The Princess and the Suffragette by Holly Webb

Author:Holly Webb
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic UK
Published: 2017-01-10T05:00:00+00:00

“Lottie.”

Lottie blinked, the smiling dream of her mother fading away.

“Lottie, it’s time. You coming?”

She stared at Sally in the half-light of the morning, and the older girl sighed.

“Wake up. You told me to wake you, remember? Hurry, Lottie, we ain’t got long.”

Lottie sat up in a rush and flung off her blankets, scrambling out of bed and grabbing for her dress and petticoats. “Wait, wait. I won’t be a minute.”

Her heart was thumping and her fingers kept slipping on the mother-of-pearl buttons down the front of her dress.

“Here, give me that.” Sally took over, buttoning swiftly, and Lottie sighed. “Aren’t you nervous at all?”

“’Course I am. I just want to get it done. Come on.”

Sally led them down the stairs and through the green baize door into the kitchens, which were dark and smelled of cabbage and burned grease. Lottie shuddered, still half-asleep, and as Sally unhooked the key and started up the area steps to the street, she started to feel sick. She clenched her fingers around the sticks of chalk in her pocket and felt one of them snap.

“Here?” Sally whispered, as they stood by the steps leading up to the grand front door.

Lottie nodded. “‘Votes for Women’, really big. And then ‘Deeds not Words’ underneath.”

“All right.” Sally flinched as a milk cart rattled by and the driver peered at them curiously. “We need to keep an ear out. There might be more deliveries. Or servants who live out walking to work, even. We can’t get caught.”

“I know. I promise we won’t. And if we do,” Lottie added suddenly, “you can pretend that you caught me first. I don’t care what Miss Minchin does.”

Sally laughed, but she sounded too scared for it to be really funny. They crouched down and started to draw out the letters, bumping the chalk over the rough stones of the pavement.

“It’s harder than I thought it would be,” Sally muttered. “The ground’s bumpy. There’s hardly any of this piece left. Most of it’s all over my fingers. Are we going to have enough?”

Lottie shook her head. “Stick to ‘Votes for Women’. There, look. That’s all of it written. We just need to fill it in better. Oh! It’s all over your dress!” Lottie stood up and tried to brush the chalk dust off Sally’s black frock.

“I thought my apron would cover it.” Sally rubbed frantically at the dusty cotton. “Cook’ll see!”

“She won’t, we’ll get it off.” Lottie swiped at the fabric, but the chalk only seemed to be spreading itself around.

“What you doing?”

Both girls whipped round, panic in their faces. They’d forgotten to keep an eye out for passers-by and two boys were standing behind them, smirking.

“‘Votes for Women’, eh? Suffragettes, are you?” They were scruffily dressed and Lottie guessed that they were shop boys or apprentices on their way to work.

“Yes,” she said, raising her chin. “What’s it to you, anyway?”

“Bunch of old cats. You’re too young and pretty to be one of them, sweetheart. Here, give us a kiss.” The boy

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