The Mermaid in the Millpond by Lucy Strange

Author:Lucy Strange
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Barrington Stoke Ltd
Published: 2022-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

“What on earth is going on out here?” Miss Tucker bellows. “Is that you over there, Piecer? Trying to escape again?”

And before I can scramble to my feet, she has grabbed a handful of my hair.

*

The beating I get is worse than last time. Twice as many strikes. But somehow I feel it less than before. I think the cold water has numbed my legs. That and the shock of everything that just happened – half-drowning in a weir, being rescued and then attacked by a monstrous mermaid …

It is dawn now. The others will all be eating their breakfast, getting ready for another day at the machines. I wonder if I will be allowed to go back to the dormitory, but Miss Tucker has other plans.

She marches me to an old stone warehouse attached to the farthest end of the mill building. Miss Tucker opens the door and shoves me inside. “You’ll stay in here today, Piecer!” she bellows. “Nothing to eat all day. Nothing till tomorrow morning. Maybe then you’ll start behaving yourself.”

She slams and bolts the door, and it is suddenly completely dark.

I crouch down and feel about with my hands. I find something scratchy and softish that feels like a pile of old sacks. I sink down onto them, shivering in my soaked nightclothes. My stomach growls. A whole day in here with no food at all? What will I do?

Sleep, my body says.

And somehow, I actually do fall asleep, despite the hunger and the pain and the cold. It’s almost instant – a deep, dreamless, exhausted sleep.

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