Read Birmingham Rose for Free Online Page B

life that would never be within her grasp.
    ‘Don’t get big ideas, will you?’ she warned sometimes.
    Sid put it more brutally. ‘You needn’t bring her round here and get all toffee-nosed. You was born a slum kid and you’ll die a slum kid so you needn’t go expecting any different.’

    It was already getting quite dark. The lamplighter would soon be out on the streets. Dora was about to stir herself when she heard the girls outside, and George came crashing into the house shouting, ‘Rose’s had the cane! Rose’s had the cane!’
    As was her way, she didn’t ask questions immediately but pulled herself to her feet and lit the lamp. Then she turned to her daughters. Rose was still the taller of the two and bone thin, with long black hair down her back. Her face was puffed up from crying and her cheeks streaked and red. Grace, who was wheezing heavily, also looked tearful. Instinctively, Dora moved across to boil some water for her.
    ‘What’s been going on?’ she demanded.
    ‘It’s that Miss Smart,’ Rose burst out, her voice high with tears and anger. ‘She’s a wicked, horrible bitch, she is.’
    ‘Rose!’ Dora started. But then, seeing how distressed she was, said, ‘Turn round.’
    Rose turned, and very tentatively pulled her ripped bloomers down to show her bare bottom. It was raw and red with stripes of blood and vivid purple welts, so many that they had all merged together in a hot, angry mass.
    ‘God Almighty,’ Dora gasped. ‘What the hell has she done? What brought all that on?’
    It had been the last lesson, Rose explained. They’d been sitting in the classroom, and she was next to the heavy green curtain that separated her class from Grace’s. She knew Grace wasn’t feeling too good that day. The weather was damp and cold which always brought on the asthma. She’d been struggling to get her breath even on the way to school. A day in the building, heated by the one feeble stove, had not helped.
    As Rose sat through her arithmetic lesson, Miss Smart was teaching Grace in the next section of the room. Suddenly she became aware of Miss Smart’s usually abrupt and tetchy voice saying quite clearly, ‘Pull yourself together! I’ve had quite enough of your malingering.’
    ‘I can’t help it, Miss Smart,’ she heard Grace trying to protest. ‘It’s me chest. I’ve got—’
    ‘Be quiet,’ Miss Smart shouted. ‘You make that horrible noise once more and you’ll feel the cane across your behind. I’m not putting up with any more of your excuses.’
    Through the curtain Rose could hear Grace’s wheezing becoming louder and more agitated. She could picture Miss Smart’s angry, spiteful face as she stood over her sister, and suddenly she felt all restraint leave her.
    She glanced up at Miss Phipps to check she wasn’t looking. Then she lifted up the bottom of the heavy curtain, pushed her way underneath it and ran to Grace, flinging an arm round her frightened sister’s shoulders.
    ‘You cruel bitch!’ she shouted at Miss Smart. Her voice sounded surprisingly strong. ‘Why don’t you pick on someone your own size? Just because you can’t keep a bloke for five minutes doesn’t mean you have to take it out on my sister. She’s got a bad chest, as you ought to know bleeding well by now!’
    Grace’s face almost mirrored her teacher’s in its look of horror. Miss Smart grabbed Rose by the wrist and hauled her through the classroom with astonishing strength, bashing Rose’s legs and hips against the desks.
    ‘Come here you uppity little scum,’ she hissed, her teeth locked together as though she was trying to hold back some of her rage. ‘You’ll be out of this school as soon as breathe after what you’ve just said to me.’ The woman’s body was quivering all over. ‘But now I’m going to give you something you should have been given a long time ago.’
    Grace watched, terrified, as Miss Smart grabbed Rose again by the shoulders and forced her round so she was