the young inmates at the old Bridewell Prison. It was the only meal to be prepared fresh every day, with mounds of fluffy white eggs, steaming biscuits and gravy, or porridge, the inconsistency of which could be forgiven with the sprinkling of sugar and cinnamon,and sometimes great chunks of cooked apple. Lunch was often little more than bread and cheese and canned fruit, and supper a bowl of some stew that had been set to simmer throughout the day. But breakfast, with its strips of bacon or fat little sausages, felt like a meal a girl could get in a real home.
Even so, it didn’t compare to the sumptuous feasts Dana had enjoyed when she was first taken away, when she’d lived in the cozy cell at the back of the Highland Park police station. There, some kind sergeant’s wife had brought her a piping hot meal three times a day on a plate covered with a blue-checked towel. Cookies sometimes, too, though Dana pocketed those to give to her mother on her frequent visits. It was the best food she’d ever eaten. The most abundant and reliable, and she’d swallowed a good bit of guilt with every bite.
In those first days, Mama promised, over and over, that everything was going to be all right. That she would talk to Mr. DuFrane. She would make him understand, convince him to talk to the police, the judge, whoever he could, to let Dana come home to her.
“He has money,” she’d said. “You would be surprised, my girl, how important money is in this world.”
Then, one day, Mama didn’t come to visit. Or the next, or the next. On the next, they brought Dana here.
This morning they had great slabs of fried cornmeal, served with a slice of bacon and hot, sweet tea in their battered tin cups. Coal Grubber could only look at her food with distrust, until Dana took a bite, proving its harmlessness. Even then, the girl nibbled with such deliberate slowness that Dana feared she might not finish before the bell rang to send them to their morning lessons. Or, worse, that Mrs. Karistin would come and take her plate away, consuming all that remained in a single, furtive swipe.
“Eat,” Dana urged, tracking Mrs. Karistin’s movements.
“If she won’t, I will.” Carrie reached her fork across the table in an attempt to spear a slice of bacon, but at the last minute, Coal Grubber snatched the plate away, her little brows knit in defiance. Up and down the long, narrow table, the girls laughed and cheered her on, and for the first time, she didn’t appear to be on the verge of tears. In fact, she smiled in a way that made two tiny ridges appear on the bridge of her nose, and she attacked her breakfast with an almost-carefree abandon.
After breakfast the girls spent an hour with Mrs. Poole, a thin, pinched-face woman of indeterminate age, who read exactly ten pages of What Katy Did . It was Dana’s third time to sit through the novel, and she liked it even less with each repetition. She much preferred the third in the series, when Katy experiences her adventures in Europe, but her favorite book by far was Little Women , with its cozy family of a mother and daughters and all their promising futures.
Once she’d read the final page for the day, Mrs. Poole wrote a question on the small blackboard at the front of the room. Why is Katy a brave girl? Dana, being one of the older girls, was charged with handing out the copybooks and pencils as the girls were instructed to turn to the next blank page to write an answer to the question. The littlest girls, or those who could not write, needed only wait for a few moments and Mrs. Poole would write a sentence on the board for them to copy ten times over. Something like, She is brave because she has learned to walk again.
“I don’t think she’s brave at all,” Carrie whispered, refusing even to open her copybook. “I think she’s a stupid girl who deserves to be crippled forever.”
Dana ignored her and began writing the same answer she’d written the last time Mrs. Poole asked
Even so, it didn’t compare to the sumptuous feasts Dana had enjoyed when she was first taken away, when she’d lived in the cozy cell at the back of the Highland Park police station. There, some kind sergeant’s wife had brought her a piping hot meal three times a day on a plate covered with a blue-checked towel. Cookies sometimes, too, though Dana pocketed those to give to her mother on her frequent visits. It was the best food she’d ever eaten. The most abundant and reliable, and she’d swallowed a good bit of guilt with every bite.
In those first days, Mama promised, over and over, that everything was going to be all right. That she would talk to Mr. DuFrane. She would make him understand, convince him to talk to the police, the judge, whoever he could, to let Dana come home to her.
“He has money,” she’d said. “You would be surprised, my girl, how important money is in this world.”
Then, one day, Mama didn’t come to visit. Or the next, or the next. On the next, they brought Dana here.
This morning they had great slabs of fried cornmeal, served with a slice of bacon and hot, sweet tea in their battered tin cups. Coal Grubber could only look at her food with distrust, until Dana took a bite, proving its harmlessness. Even then, the girl nibbled with such deliberate slowness that Dana feared she might not finish before the bell rang to send them to their morning lessons. Or, worse, that Mrs. Karistin would come and take her plate away, consuming all that remained in a single, furtive swipe.
“Eat,” Dana urged, tracking Mrs. Karistin’s movements.
“If she won’t, I will.” Carrie reached her fork across the table in an attempt to spear a slice of bacon, but at the last minute, Coal Grubber snatched the plate away, her little brows knit in defiance. Up and down the long, narrow table, the girls laughed and cheered her on, and for the first time, she didn’t appear to be on the verge of tears. In fact, she smiled in a way that made two tiny ridges appear on the bridge of her nose, and she attacked her breakfast with an almost-carefree abandon.
After breakfast the girls spent an hour with Mrs. Poole, a thin, pinched-face woman of indeterminate age, who read exactly ten pages of What Katy Did . It was Dana’s third time to sit through the novel, and she liked it even less with each repetition. She much preferred the third in the series, when Katy experiences her adventures in Europe, but her favorite book by far was Little Women , with its cozy family of a mother and daughters and all their promising futures.
Once she’d read the final page for the day, Mrs. Poole wrote a question on the small blackboard at the front of the room. Why is Katy a brave girl? Dana, being one of the older girls, was charged with handing out the copybooks and pencils as the girls were instructed to turn to the next blank page to write an answer to the question. The littlest girls, or those who could not write, needed only wait for a few moments and Mrs. Poole would write a sentence on the board for them to copy ten times over. Something like, She is brave because she has learned to walk again.
“I don’t think she’s brave at all,” Carrie whispered, refusing even to open her copybook. “I think she’s a stupid girl who deserves to be crippled forever.”
Dana ignored her and began writing the same answer she’d written the last time Mrs. Poole asked
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