The Jewel Thief

Leaving

NINE YEARS LATER

If you've ever been to one of the Earl's parties, you know a load of rubbish about us, the Murgatroyd sisters. The Earl always tells the same stories to all of his guests so that nobody knows the truth. To be honest, I can't really blame him because the truth is rather odd and sad, and also, I know that the Earl never wanted us to be his adopted children in the first place. So, if you have been to one of his parties (which I hate, because Maddie and I have to prepare for them all by ourselves, and he has them about once a month) I would prefer you knew our real story, not the big lie that we're his second cousins living in his house because our family is in prison. So listen to my story, and you shall find out.

Maddie and I are orphans. Yes, now you know that it's going to be sad. If you don't like sad things, then I advise you not to keep reading. Dad left to fight in 1943 when I was only three. We lived in London with Mum and Granny for a year, until one night in 1944 Mum had to go out to the hospital urgently to help some people who got injured, because she was a nurse. She didn't come back. Her body was never found, and nobody saw what happened to her but we still had a bit of a funeral for her around a fire, saying prayers. I was only four but I remember it very well. After that, we continued to live with Granny for a few months. During that time we got a telegram reporting Dad "missing in action', which means that they had no idea where he was and he was probably dead. I didn't think he was dead, though. Maddie says it was probably because I didn't really understand death, but I know that it was because Dad promised me he would come home. I believed that he was going to come home. But he didn't come home. And unfortunately, Granny died of a common sickness a few weeks later.

Maddie and I were taken to an orphanage, but one day Maddie and I snuck out to look at the war scene – my idea. I was five. It was rather idiotic, I have to admit – Maddie, who was nine at the time, tried to persuade me against it, in vain – but it turned out to be a life-saving idea. When we were just a little ways away, an air raid began. That meant the Germans were bombing again. Everyone started running down the stairs towards the bomb shelter. The manager of the orphanage screamed at us to get in the shelter with them. Maddie took my hand and ran back, pulling me along with her, but before the manager could even finish her sentence, a bomb hit the orphanage and everything was lost, including about fifty people and our records. They had been too late to get into the bomb shelter. At the time, I didn't know what records were, but Maddie explained to me that records were documents that had our backgrounds and information in writing, like who our parents were, if we were or were not fostered, things like that. Our birth certificates were in there as well, so there was no record of our names, or anything to do with our life. After the bomb hit, Maddie and I had nowhere to go. We lived on the streets for a few days, miserable and wondering what our lives were to become. We took refuge down in the tube stations with everyone during the air raids, sleeping on the cold, concrete floors, since we didn't have any blankets or bedding. Those nights were probably the worst of my life. When there were no air raids, we just sat on the streets, going numb from cold. This lasted maybe a month or two, since we completely lost track of time. Eventually, a nice lady who we later found out was named Charlotte Grayson spotted us.

She asked us what we were doing, which was looking for any food that was public domain – unlikely, nobody was about to feed a couple of random kids. Well, sometimes we looked so sad and forlorn that some people chucked coins at us, or threw us the rest of their rationed food (those were the happiest moments, and we tore at the food like wolves) I know you're not really supposed to talk to strangers, but we were really desperate and had no way of going to live with anyone else, so we had to trust her. We also told her our orphanage had been bombed, our Mum was dead, and Dad was M.I.A. Well, it was mostly Maddie who did the talking. I just sort of sat there and said a couple of silly things (I was five, it's no surprise). She seemed to be touched by the story that was so normal to us and kindly offered to let us stay with her (even though there was a war going on!) until we could find official guardians (mind you, we never did). So we went back to Kew Gardens with Charlotte, and Maddie and I were very glad we could live with this wonderful, kind woman. We thought things were going to be much better.