Lottie Project Read online

  ‘OK, OK. But this is in a supermarket. You get socking great industrial cleaning machines. I quite fancy charging about with one of those.’

  She didn’t mean it, of course. She was just being brave.

  ‘It’s two hours every morning, that’s all. Sixty-two pounds,’ said Jo, tearing out the advert.

  ‘That’s not enough to pay the mortgage.’

  ‘I know. But look, there are heaps of other adverts for cleaners. I could go after them too. Listen. “Private house, cleaning, some ironing, nine to twelve, Mondays and Thursdays, thirty pounds”. And then there’s this one here, they want two hours’ cleaning daily plus someone to look after a little boy after school.’

  ‘You don’t want to be lumbered with someone else’s little boy,’ I said.

  ‘I don’t want to be lumbered with my own great big girl if she’s going to be so picky,’ said Jo. ‘Look, Charlie. I haven’t got any choice. I’ll keep on trying to get a proper job but until that happens I might as well earn what I can. It’s lousy money but it all adds up. So shut up about it, OK?’

  I shut up. Jo phoned the supermarket and they told her to come along for an interview. She rushed off. I sat by myself, feeling fidgety. Then I got out my notepad and a big fat felt tip pen. I wrote out my own advert.

  STRONG RELIABLE SCHOOLGIRL

  WANTS WORK. WILL DO SHOPPING,

  RUN ERRANDS, WHATEVER YOU WANT.

  APPLY MISS C. A. K. ENRIGHT,

  NO. 38 MEADOWBANK.

  WORK

  I’ve got work. I earn eleven pounds a year. One pound for every year of my age.

  I did not tell anyone my real age. I swore I was thirteen, going on fourteen. I do not know whether anyone believed me. I put my hair up and lowered the hem of my skirt as far as it would go. At least I looked respectable in my mourning clothes.

  I went to a domestic service agency in town. They said they had just the job for me. But when I went to the house and saw the cross sulky face of the Mistress I wasn’t so sure. I did not find out what the Master did for a living, but it was easy to tell he was not a gentleman. They wanted a maid-of-all-work and I could see at once I’d be toiling all day long and well into the night, and scolded all the time no matter what pains I took. I am willing to be a servant but I will not be a slave.

  I went back to the agency and said the first position wasn’t suitable. They seemed astonished at my effrontery, but sent me after another position. I thought at first this was more likely. It was in a grand house with six servants. I was to be the nursery maid, helping the upper-nurse care for a little boy.

  I do not care for little boys. My brother Frank has always been a great trial to me. I believe he takes after Father. I certainly did not care for this little boy, who stuck out his tongue in a very rude manner and then kicked me hard upon the shin. I did not care for the upper-nurse either, who had a face like a boot and long nipping fingers like button hooks. But I would have taken the position even so, if it weren’t for the Master of the house. He was a widower, and I was all prepared to feel sorry for him if he were still mourning his late wife. Ha!

  This gentleman patted me at the interview and said I was a fine-looking girl fresh from the country. His eyes slid sideways and I detested the way he was looking at me. He might be a gentleman but he didn’t act like one. I knew he would be quick to take liberties and if I complained I would be sent packing with no reference. I am young but I am no fool.

  I went back to the agency yet again and said the second position wasn’t suitable either, and I said why, too. This time they were appalled at my impertinence. How dare I criticize my Betters? But they gave me one last chance. I knew I had to take it this time.

  I do hope it is third time lucky. I am employed by a mistress who wants a young nurse for her three children, Victor who is six, Louisa who is four, and baby Freddie who is still in petti-coats. I did not meet the Master, but I shall have to hope for the best. There are two other servants in the household, a cook and a housemaid. I hope they will be friendly.

  I am not sure about this mistress. She does not look cross but she seems very firm. She told me my duties in great detail. I must light the fires when I get up and dust the day nursery, I must dress Louisa and help Victor with his boots and buttons, I must attend to the baby, and then we have breakfast. Victor and Louisa are then to be sent down to their mother while I wash and dress baby Freddie and give him his bottle and put him back in his cot. I must then clean and tidy the night nursery and then dress the children in outdoor clothes and take them for a walk. They will have a rest on our return while I brush their clothes and clean their boots, and then I must get them ready for their dinner We are to take another walk in the afternoon when possible, and then after a light tea I must put baby Freddie to bed while Victor and Louisa go downstairs. Then I must put them to bed and tidy the nurseries and eat my supper and then go to bed myself.

  ‘Do you feel you can manage all this?’ she said. ‘You look very little.’

  ‘But I am strong, Madam. I will manage,’ I said determinedly.

  ‘Very good. You can start on Monday. I will give you the print for your uniform and a bolt of cotton for your apron and caps. I hope you are satisfactory at sewing, Charlotte?’

  I blinked at her ‘Charlotte, Madam?’ I said foolishly.

  ‘That is your name, is it not?’ she said.

  ‘No, Madam. I am called Lottie, Madam. It was the name of Mother’s doll when she was small. No-one’s ever called me Charlotte.’

  ‘Well, I do not think Lottie is a suitable name for a servant. You will be called Charlotte whilst you are working for me.’

  FOOD

  Jo phoned me from the town.

  ‘Guess what! I’ve got the job.’

  ‘Great!’

  ‘Well. It’s not really. It wasn’t even a proper interview. It obviously doesn’t matter what you’re like when you’re a cleaner.’

  ‘Still. I bet you’re going to be the best-ever squeakiest-cleanest cleaner they’ve ever had,’ I said.

  ‘The start of a whole new career,’ said Jo. ‘Do you think I’ll make it to the Champion Floor Cleaning Polish trials, hmm?’

  ‘You bet. So you’d better get into training quick. When do you start?’

  ‘Tomorrow.’ I heard Jo gulp. ‘At six. In the morning. Oh, Charlie, I must be mad. I could claim income support and lie in bed till noon.’

  ‘Still, you don’t have to fib to Grandma any more. You really have got a job.’

  ‘I can just imagine what she’ll say when she finds out I’m a cleaner.’

  ‘No, you’re not a cleaner. You’re . . . you’re a state-of-the-floor supervisor, right?’

  ‘You’re a sweet kid, Charlie.’

  ‘I was a snotty kid earlier. You coming home then? I’m starving.’

  ‘Yes, I’ve just got to buy something for tea. I hoped I might get staff discount at this supermarket but that’s only for the women working the tills.’

  ‘Get some red treats for a bedroom picnic to celebrate your job.’

  ‘Hey, we’re economizing.’

  ‘Very cheap red treats?’

  ‘Do you think baked beans could be called red?’

  ‘Just. Get some red plums for pudding.’

  ‘Or red apples. And a block of raspberry ripple ice cream?’

  ‘Yes! And what about a strawberry gâteau?’

  ‘I think that’s coming it a bit, old girl. Beans, plums and ice cream, that’ll do. I’ll be home soon then. You get the trays ready.’

  I padded about the kitchen thinking we really should have a cake to celebrate properly. I remembered this ancient packet of cake mix I’d won on a tombola at the school fête donkey’s years ago. I had a poke around the kitchen cupboard and found it crumpled behind some tins of soup. Jo didn’t go in for making cakes and the only sort I’d ever made were pretend pink dough ones when I was a little kid, but this packet sort looked a doddle. You just had to add an egg. I found one e
gg in a box at the back of the fridge. I thought back to when we’d last had scrambled eggs and it was only about a fortnight ago so it should be all right.

  I tipped the contents of the cake mix packet into a bowl, swished the egg around until it was all sticky, scooped the lot into the tin and shoved it in the oven. Easy-peasy, simple-pimple.

  ‘What’s that lovely smell?’ said Jo when she came in the door.

  ‘A surprise. Hey, congratulations.’

  ‘I’ve got two jobs! I phoned the number where they want someone to look after the little boy as well as do a bit of cleaning. That’s in the afternoon, so it’ll be easy to fit that in too.’

  ‘Where are you going to look after this little boy then? Not round here, I hope,’ I said. ‘I don’t want him messing up all my stuff.’

  ‘He sounds a nice sensible little boy, though he’s very shy. I spoke to him on the phone. And his dad sounds nice too, though ever so sad. His wife left and he’s trying to cope on his own.’

  ‘We cope fine on our own,’ I said. ‘Look, you’re a cleaner now. Why don’t you just stick to cleaning jobs. You don’t want to be a nanny too.’

  ‘It’s seventy-five pounds a week. That’s not bad. If I could find just one more job like that to fit in midmorning then we’d be laughing,’ said Jo. ‘Hey, is your surprise all right? It’s not burning, is it?’

  It had burnt just a little bit, but only around the edges. I decided to cut them off – and then I went on cutting and trimming, turning the round sponge into two letters, a big ‘J’ and a small round circle for the ‘o’. We didn’t have any icing so I smeared some strawberry jam on the top and then studded both letters with Smarties.

  ‘That looks wonderful,’ said Jo. ‘Hey, you’re really good at this.’

  I don’t want to sound disgustingly boastful, but it really wasn’t bad for a first attempt.

  I added a line to my work advert:

  MAKES EXCELLENT CAKES.

  I didn’t show Jo my advert. I wanted to surprise her. But when I took my advert into the newsagent’s and asked Mr Raj to put it in the window he shook his head.

  ‘You can’t work. You’re just a little girl,’ he said.

  ‘Girls work just as well as boys. Better,’ I said indignantly.

  ‘It’s not because you’re a girl. You’re too young. You couldn’t do any proper work.’

  ‘Yes I could! Look, a hundred years ago I could work full time as someone’s servant. I could be scrubbing all day. I’m doing this project about it for school, see.’

  ‘That’s what you should be doing at your age. Concentrating on your school work.’

  ‘You don’t get paid for doing school work.’

  ‘You kids. Just wanting money money money. What do you want? A bike? Roller blades? A computer? My kids want all these things, nag nag nag. If the boy don’t turn up to deliver the newspapers and I ask my boy to help me out then it’s “How much money will you pay me?”’

  ‘I’ll do a newspaper round,’ I said.

  ‘You can’t. You’re too little. It’s against the law, see. Times have moved on since your history project. Kids aren’t allowed to work.’

  I could see I was wasting my time. I tried the newsagent’s down in the town but he said the same. So I decided to use my initiative. I’m quite good at that. I spent most of my spare cash photocopying my advert and then I went round sticking them through people’s letterboxes in our flats and the flats over the road and half the houses down the street.

  I’d put my phone number, so I sat by the phone and waited. And waited. And waited.

  ‘What’s up with you?’ said Jo.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Come on. Are you waiting for a phone call?’

  ‘I might be.’

  ‘Don’t play games with me, Charlie, I’m feeling too dopey to work it out,’ said Jo, yawning.

  She’d started her job at the supermarket and was finding it an awful struggle to get out of bed at five.

  ‘Look, why don’t you go to bed now, get a really early night. You look exhausted,’ I said.

  ‘Why do you want me out the way? Who is it who’s going to phone, eh?’ Jo’s sleepy eyes suddenly sparkled. ‘Hey, it’s a boy!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re waiting for some boy to phone you!’

  ‘I am not.’

  ‘Yes, you are. You’ve got a boyfriend,’ said Jo, giggling.

  ‘Don’t be so stupid. I hate boys.’

  ‘So you say. I know. It’s . . . what’s-his-name? The one you keep going on about at school. The one you sit next to.’

  ‘Jamie Edwards! You have to be joking. I can’t stick him. Sitting next to him is driving me absolutely crazy.’

  I couldn’t believe Jo could be so crackers. I truly detested that Jamie. He was just the most annoying person in the whole world to have to sit next to. He waved his hand in the air so often to answer Miss Beckworth’s questions that I was in a permanent breeze. And every time he got the answer right – which was nearly flipping always – he gave this smug satisfied little nod, as if to say, see, what a super intelligent smartie-boots I am.

  I hated the way when Miss Beckworth set us some work he’d start straight away, his posh fountain pen bobbing up and down as he wrote, while the rest of us were still scratching our heads and ruling margins and looking at our watches to see how long it was till playtime.

  I hated the way his work came back from Miss Beckworth, tick tick tick at every paragraph, and Well done, Jamie! written at the bottom. I got lots of crosses and You could try much harder, Charlotte, and Tut tut, this is very shoddy work, and You can’t fool me by making your writing enormous and widely spaced. You can only have spent five minutes on this work at the most. This is not good enough!

  I didn’t want to be bothered with anything else but learning about the Victorians. I was starting to kind of enjoy writing my project. It was weird. I read stuff in books and then started writing and it was as if this other girl entirely was scribbling it all down. The servant girl. Lottie the nursery maid. She’d started to feel real, like I’d known her all my life. I knew her better than I even knew Lisa or Angela. I just picked up a pencil and all her thoughts came rushing out on the paper.

  I couldn’t stand the thought of Miss Beckworth speckling it with her red biro. It was private. At least we didn’t have to hand our projects in till they were finished, and we had weeks yet.

  Of course You-know-who had practically finished his project already. He didn’t want to keep his project private. He kept flashing it around at every opportunity. He even took it into the canteen with him at dinner time. Well, he did that once. I just happened to choke on a fishfinger and so needed an immediate drink of Coke and in my haste I happened to tip the can over and the merest little spitty bit of froth spattered Jamie’s precious folder. Only the outside. But he declared the posh marbled paper was all spoilt. The next day he carted his project to school, completely re-covered with repro-Victorian wrapping paper, all fat frilly girls in bonnets and soppy boys in sailor suits, yuck yuck. And inside there was page after page of Jamie’s neat blue handwriting with his own elaborate illustrations, carefully inked pictures of railway engines and mineshafts and factory looms, but he didn’t have any train drivers or miners or factory hands because he can’t draw people properly.

  ‘I’ll draw them in for you, Jamie,’ I offered.

  He turned down my generous offer. He didn’t trust me. I wonder why!

  He had lots of proper pictures too, cut out of real old illustrated Victorian papers, and samples of William Morris wallpaper, and photos of Victorian families standing up straight in their best clothes, and real Victorian coins carefully stuck in with Sellotape. Jamie’s file was bulging already. My notebook was small and slim and there were still only a few pages of writing.

  ‘You haven’t done much yet, Charlie,’ said Jamie, snatching it up and rifling through it.

  ‘Give it back,’ I said, trying to grab it.<
br />
  ‘Why have you done it in this funny pencil writing? What’s all this stuff? It’s like a diary. “Well, I do not think Charlotte is a suitable name for a servant.” What are you on about?’ said Jamie, holding it just out of my reach.

  ‘Don’t you dare read it!’ I said, and I gave him such a smack on the head he dropped my book instantly.

  ‘Ooooow! What did you do that for?’ he gasped, clutching his head.

  ‘I warned you,’ I said, clutching my book to my chest.

  ‘You’re mad! If you weren’t a girl I’d sock you straight back,’ said Jamie.

  One side of his face was bright red and the shape of my hand. There were tears in his eyes. I felt a bit worried. I hadn’t meant to hit him quite as hard as all that.

  ‘You can try hitting me back but I wouldn’t advise it,’ I said. ‘Just stop messing about with my private stuff, right?’

  ‘It’s just your Victorian project, for goodness’ sake. And you’re doing it all wrong, not a bit the way Miss Beckworth said.’

  ‘I’m doing it my way,’ I said.

  ‘You’ll get into trouble.’

  ‘See if I care,’ I said.

  Miss Beckworth came into the classroom just then. She gave us all one quick glance – and then fixed her gaze on Jamie.

  ‘What’s the matter with you, James?’ she said.

  I held my breath. It looked as if I was in trouble right that minute. I expected Jamie to blab. He looked as if he were going to. But then he shrugged and shook his head. ‘Nothing’s the matter, Miss Beckworth,’ he said.

  I was amazed. And even more astonished when Miss Beckworth didn’t pursue it. She just raised her eyebrows as if to say ‘You can’t kid me,’ but then she sat down at her desk and started the lesson.

  Jamie started working right away, one cheek still scarlet. I watched him for a while. I struggled with myself. Then I leant towards him. He flinched, as if he was scared I might slap him again.