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and he’s quite nice and friendly; but I think she’s doing most of the running, to be honest. I hope she doesn’t get hurt.’
    â€˜Serve her right,’ muttered Ryan.
    â€˜Oh, don’t be like that, Ryan,’ said Shirley. ‘I feel a bit sorry for her, actually. She was forever boasting when she was in the junior school that she was special. She was adopted, you see, and her mother had told her she was a very special little girl.’
    â€˜Oh, I didn’t realize that,’ said Ryan.
    â€˜Well, no; she doesn’t talk about it now, although I think it’s pretty common knowledge round about where we live. Her parents are rather older; I should imagine they’re turned fifty now. They’re both very nice. I know Debbie gets cross because she thinks her mum’s always on at her, but I don’t suppose she’s any worse than mine. I sometimes wonder, though, how she really feels about being adopted. I wonder how I would feel, if it were me …’

Six
    It was when Debbie started at Kelder Bank School at the age of eleven that she began to think more about the fact that she was adopted. Near to the school, not much more than a mile away, there was a big house called Burnside House. She had discovered it was the place where girls went to stay if they were expecting a baby and were not married. Her mother had not told her very much about the ‘facts of life’, except about periods, and how it was nature’s way of making sure you were ready for the time when you might have a baby. She had known, of course, that babies grew inside your tummy, but she had been somewhat confused about how it got there in the first place. And Mum didn’t tell her about that; neither did she ask. The knowledge came to her gradually though, through confidential chats with her girl friends, and by keeping her eyes and her ears open.
    When she was twelve she asked her mother, ‘Mum, you know that big house near to our school? Burnside House, it’s called. Well, was that where I was born? You used to tell me that you went to a big house in the country because you wanted a baby girl. So … was that where you went?’
    â€˜Yes, that’s right, Debbie,’ her mother had replied. ‘Burnside House, that’s where we went, your daddy and me. I haven’t set eyes on the place from that day to this. It’s sort of ‘off the beaten track’, as they say, and so we’ve never needed to go past it. Why did you ask, Debbie, after all this time?’
    â€˜Oh, some girls at school were talking about that place. Linda knows somebody who’s gone to stay there. And I said to Shirley, I bet that’s where I was born.’
    Her mother nodded, looking a little anxious, Debbie thought. ‘Don’t worry your head about it, pet,’ she said.
    â€˜I’m not,’ said Debbie. ‘I just wondered, that’s all.’
    Then, a year or so later, she asked again. ‘Mum, Mrs Wagstaff works at Burnside House, doesn’t she?’ Claire Wagstaff was a friend of her parents. Not a very close friend; not close enough, for instance, for Debbie to call her Aunty Claire, a courtesy title she had always used for some of her mother’s closest friends. But she called at their house every now and again. Debbie found her very nice and friendly, and she had always shown an interest in her, Debbie, asking her about how she was going on at school and all that sort of thing. But it was only recently that the penny had dropped, so to speak, and she had discovered Claire’s place of work.
    â€˜Yes, she does work there,’ her mother replied, in answer to her question. Then, as she had said before, ‘Why do you want to know, Debbie?’
    â€˜Because I’ve only just realized, that’s why? Has she worked there for a long time?’
    â€˜Er … yes; for quite a few years.’
    â€˜So was she there when I was