The Ripponden War

Chapter 3

Dedicated to Martha Hogg who got me started on wattpad xx

Chapter 3

 Okay so I know that this isn't your usual Wattpad story but i wanted to write a story that i would enjoy and not write it for the general wattpad community. i know i might not have that many reads but i just cant stop writing this story so i really hope you enjoy it :) xx

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The picking.  Oh god I can remember it to this day. I remember thinking it was like a slave auction. I remember that first site of Rippondale. The great moors and the tiny cottages.  The little babbling brooks. I hated it at first. I wanted to go back home. I still do. I wish my life wasn’t how it turned out. Life seemed so promising when I was 12. I was going to be a famous author and have a family with Mr right. How wrong I was. You might have noticed that  this story isn’t going to have a happy ending. Well true stories never do, do they? But I am getting ahead of myself. I must start at the auction. Well that was what we called it…..

The train journey seemed to drag on for years. Even though I had Tom with me struggling to cheer me I could see my mother, tears streaming down her face. Her last hug, I could still smell her on me. I took great care not to change that. I wanted the smell to stay on the dress forever. I decided to write a letter to her. I know it was fast but I was missing her already.

Mother

I am so sorry this letter is fast as you told me to write every week and I guess I will be using it up but I miss you too much. I know you told me not to but I can’t help it. I want you to know that I am fine. I have met a really nice boy who is about me age and is being evacuated to Ripponden like me. He is very nice and cheery. Everyone else is sad. We are nearly there now but I don’t want to arrive. At least now it feels less permanent but at least I have Tom now! He is very nice and funny an………..

Tom peered over to look at my letter. I felt a sudden rush of anger.

“What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing, this is my private letter to MY mother!” Tom’s face dropped and his eyes became clear pools once again.

“I’m really sorry Dotty, I didn’t realise that it was private I would never intrude… I’m so sorry!”

I felt really guilty. I hadn’t meant to snap at him. I was just tired and just annoyed at the world. He was my only chance of a friend here. I knew no one else.

I hung my head and sighed “I’m so sorry Tom; I didn’t mean to snap at you, I’m just really tired.” I was relieved to see him smile and his eyes return to misty blue. I had only known him for a few hours but it felt like I had known him forever. The boy by the window was the only one left in our carriage apart from us now. He let out a low grunt and we both turned. My breath caught in my throat and my heart stopped for a second. The scene I saw out of the window is the most beautiful scene I have ever seen. I was a city kid and had never seen the country. It was dusky twilight and all I could see was the silhouettes of cottages and the odd hay bale. But then I saw a wood with the purplish light making the trees look like giant walls of glistening, golden brick. The evening sun hit the water of a gushing river and it seemed to burst into millions of miniscule diamonds. I couldn’t look away. I was enthralled in the intense beauty of the place. Tom was looking at the place in the same way. I expect that most of us were. It was just like a scene in a painting. I wanted to stay in that trance forever but my reverie was broken by the train grinding and screeching to a halt. That was when it hit me. Like a sudden blast of wind, no, more like a ton of bricks. I was here. This was my new home. I would see this every day. I was not going back to London for a long time. I felt like breaking down and crying but I knew I couldn’t. Who would want an evacuee with bright red eyes.

We arrived at the village hall after a long walk form the station. I was tired, hungry, cold, annoyed and homesick. I wasn’t in the mood for any picking. Who would want me. I don’t know the country that well. Maybe they thought red heads were like devils! Then no one would want me! But I can’t think like that. I need to believe in myself. Stand tall that was what my mother had said. So in I went and it automatically felt like one of the stuffy old antique auctions that my mother used to take me to. There were lots of old men wearing smart, sensible tweed jackets and children wearing little shorts that showed their knobbly , dirty knees. Then there was the posh people. The men in their penguin suits or ‘tuxedos’ to give them their proper name and the women with their flamboyant dresses and red lipstick. I wondered who would want me? Rich or poor. The lucky ones got the rich people I had heard. They had an easy life.

I spotted Tom over by the corner of the room being prodded at and examined by the ‘buyers’. I made my way over there and stood on the platform next to him. He flashed me a funny face as if to say help. I snorted and the woman who was next to me looked up. She didn’t look bad not too rich or poor. She looked me up and down and called over her husband. I didn’t like the way they were looking at me, like they were examining a new lamp not a child. But they seemed nice enough so I smiled and smiled until my mouth ached and my eyes hurt but it obviously worked because they came over to me again and said to the chaperone,

“ We will have this one”

I looked over a Tom who caught my gaze. He was being led away by a farming family and looked thoroughly miserable.  I hoped he was near me. I didn’t think I could go this alone.

And so just like that I had a new family, a new life and a new home. I had been picked, and the future was uncertain.