Hunger
My first week in the Home. A medical is what the young nurse
says. No choice. I can remember the nurse weighing me. Just a point on a chart.
My point so low.
“You must eat more” the nurse said – like an echo of what she
said to Eve. Eat more? Sometimes, in my former world, to eat at all was just a
hope.
A hope that perhaps this weekend I would have a breakfast, lunch
and tea. “No lunch for you, you wicked girl and no tea for answering back.”
Sit on the bed. Sit and smell my lunch. See my lunch thrown out
the door. Luckily I have a store. A secret store of food. Not much, short
rations. Eat more? No chance for Ella!
Editor’s
Note - When Ella arrived at the Children's Home she was in a very poor mental
and physical state. It has proved impossible to ascertain why this particular
home was chosen - perhaps it was just that there was a vacancy there and that
it was located far enough away from Ella’s birth parents? Nor is it clear why
Ella wasn't moved on to a foster family. It has been suggested that the close
friendship that developed between Ella and Eve was seen as beneficial to both
of them and that there was nothing to be gained by splitting them up?
