When Jenny was five a man came and asked her to tea. Whatever else she was—bastard, orphan, ward of the state, and sometime thief—Jenny Smith was no fool. You do not survive in London by being a fool. One does not go with a strange man when he asks you to tea no matter how nice he might seem or how hungry you are. She told him to sod off.
When he came back two days later he had a woman with him who was dressed like a nun with a heavy veil. Well, nuns were supposed to be nice and they said that they would eat in the middle of the park and that she could scream all she wanted if they started to do anything horrible. They even gave her a whistle to call a policeman.
They had a big hamper full of all kinds of food, most that Jenny had never seen, but it all tasted really good and there was so much of it, and cakes and sweets after, and fizzy lemonade and lots and lots of tea. They ate on a blanket in the middle of the park. There were all sorts of toffs around with clothes that Jenny had only seen in shop windows: starched nannies pushing prams, little girls in white dresses with satin ribbons rolling hoops, and little boys in sailor suits with boats that they floated in the lake. And they were all so clean. Jenny had had her monthly bath three weeks before and she felt, for the first time, how unfair life was, that she should be so shabby and they should be so nice.
The man, he said she could call him doctor, even though he didn't seem like any doctor that Jenny had ever seen when they came round once a year to look at the orphans, saw her looking and seemed to read her mind when he said, "Posh clothes don't make them any better than you. And posh clothes are really uncomfortable. I bet they itch, and the lace tickles and the stockings have to be pulled up all the time, and the shoes pinch. And they get in big trouble when they get them dirty. Who wants to be them? I don't. It's a lot more fun being us.
"Have a lolly, lollies are— swell? Do they say swell? Do you say swell? No, probably not."
But Jenny was still not a fool. "Whad'ya want for all this, then? Nobody gives away stuff for nothing. Whad'ya want from me."
The doctor's face crumpled up. He had a very funny face with too much chin and no eyebrows and completely mad hair. His clothes were funny too. The jacket was short and the trousers were narrow. She'd never seen anyone dress like that before.
The nun was even more odd. She never took off her veil even to eat, slipping her cups of tea under the veil and leaving her white gloves on. And when she spoke she was very quiet with a strange roll to her words. Jenny reckoned she was foreign.
"I don't want anything, Jenny. Can't a man give a little girl tea without wanting…ok, forget that, but I don't want anything from you. I think you're a very special little girl and I want to give you a chance to keep being special." He spoke terribly fast and some of it Jenny didn't understand, but he looked into her eyes and held her hands. No grownup had ever done that before.
"Can you take me away…adopt me like? I'd be really helpful! I can clean and I sew a dainty stitch. I never get tired!"
The doctor looked sad all of a sudden and suddenly he seemed old, like the Magistrate she'd been brought in front of once when someone saw her snatching bread, even though he didn't have white hair and wrinkles.
"I'm afraid I can't do that, Jenny. I travel a lot. My…transportation isn't suited for children. But I promise you I will come back and treat you to nice food and someday you'll get everything you want.
"I guess I do want something from you, Jenny. I want you to be good. Can you do that?"
If Jenny knew anything, she knew that 'good' was a very flexible term, so she had no hesitation is saying yes.
The doctor and the nun walked her back to the orphanage and gave some more sweets to pass around to the other children.
Six months later he appeared again, stopping her as she ran an errand. She felt a bit guilty that she had stolen money in her pocket, but only a little. This time he didn't have the nun with him, but he wasn't a strange man any more. He was still mad, but not scary.
He took her to a teashop and let her order everything she wanted. This time he asked her about her life in the orphanage. She told him about things she'd never told anyone because it made her look weak. How she would go to the younger children when they cried in the night and sing them back to sleep and tell them stories that she made up. How if she got a little money (she hurried past how she got the money) she would get food and share it. For some reason she found she was crying and she was so embarrassed, but the Doctor (she learned it was sort of like a name) looked really sad too like he might cry and passed her a big handkerchief when she started to wipe her nose on her sleeve.
The third time he came she was seven. She'd almost given up seeing him again. He apologized and told her she was very brave for waiting.
This time he took her to a nice house on a nice street. Jenny hadn't known that people could live like that. Everything was soft and clean and smelled nice. There were brightly coloured rugs on all the floors and cushions on the chairs.
"Oi! You said you didn't have a home when I asked if I could stay with you! What's this then?" She was angry and it made tears spring to her eyes, which made her even angrier. She'd trusted him and he'd lied to her, and if he'd lied about this, then he might have lied about everything.
The Doctor came and knelt beside her. "I'm sorry, Jenny. This isn't my home. I stay here sometimes when I come to London, but it's not my home. Are you ready to be brave and have a bit of an adventure?"
The nun came into the room carrying a tea tray. She set it down and pulled back her veil.
Jenny screamed. The woman had the face of a cat. She had orange ginger fur and a blackish-pink nose. Her whiskers twitched at Jenny's scream.
"Jenny, Jenny," the Doctor said in a soothing but commanding voice that made her stop screaming.
"Jenny, this is Sister Marr. She's a good nurse from another race, another planet. She won't hurt you. She's the same as she was when we had our picnic. You liked her then. Is she any different because she looks different than us?"
That seemed logical, so Jenny sat down and had tea with the Doctor and the cat person just as she would have if Sister Marr were a normal human.
Over the next few years Jenny had tea with all sorts of people, or sort of people, many far more unusual in appearance than Sister Marr. There were blue ones and red ones. Some looked like plants and some looked like fish. They were all very nice and told funny stories and taught Jenny games and showed her books in their languages. After each visit Jenny would go back and tell the younger children stories about other worlds.