Caught on a Train: Part 4

By CARLO GEBLER

I went downstairs. At the bottom was what we called the kitchen. We didn't have a parlour.

There was also a scullery at the back, more a cupboard than a room really, with a hand pump and a sink that emptied straight into the back yard.

Red coals glowed in the grate under a coat of powdery slack that mother put on last thing the night before to keep the fire in.

I gave the fire a riddle. The ash dropped down and the embers flared up. I put on a shovel's worth of good coal.

The kettle was on the table. My mother always left it ready and filled with water. It held enough to half fill the tin bath.

Once I could barely lift it to hang it on the crane. But now, after six months in the dining-car, I was stronger. It dropped on to the hook over the embers.

Publisher: Mammoth

Price: $16.95

Age group: 10 plus years