Why the long pause? he thinks. “At Barton Road…” she begins (finally!) “…they send the naughty boys to the girl’s wing until they learn to behave, and like you they also have to dress and act like good little girls… so you’ve nothing to worry about.”
Billy isn’t sure whether this revelation is a good or a bad thing. It’s a lot to get his head around. Not only has he just discovered that he could go back home, and that his mother knows all about him being a girl… and that his mother is happy for him to stay here, as a girl until at least the end of the war, but also that he’s unlikely to ever go back to being a ‘normal’ boy.