As Phoebe from 'Friends' would say, Clara Trench was Sarah Laker's BFF. They spent all of Sunday 26th April 1981 getting ready for the school trip the next day, to Gressenhall Workhouse. Sarah's grandfather was helping them with the costumes they needed to make. Victorian smocks and floppy caps - basic white cotton cut into an apron and for the mop cap a circle stitched with elastic to fit on their heads. Sarah's grandfather was doing the sewing, along with a bit of swearing under his breath.

"Bloody needle keeps slipping! How are you coming along with that circle Clara? Nearly done?"

Ten-year-old Clara was perched on the edge of the dining room table, swinging her legs. Her tongue was sticking out of the side of her mouth as she concentrated on cutting out the perfect shape. It made Sarah giggle to see her so intense when she knew just how silly she could be.

"Okay, there you go Mr. Laker. How come you know how to do this? If you don't mind me asking?"

"From my time in the Navy, darlin'. Now, go fetch me that elastic from Sarah."

Clara slipped off, and skipped to the end of the table to snatch up the reel of thin elastic. Sarah couldn't help herself. She threw down the apron she was working on and slapped her hand on top of the reel a millisecond before Clara could claim it.

"Hey," she squealed at Sarah. "That's not fair. I need it."

"You'll have to wait. I'm not finished."

Clara huffed and stood with her arms folded, looking every part of the hard-done-by Victorian orphan in her white smock. Her face scrunched up with fake annoyance.

"Give it now. Please?"

"Eat cheese."

"Pretty please?"

"On your knees."

The old man gave up trying to thread the cotton through the eye of the needle, the girl's incessant prattling upsetting his aim.

"Sarah," he barked, making them both jump. "Give her the bloody elastic right now!"

The girls shot each other a grin and Sarah pushed the reel across the polished surface to her friend. She returned to snipping away the frayed edges of her smock, humming along with Kim Wilde on the radio.

"Have you been to the Workhouse Mr. Laker?" Clara was back in her position, on the corner next to his chair.

He took the reel from her and puffed on his pipe, billows of sweet tabacco smoke curling around his head. He choaked slightly as the girl's phrasing seemed to tickle him.

"Not to live, luckily, but yes. I went there a few times to help out on the restoration of some of the old farm equipment they've got on display, so I know it well enough."

Sarah recalled the nightmare she'd had the night before. She'd told Clara about it and now she had the opportunity to get some reassurance. She cleared her throat and spoke to her grandfather in as normal a voice as she could muster.
"So, have you seen the room with the bars then?"

The old man didn't look up from his work, his reply just as light and airy as her question.
"You mean the punishment cell?"

"Yes. Where the girl cries."

"You don't want to be near there, Sarah. Neither of you need bother with it. It's the residue of a sad, little girl, no point in disturbing it. The gardens are much better to be in."

Sarah watched him carefully. Weighing up the crinkle of the lines on his face, assessing his expression. He must have felt her eyes on him and he flickered a quick glance her way before returning to the costume.

"It's only a memory, Sarah, just something hanging around that wants to find its way home. You don't want to go poking around there. Leave it well alone and there's nothing to worry about." He held out the mop cap in truimph to Clara. "There now. Would you look at that. Perfect for two little Victorian paupers. Now, let's get this cleaned up. You two could do with an early night."

******

Mrs. Wilson counted the children on the bus by tapping each child on the head as she passed on her way up from the back of the vehicle.

"Twenty-seven, twenty-eight, and twenty-nine. Sarah! How are you today?" Her age-spotted hand rested on Sarah's mop cap a few seconds longer. "Your outfit is lovely. So original. You too, Clara. Well done girls."

Clara beamed in delight at the compliment while Sarah, sat next to her, wished a hole in the floor of the bus would open up and let her slide through. It was bad enough that they were sat at the front without more attention being brought to them.

"I'm sure you're going to really enjoy this Sarah, there's nothing like bringing history to life you know!" And with that the curly grey haired elementary teacher wondered off to instruct the driver to leave.

The back of Sarah's seat was immediately thumped in quick, hard succession, followed by a snivelling attempt by Peter Martin to immitate the well meaning teacher. He hung over the head rest of the seat and sneered between the girls.

"Ohhh, Sarah! Ohhhh, I really hope you love this trip, Sarah. And your costume looks so crappy. And ohhh, because your mummy's dead, Sarah. So you get all the best grades, Sarah. Even when you suck so bad, Sarah!"

She'd known this was going to happen, the minute Mrs Wilson had stopped by her. What she hadn't expected was her best friend's reaction.

Swiping with the back of her hand, Clara landed Peter Martin with a resounding smack across his nose. She didn't even bother to look round when she hissed at him.

"You're a very, very nasty piece of work, Peter. Keep your nose out of other people's business or it's going to get smacked off. Get it?"

The bully pushed the back of Sarah's chair with one last thrust of anger, then sulked in silence for the rest of the journey.

Sarah and Clara laughed together, with relief rather than victory. They spent the remainder of the bus ride sharing the headphones of Clara's Walkman and singing along to Kim Wilde's 'Kids In America.' Clara doing the 'Woa oh' parts as loudly as she dared, Sarah spurting out in fits of giggles everytime.

The class trip became dull pretty quick. Once the inital novelty of seeing the museum guides in Victorian costume wore off. The Workhouse building itself was not as ancient as Sarah had thought it would be. In fact, the red brickwork was of the same age as their own primary school, and much the same design.

"I always knew school was really a prison!" Sarah whispered to her friend while they walked through the building. Clara giggled, recieving a scolding look from the middle-aged male guide in the process.

"And here we come to the saddest part of the Workhouse, in my opinion that is, here we have..."

Clara rolled her eyes at Sarah, nudging her with her elbow as the children grouped together around the guide in a narrow hallway, under the sloping underbelly of a staircase.

"This is the place where you would have been put if you didn't behave yourself, do you think you would have liked being in there, in the dark?" The guide peered round at the young faces, clearly enjoying the atmosphere he was creating.

Sarah was tall enough to see over the heads of the group around her. It was a dingy corner, far from the light of any windows, cold from the thick walls. A short grate of strong iron bars, blackened with age, closed the entrance to a very gloomy, small room. It looked nothing more than a cellar, somewhere you'd keep food or old barrels of beer, not people. While Sarah stared into this damp, depressing cell, Clara's voice perked up behind her.

"Did they really lock children in here? Or are you just saying that to scare us?"

"Clara Trench!" Mrs Wilson's reprimand came quick.

Not to be put off, the guide retorted. "Yes. Once seperated into girls and boys, you would be left in here in the dark with no food. Maybe even beaten."

Clara went back to her original past time of nudging Sarah's back. "Go on." She muttered in her ear. "You ask him something now. "

Still fixed on the little room, Sarah took a deep breath and spoke up.

"Why is the floor red? Is it painted that way to hide the blood?"

The other children mumbled and jiggled each other, while the guide leaned over the top of the group to take a better look at the cement floor. He turned back to Sarah shaking his head.

"It's grey. Look again. Now children, if you'll follow me, we'll conclude your visit in the walled garden."

Groans erupted from the group at the thought of another boring garden. Sarah stayed behind with Clara. She came close to the bars, sensing the cool of the metal on her cheek.

"Clara, that floor's red."

Slipping her arm through her friend's, Clara eased her away from the punishment cell to follow the group out into the daylight.

The long grass of the exercise yard was a welcome relief to Sarah. She ran through it, loving the sound her long smock and skirt made against it. The air was fresh and clear, no bad feelings out here. She came to a stop at the tall, crumbling wall which divided the garden.

"Isn't it sad that they couldn't be with each other?" Clara was running her fingers along the scratches of graffiti, carved by inmates into the bricks.

"How do you mean?" Sarah watched the rest of the group move away to wait for the bus home.

"I mean, can you imagine being in love with someone and they forced you to live on a different side of this wall? That's got to be the worst. These poor women, so close to the people they love but not allowed to touch or kiss." Clara's eyes were misting over as her skin caressed the names. "Look- Harriet 1887, and Elenor 1892 - I don't think I could live like that, without..."

Moving in closer, Sarah placed a tentative hand on the back of her friend. Wanting to comfort her, but not quite sure how.

"Without what?" Sarah breathed out gently.

Clara looked up with dark brown eyes, the tears forming bubbles under her lashes. She took Sarah's hand and held it tightly, hot and sticky to the touch.

"Without the one you love."

The moment froze. The wind stopped rustling the grass. The birds were silent.

"Girls!" Mrs Wilson's shout startled them back into the world. They ran as quickly as their feet could carry them and leapt onto the waiting bus.

The journey home was quiet. Sarah used the time to gather her ideas on what had just passed between them in the garden. Clara shut herself away in a world of cassette tape music, her feet tapping along to the tick tick tick, which was all Sarah could make out of the tune.

Pulling up at the end of the lane to Sarah's house, Mrs Wilson opened the door of the bus and gestured for the girls to jump down.

"Alright, Sarah. I do hope you enjoyed yourself today, now I know that Clara's mother gave permission for you to both be dropped off here so I'll say goodbye and see you tomorrow. Bye bye now. "

The door closed and the bus moved off, the three idiot boys on the backseat making faces and giving them the bird through the back window. Sarah and Clara glanced at each other then gave them the finger sign right back.

"Stupid boys. " Clara sighed, tearing off her mop cap and shaking her dark hair loose.

Sarah smiled, happy that the strained proximity of the bus was over. The familiar dirt lane to her home settling her emotions. She set off towards the house.

"I want to tell you something." Clara blurted out. She hadn't moved. "I think it's important."

"I don't know, Clara." That sensation of time becoming stagnant had returned. Sarah walked back to her friend.

"It's simple really, Sarah."

Before she knew what was happening, Clara had stretched out her hand and pulled Sarah into an embrace, gripping her firmly while her lips touched hers with soft, dry ambition.

Sarah stepped back, catching a glimpse of something like fear in Clara's eyes. The last thing she wanted to do was to be the cause of that.

"I'm sorry, Clara." Her words came out alien to her ears. Just random words she knew she was supposed to say, but the reason behind them lost to her understanding. "I just want to be friends. Can we still be friends?"

Clara's face was set in stone. Not a grim expression, but a comical mask of silliness. Her mouth curling up in a smile that wasn't reflected in her eyes.

"Of course!" Her voice was high and light. "See you tomorrow, yes?"

Sarah watched her walk off to the main road to wait for her mother's car.

She made her way down the lane, skipping over the potholes and bringing her heart beat back to a regular pace by the time she reached home. It wasn't as if the kiss was bad, quite the contrary, but it just hadn't been right. Hadn't really meant anything, not the way she supposed that a first kiss should do. All those romantic songs and movies had to be right about it didn't they? The miraculous sensation she had been expecting ended up a pale replica in real life.

She went around the side of the house, so as to come in the back door. That way she'd get to see the kittens in the utility room first. As she came round to the back garden she could hear her grandfather and father arguing inside. She slowed down and instinctively took her time to pass by the dining room window. There they were. She stopped and jumped back beside the window frame before they spotted her. The window was on the latch, as usual, and they were standing beside the dining table, both in an angry stance with equally red faces.

"I can't understand you!" Her father was yelling. "Don't you know what will happen? They'll take me away and then I'll never be able to stop it. It's not something I have any control over anymore. What if they take her away from you too? Have you thought about that?"

Her grandfather's deep boom returned on the same level of volume.

"Neil! For God's sake. Get a grip on yourself. You're the only one who can do that. I can't fix your mind for you."

"But she's so innocent. So fragile. How am I supposed to..." At this point, her father's voice broke as the sound of his crying pierced through the gap in the window and into her heart.

"It's alright, son." Her grandfather's tone was calmer, not so sharp. "I will always be here for Sarah. If you can't be around, for whatever reason, you can be sure that I'm not about to let anything happen to that little girl. Now, ease yourself down, she'll be back soon. You don't want her to see you like this."

She heard her father sobbing and his muffled reply. "No, no, she can't see me like this, don't ever let her see me like this please, Dad."

Curiosity getting the better of her, ten-year-old Sarah peeked into the window. She saw her grandfather holding her father close, one hand resting on the back of his head the other stroking his back. He was staring off in the direction of the kitchen door, his wrinkled face lined with concern. Her father's body was shaking under the strain of his sobs as all the while her grandfather was shushing and reassuring, his eyes blinking back his own tears. She watched and listened as he spoke.

"Don't you go fretting about our little girl, nothing's going to happen to her, not on my watch."