Read Online About Matilda by Bill Walsh - Free Book Online

ends and don’t fit, so Sister Gabriel stuffs the backs with old newspaper but they still clack when I walk. My Daddy will get my new shoes back when he comes. I know he will.
    There’s a bell at seven o’clock and we follow the other girls upstairs to the dormitory. Pippa and me are given a bed each by the window. Mona is further down between the girls my age and the bigger girls.
    Sister Gabriel says we make our own bed, we’re not at home now. I’ll show you this time but you must learn.
    She takes two sets of sheets, pillows and pillowcases from different shelves in different wardrobes and already I can see there’s place for everything and everyone. The sheets are stiff and white and when she spreads them they land on the bed like flat pieces of cardboard. She talks and works quickly. You must tuck the sheets in properly, like this, at the top and bottom corners and she shows us how to fold each corner by flattening it with her hand. The top sheet comes in line with the end of the mattress. The blankets go the same way as the top sheet, but not tucked in. Do you see how I’m doing it?
    We nod we do, but we don’t.
    The bedspread is tucked in like the bottom sheet but only at the bottom of the bed. Pull your quilt over the pillow andfold back slightly, then we have this nice straight crease here under the pillow.
    Yes, Sister Gabriel.
    She hands us white wool pyjamas that zip up the front. They smell like starch and make my skin itch and I wonder am I wearing a dead girl’s pyjamas and sleeping in a dead girl’s bed.
    The dormitory lights go out and we are in darkness when I hear the metal click of the key in the lock. I lie on my back listening to the weeping girls and the movement of bedsprings as girls toss and turn and wait for sleep. I watch the shadows on the wall of girls sitting up in their beds, too scared to sleep. Everywhere there’s the stench of pee. I hear the tiptoe of big girls across the floorboards to each other’s beds. I hear the moans from under blankets and that means they must be freezing. I want to be home at Nanny’s where the five of us slept together in one big bed. Where I could feel my brothers and sisters beside me and we could cuddle together to keep warm and where I had Grandad’s green coat with the smell of the ocean to keep me safe.
    Slowly my eyes get used to the darkness. I turn to see the shadow of the rusty iron bars on Pippa’s soft pink cheeks as she lays on her back sucking her thumb and trying not to cry.
    I worry about my brothers, Sheamie and Danny. We left them sitting in the car. Daddy said they were going to a place for boys. A place in Kilkenny. It was thirty miles away. I didn’t know how far that was and I didn’t care. I just wanted my Sheamie and Danny. I stood on my tippy-toes on the pavement and waved in the window to them. I never had such an ache in my heart not knowing if I’d never see my brothers again. Sheamie was crying in the back seat, he couldn’t look at me. Danny was sitting on Sheamie’s lap, laughing. He climbed across the back seat and stuck his face to the glass and made afunny shape with his lips. His breath was left on the glass with the shape of his mouth. The window steamed over and I couldn’t see them anymore.
    When the dormitory falls silent, the only noise is from cars passing on the other side of the high stone wall. Their headlights waltz across the ceiling and the flaking brown paint. Tears run into my mouth. I taste the salt on my tongue like the first day we came from Australia, when Grandad gave us the round crusty bread with country butter. You can taste the salt, he said. I think of our grandmother when she said we’d never be left alone again. I hear her voice in my head when she stood in front of the mantelpiece promising us, making sure we believed her.
    This is yeer home as long as I’m alive and there’s breath in my body. Do yee