Through Her Eyes

Summer.

She bent down to touch the velvety green grass that sprung up beneath her unshod feet. It tickled, and that made her laugh. She loved this place more than anywhere else in her world. Home was different, and she didn't like it nearly so much. They'd promised she could spend the whole summer at the farm this year as long as she helped out with the animals and the daily chores. Nature and the animals were what most appealed to her about that place. The way the horses seemed almost a part of the racing wind, the sheep fluffy clouds in seas of stunning green. Sometimes she'd even choose to extend her day's contact with nature by persuading her grandparents to let her sleep outside. On these occasions she liked nothing better than to lie on her back and stare at the stars, thinking about how some groups of stars seemed to form the shapes of animals she'd seen around the farm.

And then there was the lamb, of course. The lamb - her lamb - always missed her when she went back to London. She was sure of that. It matched her gait, prancing joyfully at her side, eyes twinkling. The young girl bent down to embrace her little pet, smiling happily. This was her real home: she was home at last.

Anna Kingsley had raised her tiny pet with the enthusiasm only a child can muster. She'd been its mother and had, one bright and glorious summer, made sure that it got its regular bottles of milk. It had been Anna who, moved to tears by the story of the ewe's death, had taken on the special task of caring for the motherless baby. She was a generous child, forever looking for a way to please and help others.

They were both older and bigger by then, that lamb and the girl. Anna's grandparents permitted her to do more and more around the farm that summer. For the first time she accompanied her grandfather when he went to sell his beef cattle at the agricultural market nearby. She would watch the animals be examined by potential owners and didn't like that very much. These people didn't seem too friendly to little Anna. They stared into the alarmed beasts' faces and rubbed harsh hands all over their backs. She didn't think it was fair, but she was really too young to do anything about it.

Seen and not heard. Children should always be treated under the principle of being seen and never heard. She was, at the age of eight, a useful pair of helping hands, but she was forced to be a silent pair of hands. Get the job done and no chatter. Then her Grandma would let her try at whatever had been baked for teatime that day.

As Anna devoured a crumbly piece of creamy cake or a crunchy biscuit she frequently heard a mournful mooing from the fields. This always made her consider the animals her grandfather had selected for sale. They would like her grandmother's baking too; in Anna's mind, nobody could possibly object to it. She couldn't give them any bits of biscuit or pieces of cake any more, as they had been sent away from the farm. Anna hoped that she would never be sent away by her grandparents. They'd say goodbye to her as they delivered her back at the little country train station in their shining chaise. They told her that she'd be returning next summer as usual. They told her that at the end of every summer. Anna could not help but wonder, petting their horse, Clover, if one summer she might not be asked back. The farm was the only place where she became a free-range child, and could really live in her dreams.

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"Anna, dear. You need to wake up now. This is very important, and I want you to listen. Listen carefully, will you?"

She was listening. She was listening as carefully as she possibly could.

"Your Grandma's all alone now, up at the farm. She wants to move to a cottage, and there won't be much room in a cottage. The animals have already been sold."

The animals - the animals had all been sold?

Little Anna struggled to pull the blanket off her legs and sit up. The room had been very cold recently, and that morning was no exception. She shivered, opening her green eyes slowly and blinking several times, blinking, before focusing on her mother's face. She rubbed her eyes and the face stopped looking all funny and blurry.

"You're going on holiday. Won't that be fun, darling?"

The only holidays she'd ever known were those wonderful summers spent at her grandparents' farm. Her family didn't get to go away on holiday much. She had a faint memory of visiting the beach for a day as a child, and constructing sand castles that had all fallen down. She'd cried when they'd all sunk in the middle. Her architecture rejoined the unstructured flat surface that cut her feet with its hidden shells and stones. She'd attacked them with her little red spade. The paint had started to flake off because the shells and stones were so hard, and her Daddy had rowed her about it. She didn't like the spade or Daddy much after that, and she was glad that they'd never returned to the seaside. She liked the farm a lot better. The grass was kind to her feet and she didn't find the need for self-defence using spades that the paint would all flake off of and get her into trouble.

"To the farm? I like the farm," Anna smiled brightly, her short legs dangling over the side of her bed. She had been listening, she really had. She had been listening carefully, too. She had just been very sleepy, but now, with the prospect of going to her grandparents' farm, she was properly awake and listening.

"No. Not to the farm. Honestly, child, have you been listening to a word I've said?" Anna's mother sighed, shaking her head.

"Yes, Mam. I have been listening. Are we going to the seaside?"

"No, we're not going to the seaside, Anna. And I'm not going with you. You're going somewhere you've never been before. You'll be able to explore. I think you'll like that. You'll enjoy exploring somewhere completely new."

"I like the farm better."

"Well, you can't go to the farm."

"I'd like to go to the farm, Mam, I really would. I like the farm and I won't like anywhere else better. I know I like the farm best of all."

"Anna - you can't go to the farm."

"Why can't I go to the farm?"

"You can't go to the farm. I told you why earlier, when you weren't listening to me. You can't go to the farm, not this summer. I'm sorry, darling," Anna's mother bent down and kissed her daughter softly on the forehead. "You've got to go to the new place. You can explore it and you'll have just as much fun as you did at the farm. You won't understand, but it's dangerous for you here now. I want you to be safe, and you'll be safe at the new place."

The little girl pouted, "It's safe at the farm. I want you to come, Mam. I don't want to go somewhere new and I don't want to go there if you're not coming with me."

Tears glistened in her mother's eyes, "I can't. I can't come with you. I'm sorry, I can't. Anna, you're my brave little girl. You went to the farm on your own. You can go to this new place and explore it all on your own, and I'll write you lots of letters."

"I'd like it better if you can with me, Mam. The farm is different. I know I like the farm. I might not like the new place, but I like you!"

"I can't come with you, dear," Her mother stroked her hair gently, her face now expressionless.

"I don't think I want to go."

"You must, Anna, my dear - you must."

"I don't want to go without you, Mam."

"You don't have a choice. Now your Grandma's leaving the farm we have nowhere to send you, and it's not safe here any more. I love you too much to let you get hurt, and I want to keep you safe. You go tomorrow."

"I have school tomorrow. I need to go to school."

"Yes, you will be going to school. I can't tell you anything else just now, Anna. You'll enjoy finding your way around a strange place and meeting new people. I do love you, Anna, and that's why I'm letting you go."

"I still don't want to go," the girl declared stubbornly, kicking her legs against her bed with increasing vigour.

"It's too dangerous now, pet."

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There they all were, blinking in the dim sunlight of the early morning. Anna blinked several times. Her nightmares went away when she blinked her eyes. This one wouldn't fade. She blinked again and again. She pressed her eyes closed for what seemed like a long time to her. When she opened them it was all the same. The train station loomed in front of her and the other children in her class were flocked together, shivering despite their suffocating school uniform.
"I'm cold," Anna muttered.

Nobody was listening to her. Her mother would have listened to her, but her mother wasn't there. She'd told her daughter that she couldn't bear it, but Anna didn't understand that either. She just wanted her mother to give her one of her lovely warm hugs again and kiss her on the forehead and stroke her hair in that reassuring manner she'd always assumed. She wanted her mother. She didn't feel safe without her mother, and if it wasn't safe for Anna in London any more, wasn't it too dangerous for her mother, too?

She twisted the tag pinned to her coat. It felt uncomfortable - she had decided that she didn't like it at all. Nor did she like the scary mask she was meant to wear if the siren went off. Her mother had told her that it was to keep her safe, but she didn't like it. It was jet black and she thought it looked like the face of a monster.

Anna had never thought that she'd be sent away from all she knew. She wouldn't have minded going to the farm. She loved the farm, but she wasn't being allowed to go to the farm, although she was sure it would be just as safe as wherever she was about to be sent to. The nice policemen had come into school to talk to her class a few months ago. She would never have imagined that what they'd told her about would lead to her being separated from her mother, however imaginative she was. Then there had been the list of clothes she was meant to take with her. She'd forgotten about that until her mother had forced the bundle on her that morning and had wrapped her in this new warm coat over her uniform. Anna really didn't think that she'd ever owned quite as many clothes before, and none as warm or as comfortable as these. Her mother had found them for her somewhere. She didn't know where, but she thought it was good of her kind Mam.

The children in front of her were being hustled onto the train. Why wasn't her Mam here? Anna wanted her to come, but no matter how hard she looked in the swarming crowds, her mother was not one of the parents who had made their way to the station to say their goodbyes.

It was going to be a big adventure. Some of Anna's classmates were chattering excitedly to her, but she wasn't really listening. She'd told them her fantastic tales of the farm and her magical summers in class previously, but they'd always taken them as nothing more than fantasy. Now they wanted to know if cows were real, and if they were going to get to see cows when they went to the country. And sheep - they all were agreed on wanting to see sheep. Anna thought they were simply silly. She knew what sheep and cows were, and they were real. She would normally have been perfectly happy to chat about her experience at the farm in summer, but now when she spoke of the farm she found her eyes filling with angry tears, remembering how her mother had said the animals had all been sold.

"Hurry up now, girl!"

She had been lifted up into the train. Peering out of the steamy window she searched desperately for one last look at her pretty mother's face. No. Mam wasn't there. The only way she could really see it was by closing her eyes tightly and blocking out everything else.

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Anna barely dared to open her eyes again before they arrived. She was pushed along with the flow, sandwiched as she fell through the door. It was all she could do to stay upright. She wanted to cry, but she didn't think it was brave to cry. She was meant to be brave.

Pursing her lips, she was shoved this way and that. Finally she found herself standing in the middle of a large room. Adults so much bigger than herself stared at them from all sides. One fat woman came right up to her and stared.

Anna stared back.

"Fancy, what bad manners! I shouldn't have thought even children from the city would be so ill-mannered! It's awful, the way children are brought up these days. In my day..."

The fat woman shuffled off to examine the next child. Anna was glad. She hadn't liked the fat woman one bit.

"Here, Henry, what about this one?"

"Too old. And - what's that on her face? Eurgh, it's horrible! Quickly, let's move on quickly! I can't bear to look at it. She looks like she has scales on her face!"

A younger woman, younger than the fat woman, screwed her face into an expression of severe disgust, held her handkerchief to her face so she didn't need to witness Anna's offending face any longer, and proceeded to look at the next child.

Anna scowled. She didn't like any of these people! None of them had her Mam's kind eyes. She didn't like them, and she was going to show it. Her Mam had never said that there was anything wrong with her face. Her skin only got all sore when she was away from the farm. It wasn't her fault, and her Mam hadn't cared.

All around her children were being taken away by smiling ladies and gentlemen. They were prettier than her, she knew. But if her Mam had been there - Anna's mother sometimes called her "The apple of my eye" - Anna was sure she would have thought Anna was the most beautiful child present, and she would never have given her up for any of these other children.

"No, no, certainly not that one."

"Too old."

"Her face! No, no, don't make me look at it!"

"Why, she's staring at us. We can't have a child with such awful manners!"

"I don't want a girl. We need a boy to help us on the farm."

"No, no, definitely not the right child for us!"

"No, not that one."

Anna was the last one left standing in the hall. She tossed her head indignantly. She didn't want any of these people anyway, so it didn't matter that they didn't want her. She didn't care. She was blinking like one of the cows her grandfather had milked in the mornings at the farm, her long eyelashes dampened by furious tears. She had to be brave or her Mam would be disappointed. Perhaps if nobody wanted her her Mam would come and take her home again. Or her Grandma might appear and take her in after all. She couldn't cry in front of them. She had to pretend that she couldn't hear them. She couldn't care less.

"She's the only one left. You're a little late - we started here hours ago."

"You're sure there's no others? Very well. My husband will just have to understand. He wanted a boy, you see. But no matter. He'll see that I need to do my duty. Thank you. I'll take her now - Joseph will be waiting."

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"I don't like it here. I want to go," Anna's voice fell to a whisper as she cuddled her teddy, "home."

They were somewhere in Wales. Anna was sure that the strict old woman who had taken her brought her here from the hall had told her her name and yet she couldn't recall it. The woman didn't like her, the woman's husband didn't like her, and she didn't like the woman or the woman's husband either. No, she didn't like them. She didn't like their house and she didn't want to have to stay with them.

There were so many rules, and Anna was sure that she had broken them just by walking in the door. She could only wash at a certain time in the morning so she didn't disturb the old woman's husband. He didn't like children, and he especially disliked little girls. Especially not little girls who cried and talked to teddies and couldn't help him the way a boy could.

She closed her eyes.

She remembered the beautiful farm. Her baby, her lamb. As she tucked herself in with her teddy she knew that she had also lost her mother in coming here. Her mother wasn't dead, but had been cruelly separated from her.

Running a finger down the side of her face, Anna trembled. Her skin felt all bumpy. She was an ugly child, and now even her mother had abandoned her because she wasn't good and she wasn't pretty.

The tears stained her teddy's fur.

She wasn't brave. She was just a little girl.