‘Hey! You!’ Jane Gale had started picking on her only days after she’d first started work in the hospital sewing room. When the first jab had occurred she’d smiled weakly and took it as a joke. ‘That hurt,’ she’d said, but had kept her smile as she said it. To turn the other cheek was the wrong thing to do when it came to Jane Gale. Retaliation and exchanging like with like was the only thing she truly understood. Marcie badly wanted to bash her one, but held back. Jane Gale was also something of a sneak. It didn’t help that she was Miss Pope’s niece and as such attracted some degree of protection. ‘Hey! You!’ The jabs were always accompanied with the same exclamation. Sometimes Marcie considered that Jane Gale practised those same words every night in front of the mirror. She wasn’t the brightest girl she’d ever met and her vocabulary echoed the fact. Being a bully was Jane Gale’s way of communicating that she really was better than Marcie, even if she could barely string two words together.
