The Exiles

and stuff. I’ve thought and thought and all I can think of is that it might be another baby.’
    ‘Can’t be,’ said Naomi immediately, ‘because they were very pleased with themselves last night and they wouldn’t be pleased if they thought they were getting another one of us. They think we’re enough.’
    It grew colder in the garden as the patch of shadow gradually nudged them towards the flower-bed. When it finally tipped them in they gave up speculating and went indoors.

    Mr and Mrs Conroy sat late into the night, turning the pages of glossy printed catalogues and talking.
    ‘I can hardly believe it’s going to happen yet!’
    ‘Should have it all in place by autumn if we can get started straight away.’
    ‘It would be a terrible job trying to keep the girls out of the way. And I don’t know how I’ll manage cooking for a family with all this going on.’
    ‘What about that offer then? Still deciding?’
    ‘It’s not like they’ve ever been by themselves before.’
    ‘Won’t be much of a summer for them here, and it would be a break for you too. And me. We’ll pretend we’re young again.’
    ‘It’s not like they got on with her when she was here. It was a shocking week, practically open warfare by the time she left.’
    ‘She tried to reform them too quickly. Not that a bit of reforming would come amiss. But I think she’d be upset if you refused her.’
    ‘I know she would.’
    ‘And it’s a smashing place. They’re always wanting to be off somewhere else in the summer too.’
    ‘I know they are.’
    ‘It’s not as if they were bad kids. On the whole.’
    ‘It’s not as if they were good ones either!’
    ‘Well, we’ll have to just keep thinking about it.’
    ‘I know,’ said Mrs Conroy.

Chapter Three
    ‘Three more days,’ remarked Ruth at breakfast time on Wednesday morning.
    ‘Then what?’ asked Phoebe.
    ‘Nothing, probably.’ Naomi’s tone of extreme gloom and pessimism caused Mr and Mrs Conroy to glance momentarily at each other. Mr Conroy raised his eye-brows, but his wife shook her head, still undecided. It was Rachel who finally helped her make up her mind to do it to them.
    Last year at the end of term Mrs Conroy had said to Rachel, ‘Don’t you ever dare say that you’ll clear up that horrible paint trolley again!’
    Rachel’s school dress had been ruined; the stains left from school powder paint never do wash out. Rachel remembered very clearly all the fuss that had been made and so when this year the teacher said, ‘Let me see who I can ask to tidy up the paint things for us,’ and she had shot up her hand and said, ‘Oh, please me,’ before any of the other children could speak, she did at least feel guilty.
    But not very guilty.
    Alone in the girls’ toilets with a hand basin full of water and the paint trolley full of sin beside her, Rachel began the hour of doom.
    Very carefully she washed the brushes, and then the jam-jars, and the palettes that didn’t have much paint on them. It was pleasant with the warm water, and the sunshine glowing through the windows and the buzzing sound from the surrounding classrooms. Happily Rachel started on the palettes that contained something worth washing. She lowered a full one into the basin and turned the water dark blue, and then tipped in yellow to make it green. It took a lot of yellow to make it even faintly greenish. Red slipped in and the water went very dark, so she added a lot of other colours, trying to make black. After that she emptied the basin and held the palettes under the tap, watching the colours stream out and swim together and run down the plug hole. She nearly put her finger up the end of the tap to make it spray, but then thought better of it and didn’t. Too soon everything was shining clean and she had nothing left except a yoghurt carton half full of bright red that she had been saving till last. Carefully she poured it into a sink full of clean water, glowing with pleasure at the beautiful pink that resulted. Then she let the water out and dried her hands.
    ‘Goodness Rachel!’ exclaimed the teacher, coming in to hurry her up. ‘Couldn’t you have been a bit more careful?’
    Rachel looked at her in amazement.
    ‘Just look at your dress!’ said the teacher.
    Rachel looked down and could not believe what she was seeing. She was covered in paint again, just like last year. Just like last year, only worse. There was even paint on her socks, and all over the splashes and