"Why not show your friend your bedroom," Mrs Jolys said, as she bustled the girls upstairs. "Tea will be ready in ten minutes. Don't be late."
Maria Turner looked around the tall, blue-wallpapered room.
"Do come and sit on the bed, Turner." Jolys patted the counterpane and looked up at her, with a rather foolish expression, Maria thought.
Jolys reached up and removed Maria's hat, and pulled at her hair ribbon.
"Stop that, Jolys!"
"Oh come on, Turner, be a sport. You have such lovely long hair."
Maria sighed in resignation as Jolys fanned her loosened locks over her shoulders. The girl was leaning on her now, she could feel her hot breath on her neck.
"what are you doing, Jolys?"
"Oh come now Turner. I have ever such a crush on you, you know."
"I most certainly do not. What exactly is a crush anyway?"
"Well, it's like this..."
It was certainly crushing. But...
not...
completely...
unpleasant.
Maria let her eyes droop and close, as her whole frame relaxed.
TOOOOT!
Maria opened her eyes with a start. A small child in a white and blue sailor suit, clutching a tin trumpet, was looking up at them, with what seemed to be a triumphant smile.
"You were kissing," it said. "I saw you."
Anger flashed in Jolys's eyes. She leaped on her little brother, seizing the trumpet in one hand and his curly blond hair in the other, her voice hissing through her teeth like a venomous snake.
"See this trumpet, Tommy? Now imagine this is your face. If you breathe a word about this to anyone, EVER, this is what will happen."
And she placed the trumpet on the carpet, bell-end down, and lifting her foot, stamped hard down on the instrument, flattening it into a squat, silver disc.
Tommy looked at it for a moment, in silence, his mouth agape, then at his sister, and then an expression of pure terror gripped his face. He screamed and he ran.
"Oh my darling Tommy, how careless of me," Jolys intoned in a high voice as she chased him on to the landing. "Oh my poor little darling. Let me cuddle you and say I am sorry."
Mrs Jolys strode into the hallway as the boy ran into her, clutching her legs, still wailing.
"Thomas, I am ashamed of you. Your sister has upset you, but see, she wants to be friends."
Tommy looked at his mother. "I don't want to be her friend. I hate her."
"How dare you speak that way, Thomas. I will not allow it." His mother lowered the child's breeches, bent him over her knee, and raised her hand.
Maria winced. One word could stop this. The word no formed on her tongue as Jolys flashed a warning glance at her.
Whack. Whack. The child's wails stifled the near-silent sob that Maria allowed to escape.
"Right. Now girls: tea. Wash your hands please."
Back upstairs, the girls bent over the hand basin. "I will drink tea with you Jolys, then I will go home."
"Oh steady on, Maria..."
"Do not take that liberty with me Jolys."
"Slut."
Maria did not know what a slut was, but she assumed it was not nice.