the all clear.’ Dropping the newspaper in a crumpled heap, Arnold eased his bony body out of the chair, gave a yawn and a stretch, and announced, ‘I’m off to the privy. Have the fire made up and a cuppa mashed for when I