Home Front Girls

least a brother and sister, but there was something sad about her eyes that made Dotty feel that Lucy was no stranger to heartache. She could remember as a child how she would try to imagine what her own family was like, and her young imagination had run riot. Perhaps she was the daughter of a princess who had been stolen away by a jealous godmother? And maybe one day, her mother and the prince, her father, would come and find her. Soon after that she had started to write, and invariably her stories were of abandoned children who eventually made good. Sometimes the stories had been so touching and heartfelt that they had moved Miss Timms to tears when Dotty showed them to her, and from then on the kindly woman had encouraged her to write at every opportunity.
    Dotty had never given up hope that one day her natural mother would come back to claim her and she would be whisked away to a life of happiness, but as the years had passed and Dotty saw other children at the orphanage being chosen for adoption by loving families, her dreams had dimmed to a dull flicker of hope. She could well understand why the other children had been chosen over her. Most of them were pretty and cute, something that Dotty could never claim to have been. Once Miss Timms had found her crying about it and she had wrapped her in her arms and assured her that it was always the ugly ducklings that turned into swans and that Dotty was beautiful inside. But that had been a poor consolation. One day in her early teens, Dotty had spent her meagre savings on face cream, powder and rouge and plastered it on in front of the little mirror in her dormitory, but all it had done was make her resemble a clown, so after that she gave up and accepted herself for what she was. Her thoughts moved on to Annabelle, who was everything that Dotty longed to be – pretty and confident. A little full of herself admittedly, and undeniably spoiled – but then who could blame anyone for spoiling Annabelle?
    Sighing, she lifted her writing pad and soon all the sad thoughts disappeared as she became lost in the story she was writing.

Chapter Six
     
    ‘Good morning,’ Dotty said the next morning as she made a beeline for Lucy who was hanging her coat up in the staff cloakroom. ‘Is Annabelle not here yet?’
    ‘Well, if she is I haven’t seen her.’ Lucy glanced around before grinning. ‘And between you and me I wouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t come back. I don’t think she much enjoyed her first day.’
    But the words had barely left her mouth when the door opened and Annabelle strolled in, looking none too pleased with herself or the world. Her hair didn’t look quite so immaculate today and both girls noticed that she was wearing only the minimum amount of make-up, unlike the day before. She made her way over to them and started to take her coat off.
    ‘I can’t believe that we have to be here a whole hour before the shop opens,’ she said, grumbling as usual. ‘I had a job to get up this morning at such an ungodly time.’
    ‘You’ll soon get used to it,’ Dotty told her encouragingly. ‘I wonder what departments we’ll be working in today?’
    ‘I don’t know and I don’t much care,’ Annabelle replied. ‘Just so long as they don’t stick me in the hardware department.’ She couldn’t think of anything worse than having to spend her day amongst buckets and bowls.
    The room was buzzing with laughter and noise as the staff chatted to each other about what they had done the night before and tidied themselves in readiness to go to their departments. Before the doors were opened, the head of each floor would inspect them all to make sure that they were respectable and then that the department was neat as a new pin before the customers were let in.
    Annabelle thought it was a ridiculous waste of time. After all, it was hardly as if the customers were going to appear in droves at that time of the morning, especially when it was so bitterly cold outside.
    ‘Did you notice what they’re doing outside now?’ she asked in disgust as she took a lipstick from her bag and expertly applied it. ‘Stacking sandbags against all the shop-fronts! They look appalling and I really don’t know why they’re bothering. What with them and all the shelters, the whole place is beginning to look a total mess – and what about those awful barrage balloons they’ve got floating above the city! Why, they remind me of great grey elephants flying. And all for