this kind of weather, homeless children like Elsie perished in doorways. They would go to sleep and never wake up, to be found at dawn with a dusting of frost on their faces.
Poor Elsie was HUDDLING in her tin bath under a pile of newspapers, trying to keep warm.
She looked at her hands. They were shaking with the cold, and turning blue. The girl almost missed
Elsie sneaked into the NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM at closing time, behind a troupe of nuns so the security guard wouldn’t see her. Once inside, she scuttled along the long corridors, past the dinosaur bones hanging on wires that looked like giant ghosts, and eventually found an unlocked cupboard. She crept inside, and closed the door. It was a cleaning cupboard and too small in which to sleep lying down, so she slept standing up, with her head nestled between some mops. She looked not unlike a mop, as skinny as a rake with a shock of tangled hair on top.
Elsie was sure no one would find her in there. But she was wrong.
Very early the next morning, before dawn, Elsie was woken by a cleaning lady opening the cupboard door. The woman yawned and grabbed the first “mop” she could find. It was actually Elsie.
“Aaahhh!” screamed the lady.
“ARGH!” screamed the girl.
Elsie was being held by the neck.
“You’re not a mop!” said the lady.
“No. I’m a girl.”
“What are you doing in my cleaning cupboard?”
“I was sleeping. I didn’t want to die of the cold.”
“No, you don’t want to do that.”
Elsie gulped. “Are you going to tell on me, missus?”
The cleaning lady did the last thing the girl was expecting.
She smiled.
Most of the time, grown-ups treated urchins like Elsie with cruelty. Not this lady. She was different.
“No! You’re not going to tell on me, are you?” asked the lady.
“Tell on you?” replied the girl. Elsie was befuddled.
“I could lose me job over this.”
“No, no, no. Never. I’m not a snitch.”
“Thank goodness for that. Me neither. What’s your name?”
“Elsie.”
“I’m Dotty. Dotty by name and, I’m told, dotty by nature. Are you a child?”
The girl was confused. She thought that was obvious. “Yes.”
“I only ask because you are taller than me gentleman friend.”
“How tall is he?”
“Titch is shorter than you. That isn’t his real name. That’s the name all the other soldiers gave him.”
“How old is he?”
“Seventy-three.”
“Has he shrunk?”
“Nope, God made him that way.”
Dotty pulled out a dog-eared photograph from her pocket. “Here’s Titch.”
Elsie looked at the picture. It must have been taken a while ago, as it showed a young soldier in uniform holding a gun that was taller than him.
“He is small,” remarked the girl.
“He’s bigger in real life than in the photograph.”
“I guessed that,” replied Elsie.
“He’s my hero!” said Dotty as she kissed the picture, before putting it back in her pocket. “So, I bet you’re hungry.”
The girl nodded her head. “Ravenous!”
Elsie was always so hungry her tummy hurt. Dotty reached into another pocket.
“Here, have me packed lunch. Bread and dripping.”*
Smiling, Elsie took the food. She tore a crust of bread into halves, and handed a piece back to the lady. Both were touched by the kindness of the other.
Elsie devoured her half greedily. It was only bread and dripping, but to her it was the nectar of the gods.
“Where’s your mum and dad, little one?”
“Dunno. Never met them.”
“Orphan, then, are you?”
“Suppose so.”
“Poor thing.”
“There’s no point feeling sorry for meself. I gotta get on with it.”
At that moment, they both heard bootsteps
The lady lifted her finger to her lips to mime “Don’t say a word” and hurriedly shut the door.
Elsie stayed as still and quiet as she possibly could in the cleaning cupboard. Through the door, she could hear the grown-ups arguing.
“WHO ARE YOU TALKING TO, DOTTY?” boomed a voice.
“Just me mops and brushes, Mr Clout, sir,” replied Dotty.
“A likely story, Dotty!” the man scoffed. “As the museum’s head of security, I order you to open that door!”
“I can’t.”
“What do you mean, you can’t?”
“Me
