COLD OUTSIDE

 The white painted vertical timber slats, joined together by two long timbers, one top, one bottom, swayed gently in time with her rocking back and forth as Lucy sat on the low fence post joining a series of timbers, just watching. The dog behind her growled but spluttered and coughed, a long chain clipped to its choke chain collar tightening as it tugged, gouging out the dirt of the yard. Oblivious, the heels of Lucy’s shoes bumped a thumping rhythm on the post. Grey skirt, red shirt, grey socks rolled untidily around her ankles, her school uniform. Bruised knees. Brown leather school bag dusty at her feet held so tightly between dusty lace up shoes. Scuffed toes scraping dirt and stones. Maybe she had a fear of snatchers, anything for a laugh, that was her school, one that appeared to despise newcomers. 

If you were to ask, at this precise moment, at the end of her first week, what she thought of this Monday’s school day she would say, pretty ugly. The tears she felt like shedding as her hair twisted round the fingers of a particularly unfriendly boy. Head tugged back and laughing eyes staring into her pain. But no tears for her. This was a tough one who well knew the perils of showing weakness. Her family, an army household that moved around. She took the bumps, the not so subtle shoves that landed her on her knees and then there was the worst thing of all, the whispering of catty girls. The cutting comments because she was different. The cliques. Those tight groups. Power in numbers with no way in for the new ten year old, with the frown, the strange accent and skin a shade or two darker than theirs who was firmly stuck on the outside.

Nothing new for her though, the first week, she’d experienced it what seemed a thousand times before, at least that, sometimes for months until at last someone, for some reason, had said a few small words, or maybe, as happened this time no words at all, just a simple nod, a come on wave, then she knew she had been accepted.

Her frown had become a scowl as she sat, shuffling, scuffing and twisting the satchel strap around her fingers. A cracking thud of wood hitting rubber. A yell, catch it, but she didn’t move just watched the girl running her way. Reaching, jumping, missing as the ball slipped through her fingers and flew over Lucy’s head to land ten feet past the straining dog. A collection of kids, all ten-years-old or thereabouts, hanging on the fence, rocking it, ignoring Lucy and all staring at the ball, at the dog, at the ball again, at the girl who should’ve caught it. The inference in that look at her so easy to decipher. But she was scared, that much was plain to see and didn’t move despite the intense goading.

Lucy stood, swung her legs over the fence and walked towards the dog. Scared? Of course, did she let the dog see, no way. Instead she sternly yelled in as deep a voice as she could muster, “Sit, leave,” and that’s what the dog did and she collected the ball, hopped back over the fence and handed it to the girl with slippery fingers and returned to her perch.

They dispersed back to the rounders pitch. The girl, though, was last to move. It was her who nodded, who waved the come on wave and gave her the bat. The others, they carried on happy with the new addition to their numbers. Their clique had just grown. For Lucy, she felt herself warming to her new friends. One thing she was well aware of was how cold outside it was, on your own, just waiting for the warmth on the inside with new friends.

Her savior, the dog’s owner, appeared from the house maybe to see what the commotion was all about. Lucy passed his place everyday with the dog outside restrained by the clattering chain as the postman came and the owner stood on the porch and yelled, “Sit, leave.”