"Did you hear what happened to one of the boys yesterday?" Isabel mumbled as we crossed the cobbled courtyard towards the factory.

Behind us, the bell tolled, and the sun was just appearing in the distance, tucked away behind the brick buildings that lined the streets. The sky was a pale pink, a hint of sunlight just appearing in the distance. The morning light shone down on our small piece of courtyard. Every now and then, a cold chill would pass by us causing the two of us to shiver and huddle closer together to try and shield ourselves. Our morning walks from the dormitory to the factory usually consisted of the same things, discussing the rumours from the day before. How much work had been done, whether someone had gotten hurt and most importantly, what sort of mood the foreman might be in.

Every day was the same, no days off, no break in routine. Up early to walk to the factory, a break mid-way through the day for some cold porridge, work until late into the evening before bed. The only time the routine changed was if someone got hurt and that was rare. Getting injured was an instant dismissal and without anywhere to go, we tried our hardest to avoid injury. Being dismissed meant a life on the streets if we lived that long. Factory work was a dangerous thing and each day posed a new threat, some more deadly than the last.

"No, what?" I asked, pulling my shawl further up my arms to protect me from the bitter morning chill.

"He got his arm stuck in one of the machines, they had to halt production for the rest of the afternoon to get him out."

"Was he okay? Did he live, I mean?"

"I don't know. You'll have to ask Lucy, she overheard the foreman talking to Mr Thompson after we finished work."

"I'll ask her during the break. Come on, if we're late the foreman will have us cleaning under the machines."

Together, we crossed the remainder of the courtyard at a slight run, holding onto our bonnets to stop them blowing away in the wind. Our boots slapped against the cobblestone, the sound drowned out by the bell that was slowly coming to an end. Before we entered the factory, we paused outside to make ourselves more presentable, straightening our bonnets and smoothing our skirts. We entered the room and passed by the foreman, his eyes watching us with a glare that would have sent the hardest of men running in fright. As the door closed behind us, the ringing of the bell came to an end, signalling to both us and the foreman that we had not arrived late for our duties.

One second late to the factory floor meant a punishment and that punishment was often to do the most dangerous jobs in the factory. Crawling under the machines to clean the floor underneath. Girls who had been sent this task and were not paying attention often ended up scalped, their hair having been ripped off by the movement of the machine. Some had lost fingers, others had lost their arm, and some had even lost their lives. Being late was something we all avoided if we could help it. No one wanted to be on the receiving end of the foreman's wrath or end up spending the morning crawling on their hands and knees under deadly equipment.

With the foreman still watching me, I crossed the factory floor and headed towards the back of the room, passing the machines that whirred and clicked every time they were moved. At the far end of the room, I grabbed a wooden bucket with a small, metal handle and set about cleaning the fluff from the floor. My job was simple enough, collect all the small pieces of thread that had been dropped during the work to stop them clogging the machine and bringing a halt to the entire workday. One misplaced piece and the entire machine could seize up and halt production. Any pauses in production meant punishment for everyone in the factory. An extra hour of work, extra chores, sometimes they even made us work through the night to make up the loss of the day.

"That was close, Rosie," Suzanna muttered as I passed her. She continued to move the loom back and forth and didn't even stop to look down at me for fear of getting in trouble.

"I know," I replied, keeping my head down.

"You better watch yourself. The foreman won't let you get away with it for a second time."

"We'll be careful, I promise."

Collecting up the recently dropped pieces of fluff, I shuffled past Suzanna, sliding along the wooden floor on the knees. My knees ached the longer I crawled around on the floor, but work had only just begun, and I couldn't just get up and stretch my legs for a moment. The foreman watched our every move, he noticed if we stopped working for a second, he barked at us to move faster and punished those he felt needed punishment. We had learnt to push past the pain and do what we had to do until the bell rang and we could leave for a short break out in the courtyard.

Keeping my head down, I used my arms to propel myself across the floor, sliding on the hem of my dress. My dark hair slipped from its pinned place under my bonnet and fell in loose curls around my face, hindering my visibility a little more than usual. Small beads of sweat collected on my forehead and I used the back of my left hand to wipe it away, to stop it running down my face. My fingers dragged along the wooden floor, collecting splinters as they went and sweeping up small pieces of fluff that were almost impossible to see. Dark smudges appeared on my fingers and my nails were cracked and broken from the work.

By the time the break bell rang, I struggled to stand up. My legs ached and cracked with movement and, with the help of Isabel, we left the factory floor and headed away from the grimy, dark factory and out into the glorious sunlight that bathed the courtyard in heat. Together we joined the line for our daily bowl of porridge, something that was supposed to get us through the afternoon. The hot sun beat down on the back of my neck, replacing the stifling heat with a cool, comforting one. Inside the factory, it was warm and stuffy but outside there was a breeze that cooled us, and the heat was easier to deal with.

After collecting our bowls of cold porridge, Isabel and I crossed the courtyard and slipped into one of my small crevasses amongst all the buildings. Sliding into the shade, we joined Lucy and Suzanna who had already taken up their seats and were tucking into their porridge. It had become a tradition on warm, summer days for the four of us to find the coolest spot in the courtyard to eat and it was always in the small gaps between buildings. The places where the sun was hidden by the rooves and where we were hidden from the foreman's wandering eyes. Here we could discuss anything without getting caught.

"I can't believe you two were almost late this morning. The foreman's already watching you after last time," Lucy said, moving her porridge around her bowl with her spoon.

"We got side-tracked. I was telling Rosie about the boy from yesterday," Isabel said.

"What did happen to him? She never told me the full story."

"Apparently, Mathias was asked to fix a cog in the machine that 'ad come loose. Course, 'e did it without arguing, but the second 'e put the cog in, the machine started moving. 'Is arm was pulled into the machine and got stuck in the cogs. Thompson said they 'ad no choice but to cut it off. Poor kid was dismissed 'cause 'e couldn't work with one 'and."

"The foreman told him to fix the machine whilst it was still on?"

"Yea, there's no other reason 'e would 'ave been pulled into the machine."

"That foreman ain't worth the hassle. More of us have been injured since he took the position and Mr Thomson ain't doing anything about it. When I first started working here, the conditions of the factory floor were more important than the production. Now, it's all about the money, for them both," Suzanna said.

Suzanna was almost the mother of the group, she was the eldest at the factory and had been there longer than anyone which meant she had seen people come and go. She had watched people she had known for years be carried out of the factory with an injury that either ended their position or their life. She had watched the factory transform from a place of safety over profit to a place of profit over safety and she was not happy about it. We had hoped, with Suzanna having as much insight as she did, that maybe she could convince Mr Thompson to change his mind, fire the new foreman and get us someone who wouldn't allow a child to put their hand into a working machine. Unfortunately, it didn't work like that. We didn't have a voice.

When the changes within the factory began to unwind, Suzanna and a lot of the older girls considered going on strike. There were young children doing some of the most dangerous jobs, all of whom put their lives on the line daily and got nothing in return for it. They planned on stopping work completely and abandoning the machines and walking out of the factory until Mr Thompson and foreman agreed to change how things were being done. Of course, it never happened. Once they had gotten the hint of unrest amongst the workforce, both Mr Thompson and the foreman threatened dismissal to anyone who tried to defy them and walk out.

For the time being, we had to sit back, and do as we were told, watch as our friends were hurt for the sake of a few pounds. The group we had was too small to make a difference and a lot of the younger girls refused to stand up against the foreman. They feared being sent to live on the streets with not a penny to spend on bread. In the factory had a bed, food and a shelter from those who might do harm, but they didn't understand that the ones who were doing us harm were the ones who were supposed to be looking out for us. Both our parents and Mr Thompson were responsible for the conditions we faced.

"Not much we can do about it, though. 'Suppose we could wait till the next inspection and tell whoever it is what's really goin' on here," Lucy said, shrugging her shoulders and pulling a piece of thread out of her dress.

"That ain't gonna work, Luc. We've had the same inspector for years now, he's convinced this is a school for criminals or children who have trouble following authority. If we tell him it's really a factory he'll just think we're making it up."

"There has to be a way to stop it. If they don't watch out they'll lose their entire workforce to injury," I said. In truth, they were getting more new workers then they were losing them, so it didn't appear like they were going to lose everyone soon. Unless there was some sort of explosion that injured a large portion of the workforce, it appeared unlikely that anything would change for us.

"Maybe that's what we need to happen. For most of us to get injured so they have to halt production for longer than a day. It would take them a while to replace the entire workforce and they'll lose money because of it," Isabel suggested.

"It won't work, none of it will. The way I see it, we ain't got much choice in what happens to us, especially with the foreman watching our every move. We can only hope they go out of business or something. There's so few of us that a walkout wouldn't make the slightest difference."

"So, we play the waiting game and hope for a miracle?"

"Yes. Just keep out of trouble with the foreman, something will happen to get us out of this, trust me."

Although Suzanna sounded so determined, I couldn't help but doubt her optimism. She had been there long enough to know that nothing just happens the way you want it to, not everything is going to have a happy ending. I wanted to believe that change would come, that things would be different if we just let everything happen the way it was supposed, but it didn't seem likely. Mathias was just one in a huge line of dismissed workers because of an injury that needn't have happened. Nothing was set to change as far as I saw it and the longer we were there, the longer things stayed the same the more I doubted the mere idea of change.

When the bell sounded to signal the end of our break, the four of us collected our now empty bowls and took them out to the main courtyard, piling them up with the others who dragged their feet back to the factory for several more hours of work without break. The longer the afternoon shift got on, the slower we worked and the risk of injury to us doubled. We were all tired, hungry and exhausted so working late into the night without stopping was a risk. Some almost fell asleep at their stations, others tripped and almost fell into the machines. Neither shift was better, but the afternoon shift had a higher injury rate.

Shuffling back into the factory, we all stood by our workstations. I collected the now empty bucket from the back of the room and continued the job of collecting the fluff from the floor. Since the morning's workload had been moved from the factory to the storeroom, the discarded fluff from the finished cloth littered the floor. I had to work at a rapid pace to collect it all and to stop the machines from seizing up. After only a few minutes of work, my bucket was starting to fill up and I began to wonder whether the rest of the afternoon shift would go as fast as the start did. However, as the afternoon progressed, my movement slowed down, my knees disagreeing with the original speed I travelled in.

The clanking of metal and the low hum of the machines filled the room and the occasional cough from one of the girls echoed off the walls. Many of us suffered from coughs because we had inhaled the small fibres from the cloths and they sat on our lungs with no way of escape. Whenever I was crawling around on the floor, I made extra effort to pull the front of my dress up to cover my nose and mouth. It made crawling around on the floor that much more difficult since I only had one hand, but it protected me from the fibres. The only issue was that I couldn't cover my eyes and often left the factory floor with them red and itchy, having been irritated by the small fibres being fired out of the machine.

Factory life was dangerous because of injury, but the irritation from the fibres plagued us daily.

"Grey! Pick up the fluff under the machines or you'll be spending the night cleaning the entire factory floor!" The foreman bellowed from his perch in the balcony.

"Yes, sir," I replied, glancing at Suzanna as she pulled the loom backwards.

Picking up my bucket, I shuffled over to the loom, trying to ignore the foreman's eyes as he glared at my back. He watched my every move, making sure I was doing exactly what he was telling me to do, slacking off would mean more punishments though I didn't know why I was being punished, to begin with. I suppose, almost being late may have had something to do with it since it wasn't my first late infraction, but if that were the case then Isabell would have been punished as well, and she wasn't. It was just me being instructed to crawl under a working machine to pick up microscopic pieces of discarded fluff. How the foreman could see it from his balcony, I didn't know but I suspected he was just assuming.

Normally, the machines would be swept at the end of the working day. Any left materials would be disposed of before the next working day. The only time anyone had to go underneath was for punishment or to mend a broken thread and the machine was normally stopped whilst that happened. There was no other reason for the foreman to have asked me to go under the machine unless he was punishing me for something I had done or may end up doing. Either that or he thought the work I had been doing already wasn't enough compared to the others and I needed to step up my workload. Considering I spent all day shuffling across the room whilst others moved the machine back and forth like robots.

"Time it right, Rosie. I'll help," Suzanna said, her eyes remaining on the loom as she moved it.

"Okay," I replied. I crouched down next to the loom, waiting for my opportunity to dash underneath and sweep up the discarded fluff and cotton. My timing had to be exact if I wanted to avoid getting scalped by the moving machine.

"Ready?" Suzanna asked. I nodded. "Go."

As Suzanna pushed the loom forward, I dragged myself and bucket across the floor, sweeping up the fluff and discarded cloth directly into the bucket as I made my way through each machine. The timing couldn't have been better. Whilst Suzanna pulled her machine back, Lucy pushed hers forward which gave me a safe passage from one machine to the next. The pattern continued through the last two machines and I crawled away from the line unscathed. My knees might have been a bit bruised and my dress covered in dust and fluff, but I hadn't been caught by the machines and I had escaped one of the most dangerous tasks in the factory without injury.

I glanced up to the foreman's balcony, struggling to contain the smile that was tugging on the corner of my lips. He glared back, his hands pressed into the bannister as he watched me stand up and cross the room to continue with the job I had started before he had interrupted. I was more than certain that he had given me the task in the hopes that I had been injured in the process. Luckily for me, I was unable to fill his request, but I didn't think that would be the end of the foreman's tricks. Whenever he set his mind to something, he usually followed through with it and if he wanted to be rid of me, he was going to do it. No matter the cost.

It was strange to me, though, that I had almost been late only twice and yet the foreman saw fit to punish me whilst others had had near misses more often and were spared. Not only that, but Isabel had been with me both times and appeared to have escaped any sort of punishment for her actions, not that I would wish her to be punished for my own actions. Isabel was like a sister to me and if the foreman chose to punish me instead of her, then I was glad. I didn't want her to get hurt because of an issue I had caused. In truth, the foreman could have tried to hurt me in several ways but none of them would have hurt more than if he punished Isabel instead.

Having passed the foreman's test, or at least escaped any sort of injury, I continued my usual work. Despite the pain flaring up in my knees after having moved so quickly under the machines, I shuffled along the floor at a rather leisurely pace to sweep up the remaining fluff and debris. With my gaze firmly focused on the ground, I knew the foreman was watching my every move, waiting for me to slip up so he could find another way of punishing me. Any wrong move could have meant punishment and I doubted the foreman was in a forgiving mood.

"Coats, take over from Grey. Grey, take those finished items to the storeroom and be quick about it, do you understand?" the foreman, said. His voice pierced through the noise of the machinery.

"Yes, sir," I said.

Handing my bucket over to Agnes, I snatched up the freshly made cloth that had been folded up on a small table near the wall. I exited the factory and made my way through the darkened hallways, passing the privy and eventually reaching the storeroom. Gripping the cloth in my left hand, I reached out and grabbed the door handle, twisting it towards me and waiting for the door to swing open. After several seconds, the door swung open and a massive burst of heat threw me backwards. 

 ~~~

A/N - Welcome to my brand new Historical Fiction, The Factory Girl! It seems Historical Fiction has become a staple of my profile here on Wattpad so I hope you will enjoy the project as it begins and will stick around with each chapter to find out what happens next!

First chapter thoughts? How do you feel about the foreman? Or Rosie, for that matter? 

Let me know in the comments and don't forget to vote and comment if you enjoyed and add to your reading list so you never miss an update!

Dedication - This chapter is dedicated to one of my new friends here on Wattpad, LiAWake who has a fabulous person and deserves all the love in the world!

First Published - June 23rd, 2018