Roxy's Baby by Cathy MacPhail Page A

now mostly dark-skinned, frightened and alone. Illegal immigrants, dumped when they were pregnant. No English. There was only herself and Anne Marie left of the original crowd. No more nights piled into each other’s rooms, like boarding school. No more midnight feasts. Everyone kept to themselves. Everything was changing here, Roxy thought.
    She felt better after she had given Mrs Dyce that letter. At least she had let them know she was safe. That she wasn’t dead, that she hadn’t been murdered or kidnapped. That she was alive and well.
    That night as they lay in bed she asked Anne Marie if she had ever thought of writing home.
    â€˜Me? You’ve got to be joking. I wouldn’t risk them finding out where I was and coming after me. Not to look after me, mind, just to thump the living daylightsout of me. Do you know something, Roxy? Mr and Mrs Dyce, they’re my family now. And you too. You’re like my little sister.’
    Suddenly, a wonderfully bright idea hit Roxy like a thunderbolt. She jumped up in bed. ‘Anne Marie, why don’t we live together after the babies are born? We could help each other, and we do get on really well.’
    But Anne Marie didn’t sound too certain. ‘Sure, that would be a great idea, but you’re under age Roxy, it isn’t going to be so easy for you.’
    Roxy knew that was going to be a big problem, one she wasn’t ready to face right now. But the thought of sharing the future with Anne Marie suddenly seemed so right.
    She sat on Anne Marie’s bed. ‘I’m sure the Dyces would sort things out for us. Find somewhere for us to live, maybe. They would keep in touch. You could still see them.’
    Anne Marie smiled. ‘Do you know, Roxy, this might be the perfect answer. You and me, and our babies, all together.’
    They lay back in their beds giggling and talking about the future. The bedroom window was wide open to let in some air, and the sky was clear with brightstars. It seemed to both of them that night that nothing could go wrong.
    Anne Marie’s face, with her apple-red cheeks, beamed happily in the moonlight. ‘Roxy, do you know, I think our story’s going to have a happy ending.’

Chapter Sixteen
    Mrs Dyce liked the girls to rest in the afternoon, insisting they pull down the shades to darken the rooms, and keep out the hot sun.
    Anne Marie loved her afternoon rest, especially now, so near her time. But not Roxy. She could never sleep and she hated lying on her bed, listening to the gentle snores of the other girls drifting in through the open doors. But the house was never so quiet as on those afternoons, and Roxy used the time exploring. She was determined to find a way into those attics, into those other rooms, blocked off from the rest of the house.
    She had already found stairs that led nowhere, that seemed to disappear into walls, and doors that were locked, or even boarded up, but on one of her hot afternoon explorations she found exactly what she had been looking for.
    She had often walked past the back stairs.Underneath was stacked with old carpets and bags of clothes and boxes and chairs. Up against the back wall there was an upended table. Just a load of old rubbish, she had always thought as she walked past it. But that day, something made her stop and look more closely. It occurred to her that the back wall had to lead on to the back of the house. She moved closer into the gloom, lifting boxes, moving carpets as silently as she could, trying to clear a way to the back, to the upended table that blocked the back wall. But close up she realised the table would be far too heavy for her to move on her own. Still, she refused to give up. Could she get behind it? she wondered. It wasn’t flush against the wall, but stood at an angle, and as she crept closer she could see behind that gap. She could see that there was a door behind the table.
    She knew she had to get through to that door.