"I seem to struggle to keep up with my paperwork so if you could go through it and find anything that needs to be signed or posted that would be great. There should also be an inventory list in there somewhere which could do with checking. We got a lot of supplies in the other day and I need to make sure we have enough to last for a few weeks. Just go through and tally it up, I'll have a look later and see if I missed anything," Doctor Ealing said, shedding his jacket and throwing it over the door frame.

"Yes, Sir," I replied.

"You should be able to do all of that one-handed and if not, Robert is here to assist."

"Aren't I supposed to help you?" Robert asked, raising an eyebrow and draping himself over the sofa in a rather dramatic fashion.

"You are supposed to be learning whilst you are here, and paperwork is part of the learning process, so you'll just have to deal with it."

"Paperwork is my worst enemy."

"Hm, mine as well. Rosie, I'd like to put that sling on your arm now. It'll keep it stable and give the bruising and swelling some time to go down. That'll make it easier to re-examine the breaks and find out if you'll need to wear the sling for longer. Alright?"

"Whatever you think is best, Sir."

"Excellent, if you would come here."

I crossed the room and stood next to the sofa that Robert was draped over, he had dramatically pressed the back of his hand to his forehead when Doctor Ealing mentioned paperwork and now looked as though he was in an old Renaissance painting. Doctor Ealing shook his head towards his son and pulled a strip of fabric from his cupboard and a safety pin. Putting the safety pin between his teeth, I lightly grabbed my right arm and lifted it, so it lay across my mid-section. He then took the strip of fabric unfolded it. Once unfolded, he placed my arm into it as though it were a parcel and took the two ends of the fabric before tying it behind my neck.

He tied the two ends together and removed the safety pin from his mouth, taking the pieces of fabric that hung loosely around my elbow. He twisted the bit of fabric and put in the pin in place, quickly checking the knot at the back was secure and that it wasn't going to come undone any time soon. Robert had removed his hand from his forehead but remained sprawled across the sofa as Doctor Ealing took a step back to make sure the sling was hanging in its right place. It felt odd to have my arm strapped up and little movement eligible from the elbow down. The most I could do was wiggle my fingers against the material.

"There. Keep that on at all times or you could risk doing more damage to your shoulder. Also, try not to sleep on your right side or move around too much or it will take longer to heal, we want the swelling and bruising down as soon as possible," Doctor Ealing said.

"I don't move around in my sleep anyway, seven years of sharing a bed and you learn to sleep like a log," I said, smiling slightly.

"Alright. I need to pay a visit to Mr Charles about his cough, so I'll leave you both here to deal with the paperwork. I'll be back shortly. Robert, don't forget to help."

"I can't, I'm stuck," Robert groaned, sinking himself deeper into the sofa cushions.

"Come on," I said. Stepping forward, I grabbed Robert's hand and pulled him out of the cushions, surprised at how easy it was. Robert groaned but made no attempt to sit back down.

"Behave, Robert."

Robert pulled another face as Doctor Ealing grabbed the jacket he had taken off earlier and slipped it back on. He grabbed his medical bag from beside the door, put on his hat and left Robert and me to the mountain of paperwork on the desk that was threatening to spill onto the floor. With Robert's hand still in my own, I pulled him across the room to the desk and released him, my left arm dropping by my side whilst my right arm just felt useless. Robert glanced at the stack of paper and sighed loudly, clearly not ready to spend his time sorting out paper.

Nevertheless, Robert and I set about sorting through the stack of paper in search of inventory lists and anything that needed to be signed. Robert was far better at finding the documents that needed to be signed seeing as he knew what he was looking for whilst I had better organisation skills. Whenever Robert found what he was looking for, the rest of paper ended up discarded on the floor and he was making even more mess then we started with. There was paper across the floor, some of it having moved down to the sofa at the far side of the room. He had a knack for creating more work.

With Robert creating more mess than was necessary, I set about collecting the discarded papers and arranging them into separate piles, so they were easier to understand. I had done the same thing the previous week and yet in that time, more mess seemed to have been created. I couldn't figure out how they had managed to create so much mess in so little time, but it wasn't my place to ask. My place was to simply clean it all up again. However, it was remarkably difficult to pick up and organise the papers with only one working hand. It sort of reminded me of my first few weeks with the Ealing's; when my left hand made it impossible to work.

Although my left hand was healing, the burn had started to turn into a scar and the movement in my fingers gradually improved, it was still difficult. My fingers had a habit of seizing up when I worked, and I had to spend a couple of minutes massaging them to be able to use them again. Doctor Ealing and Robert had been helping, not only with the small ball of clay but Robert had started teaching me the piano on my Sunday afternoons off although that had been put on hold as more people started to get sick as Winter approached.

"Are we almost done?" Robert groaned, almost sending another stack of paper across the room.

"Not if you keep knocking paper all over the floor. You're creating more mess then we had when we started."

"Maybe I should just sit down and leave you to do it." Robert made a run for the other side of the room, but I grabbed him by the rest and spun him around before he even took a step. He was a head taller than me and looked down while pouting like one of the twins.

"Don't even think about it. I am one-handed, do you really want to sit over there and watch me suffer?"

"Well, it would be quite amusing." I slapped him on the arm. "Ouch! Fine, fine! You're mean to me."

"Sometimes I think you deserve it."

"True enough."

Robert smirked and walked back to the desk, picking up a sheet of paper, scanning it with his eyes and placing it onto one of the piles I had sorted on the desk. This time, he watched his elbow and didn't scatter any more pages across the room, and those he did scatter he picked back up again. With his clumsiness officially dealt with, Robert and I ploughed through the paper a lot faster and even managed to find the inventory list to go over. Some of the papers turned out to be personal files but a large majority of them were papers that Doctor Ealing needed to sign. I wasn't entirely sure how Doctor Ealing managed to get any work done if he never signed off on anything.

By the time we had finished organising the papers, Doctor Ealing still wasn't back from his visit with Mr Charles and there wasn't much more for Robert and me to do. I took the inventory list and went through everything Doctor Ealing owned to make sure it matched with what was written on the list. Other than the missing sling and safety pin, everything was accounted for which meant there wasn't much else. Robert was keeping himself entertaining. Having repositioned himself on the sofa, he had found a small ball in Doctor Ealing's desk and was spending his time seeing if he could hit the ceiling. Every time he did, a small noise would echo through the room.

I dropped the inventory list onto the desk and crossed the room to watch Robert. He was completely enthralled in throwing the ball up in the air and catching it again, it was as though it was the most interesting thing in the world. Robert always seemed fascinated by the smaller things, anything that he could throw in the air or play with was usually more interesting than anything else.

"Can I ask you a question?" I said, perching on the edge of the sofa since Robert was taking up most of the space.

"You just did." Robert stopped throwing the ball and grinned at me. "I'm joking, go ahead."

"Why do you find amusement in the smallest of things?"

"Grandmother used to say it was because I had a small mind that couldn't focus on more than one thing at a time, Father said she was wrong, but I agreed with her. The truth is, I always thought that finding amusement in the little things could come in handy when things were a little difficult. Whenever I was feeling sad or struggling to understand something, I would find something small to focus on and instantly made me feel a lot better."

"Really?"

"Yes. Take this small ball for instants." He pushed his legs off the sofa and placed them on the ground. "It doesn't do very much, in fact, it does nothing at all. Its only purpose is to be thrown up in the air and caught or to play catch with someone else. Yet, when I was younger and I would get in trouble for something small such as stealing toffee from the kitchen, I would throw this ball at the wall for hours. It was a source of entertainment for a long time and kept my mind off being confined to my room for several hours."

"Hm, I had no idea such small things could be so entertaining."

"What did you used to do at the factory, to distract yourselves?"

"Day-dreaming about escape mainly. Isabel, Lucy, Suzanna and I used to talk about what we would do when we left, but there was only so much entertainment we could gain from that."

"Take this." Robert handed me the ball.

"Why?"

"If Mother ever gets you wound up like she did the other day over the incident in the tree, just throw that at a wall for a few minutes and you'll be fine. It's the perfect way to get your frustrations out without breaking anything. I'll just steal one of Zachariah's when we get back home, he'll never notice."

"Thank you."

"Just don't throw it at me."

Robert nudged his knee against mine just as the front door opened and Doctor Ealing finally returned from his adventure to see Mr Charles. Tucking the ball in my pocket, I crossed the room and seized the inventory list from the desk and raked my eyes over it to check nothing was missed. The paper seemed in order when Doctor Ealing entered the room and once again removed his jacket and hat whilst dropping his medical bag onto the floor by the door. He was red-faced with small beads of sweat running down his face as he collapsed into the seat beside Robert.

I placed the sheet of paper back onto the desk and left the room, entering the side room and grabbing a glass from the draining board. Filling it up – although doing so with one hand was remarkably difficult – I returned to the main room and handed the glass to Doctor Ealing who nodded in response. He didn't say anything, just drained the glass in one go and wiped his hand across the back of his mouth as he leant back against the sofa cushions. Robert glanced towards me and shrugged his shoulders. It was a little while later before Doctor Ealing spoke.

"I know it's getting cold out, but Mr Charles did not need to have his fire stoked as much as he did. It felt as though it was the middle of Summer. He tells me he feels the cold, well I feel the heat, a little too much for my liking," Doctor Ealing said.

"Mr Charles has always been a little strange," Robert muttered.

"Normally I'd scold you for talking about your elders in such a way, but I think I'm inclined to agree. However, he's showing signs of influenza, so it looks as though it's going to be an intense Winter. Two cases in two weeks and the cold weather hasn't reached its peak. If it hits the school, it'll be chaos."

"Influenza season is always chaos."

"Hm, which means we need to be ready. How is that inventory list looking?"

"Everything is present and correct," I said, crossing the room to grab the inventory list and passing it on to Doctor Ealing."

"I might put another order in, double the supplies just in case. If Influenza season gets too hectic, I might have to recruit your organization skills a little more, Rosie, though I don't want to expose you to the virus too much seeing as you have never had it."

"I'll be fine, I was exposed to virus plenty of times at the factory and never caught it," I said.

"A mystery in itself. If you're sure, it'll mainly be keeping track of patient files and documents; you have a knack for it." He paused. "For now, if you could take a cloth and dust off some of these shelves it will be a big help, I don't have time to dust, and I don't trust to pay for a cleaner."

"Yes, Sir."

Doctor Ealing smiled at me and placed the glass onto a side table whilst I left the room and headed into the back to grab a dusting cloth from one of the countertops. With the dusting cloth in hand, I returned to the main room and set about dusting off the shelves and tables that surrounded the edge of the room. As I dusted, there was a knock at the front door, and I kept to my chores as Doctor Ealing and Robert tended to the woman who had come in with a twisted ankle. I hadn't intended to overhear but it sounded as though she had fallen because her heels were too high. I had to keep my head hidden so she wouldn't see me laughing.

I had never made it a habit to listen in to the conversations between Doctor Ealing and Robert, but sometimes it was hard not to. As more people came and went, I kept my head down and wiped the dusting cloth over the surfaces and trying not to sneeze as the dust swirled around the air. Some of the surfaces in the office didn't look as though they had been cleaned in several months. Whenever I moved a jar off one of the shelves, there was a void in the dust where it had been; some of the jars didn't look as though they had been moved much either.

A few of jars had dust coating the glass and the stopper looked as though it hadn't been removed in a long time. The liquid in a few of the jars looked strange and some of it looked as though the ingredients had separated from one another. Although I had done an inventory list the week before, I had glossed over the older medical equipment in favour of tallying up the items that Doctor Ealing used. There was a whole cupboard full of medical supplies that looked somewhat dated compared to the equipment that he used. I wondered whether he kept it around for sentiment's sake seeing as I doubt there was any use for some of it.

"I've meaning to go through that cupboard and throw out some of those vials and instruments, but I can't bring myself to do it. Some of it belonged to my father and he handed it down to me, but with so many advancements in the medical field most of it is useless now but I like to keep it. Even if it is somewhat useless."

"If one more person comes in with a sprained ankle after falling, I'm going to pitch myself out of the window," Robert said, returning to the room after seeing another patient out.

"Relatively high shoes and long dresses are never a good combination, especially on stone. I expect will be seeing more women with sprained ankles throughout the week. I expect you're thankful for those boots." Doctor Ealing nodded his head towards my shoes.

"I don't think I can walk in any other shoes, I've been wearing my boots for too long," I said jokingly.

Doctor Ealing smiled at me and allowed me to continue with my work whilst he dealt with the other patients, all with an assortment of injuries and ailments, not just sprained ankles. Working at the office was a lot better than working at the house. I didn't have to worry about making a mistake because Doctor Ealing wasn't in the habit of handing out infractions for the smallest of things. The environment was more relaxed, and Doctor Ealing encouraged me to stop work and talk. I preferred the relaxed atmosphere to the chaotic, stressed one back at the house.

I knew working in the office was only a temporary solution to the wider problem, but I wished I could have stayed there full time. Although I enjoyed working at the house with Esther and Miss Jenkins, there was too much pressure and I always felt as though I was being watched no matter what I did or where I went. Working back at the house reminded me of being back at the factory with the foreman's eyes following me everywhere, watching what I did and punishing me even if it wasn't necessary.

I had spent years trying to escape that life, escape him, but it felt as though I never left. Mrs Ealing had become the foreman and I had returned to a state of permanent fear and exhaustion with no way of hiding or escaping. The idea of being back where I started terrified me but being given the break by Doctor Ealing calmed my nerves considerably. I had hopes that by the end of the week, with no one to torment, Mrs Ealing would stop peering over my shoulder and waiting for things to go wrong. That seemed like an impossible hope, though.

Somethings just weren't possible and Mrs Ealing being nice to me was one of those things.

~~~

A/N - And we are back! Chapter Twelve children!! I'm five chapters ahead in pre-writing so we're set for the next five weeks if I need to take a break for some reason or another, but we're pretty set.

Also, I want to thank all of you who have voted for The Factory Girl in The Fiction Awards! It means a lot to me that you see so much potential in the book. Don't forget, you can vote as many times as you want!

Question time! Is anyone else secretly hoping Robert and Rosie admit their feelings? ROBSIE ALL THE WAY!! Also, do you think Rosie is right to be wary of Mrs Ealing and think of her as a new foreman?

Comment below!

Dedication - This chapter is dedicated to BetelgeuseWatson who has been voting and commenting on The Factory Girl! It means a lot :)

First Published - August 13th, 2019