4.3
Back at Scratton her dark gloom descended, shoving aside her recent joys like so many irrelevant toys. She was sitting on the edge of her bunk watching Heather sort through the contents of her bag. ‘There’s something creepy about this place,’ she said.
‘What makes you say that?’ Heather said without looking up.
‘Echoes. I feel echoes of the children.’
‘You make it sound like an asylum.’
‘Perhaps it was.’
‘Fairbridge has a good reputation. Well, better than most.’
‘If Mrs Thoroughgood was able to terrorise her students in a primary school in Rockingham in the nineties, it isn’t hard to imagine far worse occurring out here.’
‘Mrs Thoroughgood wasn’t that bad.’
‘Wasn’t she?’
‘She was strict but not cruel.’
Yvette could scarcely believe Heather meant what she said. Mrs Thoroughg
