The Exiles

drips of colour on her dress she saw a complete set of red fingermarks wiped right down her front. It was like being haunted.
    ‘Well, it’s a good thing it’s home time,’ said the teacher. ‘Why didn’t you put an overall on?’
    Rachel did not answer. She was suffering from shock. Going home Phoebe said, ‘You’ve got paint on your dress.’
    Phoebe didn’t often notice things about other people.
    ‘Leave me alone,’ said Rachel.
    ‘What d’you think Mum’ll say?’ asked Phoebe conversationally.
    ‘Leave me alone!’
    ‘She didn’t say anything about the grass marks. Hardly anything. Everybody else’s Mum did. Jacqueline Draper’s Mum hit her!’
    Rachel continued to plod along the street in silence.
    ‘Hit her,’ repeated Phoebe, glancing sideways at Rachel. ‘On her head!’ she added, hoping to extract a response. ‘With a frying pan! Eleven times!’ (Phoebe saw nothing wrong in occasionally stretching the truth.)
    ‘I bet Mum hits you this time!’ she said cheerfully as they reached home.
    Rachel watched sourly as Phoebe disappeared through the front door, and then she trudged round to the back of the house alone. Mrs Conroy was in the kitchen talking to a strange man who appeared to be measuring the walls. Rachel stood in the doorway, scrabbling through her mind for an opening remark, but as it turned out she did not need to say anything at all. Mrs Conroy, catching sight of her daughter’s miserable face, and the red streaks, rushed across to her.
    ‘You’ve hurt yourself,’ she cried in concern.
    ‘S’paint,’ said Rachel.
    ‘Ooh dearie me,’ remarked the man, and started writing busily on a little pad so that he wouldn’t have to have anything to do with it.
    ‘Well,’ said Mrs Conroy straightening up. ‘That’s the second dress this week! Didn’t I tell you! Look at the state … ! This really is the Last Straw!’
    True to Phoebe’s prediction, Mrs Conroy smacked Rachel, and then got crosser still because she and Mr Conroy had agreed never to smack Rachel and Phoebe – this was because they had done so with Ruth and Naomi on occasion and it had never achieved the slightest good. (Ruth and Naomi strongly opposed the new policy.)
    Rachel howled unnecessarily loudly, considering it had only been one slap, not hard, nor on her head, nor with a frying pan.
    ‘You can just stay like that until your father comes home and we’ll see what he has to say!’
    Rachel stopped howling to argue.
    ‘I didn’t want to hear,’ interrupted Mrs Conroy. ‘I’m very busy. Go outside and behave yourself.’
    Rachel sat on the grass and wished she was dead. She held her breath to suffocate herself to death but as soon as it began to hurt she couldn’t help breathing again.
    ‘Naomi will write on my gravestone,’ she thought miserably. ‘She said she would,’ and she took another breath to try again. Behind her Naomi said:
    ‘What’s that man doing in the kitchen?’
    ‘No peace,’ thought Rachel, ‘Nobody will even leave me alone to kill myself.’
    ‘Rachel,’ said Ruth, ‘What’s that man doing in the kitchen? Mum won’t let us in.’
    ‘Measuring,’ answered Rachel, gasping for air, ‘leave me alone.’
    ‘Measuring what? Come on, tell us. We saw you in there.’
    ‘Measuring the walls. Leave me alone.’
    ‘If you’re worried about that paint,’ said Naomi kindly, ‘you’re wasting your time. That dress was third hand anyway, and no one but our family would be seen dead in it. It’s a good job it’s ruined. At least Phoebe will escape it.’
    ‘Is it ruined?’ asked Ruth with interest.
    ‘Bound to be,’ said Naomi cheerfully, ‘that paint never washes off.’
    ‘It does,’ said Rachel.
    ‘No, I don’t think it does,’ contradicted Ruth, ‘because remember that one you did last year. Mum just threw it away. It’s quite a good way of getting rid of them.’
    ‘I didn’t want it anyway,’ added Phoebe, doing her bit to cheer her sister up, ‘it looked awful on.’
    ‘Are you sure he’s measuring the walls?’ asked Ruth, returning to her original question.
    ‘No. I didn’t really look.’
    ‘It’s no good talking to her when she’s got that dress on,’ said Naomi. ‘Go and take it off, Rachel.’
    ‘I’ve got to keep it on until Dad comes home.’
    ‘Why?’ asked Naomi. ‘He won’t want to see it. Go and take it off.’
    ‘Can I say you made me?’ asked Rachel cautiously.
    ‘Anything,’ said Naomi. ‘Get it off and