"Let us in. We need to talk to you."
"Not until you tell me what you want."
"Let us in. I can't tell you standing on your doorstep."
Dad stepped back indoors, and closed the front door behind him, without even saying goodbye (which surprised me as it seemed a little rude). There was a bang, I think one of them must have kicked the porch door. Mum shrieked. Dad opened the front door again, and went back out into the porch. "Eff off! I'll have the Police on you!"
"Good luck with that, mate," the first man said, and he kicked the door again, really hard. It moved, but stayed shut. I didn't like it. I was afraid they would hurt us if they got in.
Dad turned to us. "Go back upstairs," he told us. And then to Mum. "Go get their baseball bat."
The man kicked the door again. I'd seen people break doors open on TV. I think you need to run at them and hit them with your shoulder. It worried me that if he remembered that, then he'd be able to get in and hit us.
"Give us your effing food now," the rough man shouted. "Or we'll break your effing head open in front of your kids."
"Get up the stairs," Dad told us again. Grown-ups are better at not being scared than children are. Mum was going upstairs already. I went after her, to show her where our baseball was. Ben stayed with Dad, which was very brave of him as I couldn't bear to see them trying to break the door down any more.
The man kicked the door again. I heard something crunch, even from half way up the stairs. I didn't think the door would last much longer.
Dad turned to Ben. "I won't ask you again," he said. Ben caved in. He followed me upstairs. While Mum went back down with the baseball bat, he pulled back the curtains in our bedroom and stood at the window, his face pressed tight against the glass, trying to see the men outside. But our bedroom was right above the door, so he couldn't see much at all.
There were more kicks on the door. It sounded like both men must be attacking it now; the kicks were coming too quickly for it to be just one of them. Mum started screaming at them to go away. They were swearing back at her, threatening her, threatening all of us. Dad said nothing. I guess he was just standing there with the baseball bat, ready to protect us if they came through the door. He was always good at looking after us, but there were two of them and I didn't know if he would be able to stop them coming upstairs after us, even with my baseball bat to help him.
And then there was an explosion. The room shook, and all my books fell back off our bookcase again. Above the rooftops, we could see a huge ball of flame and smoke. The bombers were back, and this time they had hit something really big.
"That's got to be the petrol station," Ben told me, as we watched the fire light up the night sky. "Nothing else would explode like that."
The banging on the door stopped. I could see the men running off down the road. "Good riddance!" I shouted after them through the closed window, to show them that I wasn't scared, but only because I knew they couldn't hear me.
We went back downstairs again. Dad had opened the porch door to watch the men as they were running down the road. I popped my head round to see how badly damaged the door was. There was a hole all the way through one of the panels. Mum dragged me back in again.
"We're definitely going to Mum's in the morning," she said. "I'm not staying here another night."
"But we need to stay here," Dad replied. "To look after the house."
"Bugger the house (sorry, B-word I mean). There could be men like that in Canterbury, breaking in to Mum's flat. And the kids aren't safe here anyway; those men might come back tomorrow. You can stay and protect the furniture if you want, but me and the kids are going, with or without you."
He nodded, knowing when he was beaten. There was no way he'd let us go on our own, especially after what had just happened. I felt a little sorry for him. I knew how important the house was to him. And I wasn't any happier than him about other people going through my stuff while we were away, taking my things. I would have to take Teddy with me, to make sure he was safe.
But Mum was right. Much as I hated to lose my stuff, I didn't want to stay home another night if people were going to try and break in and hurt us. I didn't think they would do that in Canterbury, as Mum always says it's nicer there (she wanted us to move there too when Nan moved into her flat, but Dad liked Ramsgate too much, and he was better at winning arguments back then).
"Pack up the important stuff," Dad told us all. "Not too much; we're going to have to carry it. We're leaving as soon as it's light."
#
There wasn't much for me to pack. I'd have liked to take some of my board games, but they wouldn't fit in the Tesco carrier bags I was given (the over-night bags would be too heavy for me to carry all the way to Canterbury, Dad said). So I took a few of my favourite books, my i-pad (the battery was flat, but it cost too much money to leave behind) and some photos of the family which Dad had given to me. And Teddy, of course. I wasn't going anywhere without Teddy, however much Ben told me that people would think I was a baby if they saw him.
Mum tried to leave with her big blue suitcase, but Dad wasn't having any of it. "I'm the one who'll end up carrying it," he pointed out. "Just take a sports bag with a change of clothing, that's all you'll need. We're coming back here as soon as we've checked on your Mum." They agreed in the end on the small suitcase. Mum argued that she had to take changes of clothes for Ben and me as well as for herself, as we hadn't allowed space for clothes in our carrier bags (to be fair on us, there's not much room left in a carrier bag once you've put Teddy and an i-pad in it). So she took the small suitcase instead.
I stayed close to Dad when we left, in case the men from last night were hiding nearby, but it was actually really quiet out there at first, as if everyone else had left already. Dad had spent the rest of the night sitting by the front door, looking out for them, with our baseball bat across his knees, so I guess he would have seen them if they had crept back again. But it was better to be safe than sorry, and it made me feel better anyway.
I wished we could have taken the car. Everything would have been much easier if the roads weren't blocked off, and it was Monday now and the roads would have been quiet as the school-run hadn't started yet. We could have driven to Nan's to make sure she was alright in no time at all. I've never been a great fan of walking. Or any exercise really. Ben has always been really good at PE and stuff, but I'm really bad at it. I'm hypermobile, which means that my joints are too bendy, and my knees go in a bit where they should go out. I wasn't looking forward to the walk as I knew that it would hurt a lot.
Just before we set off, Dad went through the cupboard and the fridge to see if there was anything we could eat on the journey without it being cooked first. Believe it or not, he found some slightly out of date bread and he made more tuna sandwiches (even though we had them for lunch and dinner the day before). Mum had got the tuna from the shop (without paying), and although he had spent so long telling her off about it the day before, he wasn't going to see it go to waste now we had it. I wished that she had stolen a tin of hot dog sausages instead.
Mum carried her own suitcase at first, but she was struggling before long and Dad took over with a roll of the eyes. One of the wheels on the bottom of the case fell off on our last holiday (Ben was pulling me around on it at the time), so he had to carry it. Dad started flagging by the time we were walking past what was left of the harbour, and kept changing the suitcase from one hand to the other. A lot of the boats in the water were burnt black, twisted and half-sunk, which made me sad as I liked watching them when we used to go to the harbour to eat. It looked like the bombing had been worse here and Ben told me that the bombs had probably been dropped on our town to stop people using the boats to get away. I wasn't so sure, though. Our house is miles from the harbour, and my friend George at school says that the planes nowadays all have what's called precision bombing so that they can take out a terrorist on his mobile phone without hurting the person standing next to him (which sounds
awesome). I was surprised there were any terrorists left when they could do that. Maybe some of them didn't have phones.
"What's in here, anyway?" Dad asked Mum, holding up the case a little.
"Clothes," she said, sounding a bit cagey.
"Why have you locked it, if it's just clothes?"
"In case we get mugged."
"It's not like they're gonna run off with this. It weighs a ton. Give me the key, I want to open it. See what you've packed."
She stalled for a while, but gave in when he said he would give the case back to her to carry if she didn't hand the key over that instant. He put the case flat on the pavement, and opened it. I went over to have a look. Mum came too, to explain herself.
There were clothes at the top, as if to hide what was underneath. A make-up bag, deodorant, four toothbrushes, another make-up bag, shower gel?
Dad held the shower-gel up. "Why did you bring this?"
"Why do you think?"
"We can't have a shower in the street!"
"We can at Mum's."
"I expect she'll have her own shower-gel, don't you?"
He threw it away. Mum glared but bit her lip. Dad continued to rummage around. He produced three photo albums. I recognised them by the covers. The white one (with the overlapping love hearts) had their wedding photos in them, the light blue one had Ben's baby photos and the green one had mine. Ben's was bigger than mine.
"You've packed photo albums?"
"No way was I leaving them behind. Not with those men around."
"No one's gonna steal photo albums, are they? They wanted food, not our bloody wedding snaps!"
"But the house might get bombed."
"We might get bombed!"
"But if we do, I won't miss the photos, will I?"
Dad looked like he wanted to throw them away. He touched the front of the wedding album. He looked at Mum. He sighed. He put all three albums back in the case. He threw away her Jackie Collins novel, which was just to spite her, I think, as it didn't weigh much, and he zipped up the case. He left it unlocked. I think he was hoping that some of the stuff inside would get stolen.
"Thank you," she said.
"They're my memories, too," he replied.
We walked on.
#
It wasn't long before I started getting tired. As I've mentioned, walking's not my thing. Mum used to like going for long walks on her own, but she stopped doing that not long after her and Dad started arguing all the time, and we never went with her anyway. I could never see the point of walking when we had a car. It got you where you wanted to go so much quicker.
"My legs ache," I complained to no-one in particular.
"Stop being a baby," Ben told me. I almost wished he had stayed at home.
"But they hurt!"
He decided to ignore me. I decided to try working on Mum; she was usually my best bet. I heard Ben hiss "don't you dare" as I drew level with her, but I ignored him. I wanted to sit down for a while.
"My legs hurt."
"I'm sorry, Angel. But we need to keep walking for a bit longer."
"Can't we have a sit down for a bit? Maybe go to KFC?"
"They'll be closed."
"But it's Monday. They'll be open on a Monday."
"Not after the bombing they won't be. Everywhere at the harbour was closed, didn't you notice?"
I hadn't. I'd noticed that some of the buildings were no longer there at all, but I hadn't paid much attention to the ones that were still standing. Somehow, it had never occurred to me that KFC would be closed. It seemed wrong somehow, as I really like their bargain buckets. I had a horrible feeling that McDonalds would be closed as well, which would make this the worst day ever.
"Can we just sit down then? My legs hurt." I knew I was repeating myself, but I didn't care. I wanted a rest.
"Mine do too," she said, as if that would make it better.
"I'm younger than you, though. My legs are smaller than yours."
"Well that means I've got more leg to hurt than you have."
I gave up on her. I tried Dad. Ben started hissing at me again, and tried to catch the arm of my coat to hold me back, but I shrugged him off. This was important. I was going to have a sit-down, whatever it took.
"Dad?"
"Your legs hurt. I heard."
"Can we stop for a bit, then, please? Just for a minute."
"We've only been walking for half an hour," he pointed out. "It's nearly twenty miles to your Nan's. We've only come a mile or two so far. Can we do another couple of miles before we stop? Four miles, rest, four miles, rest; that's the plan. How does that sound? We'll be there in no time if we don't keep stopping every five minutes."
I stopped. I wasn't going any further without a sit-down, whether they liked it or not. They walked on for a bit, with Mum calling over her shoulder for me to catch up, but I was staying put. "Bye, then!" Mum called, to make me think that they would leave me behind, but I hadn't believed that when I was three and there was no way I'd believe it now.
Mum came back. Dad put down the suitcase and his sports bag and waited. Ben stayed with Dad, as if he was a grown-up too.
"We've got to keep going, Angel," Mum said. "You want to see Nan, don't you? She'll have chocolate biscuits."
"I'm tired," I told her. "I need to sit down. Just for a minute."
"Just a bit longer. Dad wants to go another couple of miles, that's all."
"I'm staying here. My legs ache."
"We have to go."
She took my hand and tried to pull me after her. That used to work when I was little, but not now. I pulled my hand away, and refused to budge.
"You're being selfish," she said. She sounded cross. "Think about other people for a change. Think about your poor Nan."
I said nothing. I crossed my arms to show her I had made up my mind.
Dad came back (with Ben following him). "Move," he said.
I avoided eye contact and stayed quiet. He was strong enough to drag me along after him if he wanted to, which made me nervous because that would make me look babyish.
"Move," he repeated. "You're not too old for a smack."
"He's tired," Mum defended me. "He's only eight. He's not used to walking."
"We've only just left home, though!" Dad exploded. "How tired could he be?"
"You're making them argue again," Ben hissed at me (he did a lot of hissing; I guess it was how you spoke to your little brother when you went to big school). "Get moving, or you'll be sorry later."
I crossed my arms tighter still. There was no way I was moving now, as he would think I was only doing it because he had told me to. I wasn't having that. It was kind of his fault now that I was staying put. If they blamed anyone, they should blame him.
"Don't talk to your brother like that," Dad told him.
Ben looked at him as if he had stabbed him in the back. "I'm trying to help!"
"He's only eight," Mum said again, and I nodded in agreement. I was.
"We have to get going," Dad pleaded with me. "If we stop every ten minutes, it'll take days to get to Nan's. We'll have to sleep rough tonight. I've not brought any blankets; I thought we'd be there this afternoon."
"We could go back and get some," Mum suggested.
"I'm not going home for blankets. Especially not with him stopping every hundred yards for a sit-down! All we have to do is walk. It's not an unreasonable thing to ask, is it, not when we've been bombed for the last two nights?"
It was stalemate, like you get in chess when no-one can make a move. I sat down on the pavement, to show that no amount of talking was going to work on me. Mum scolded me for making my jeans dirty but I didn't care. Dad and Ben glared at me (they looked quite similar when they were glaring, and I wondered if I had the same frown as Mum to make it fair).
"Look, there's a bench round the corner. Three minutes' walk, tops. Is his Highness willing to walk just a little bit further so we don't all have to sit on the dirty pavement?"
I
got up. I nodded. I wasn't an unreasonable child.
Dad strode off, with Ben walking behind him. Mum offered me her hand. I took it, to show her that I hadn't taken offence at all the nasty things everyone had been saying about me when I said I needed a rest.
When we reached the bench, Dad and Ben were sitting down already. Mum made them shuft up so there was room for us, too. "Anyone hungry yet?" Dad asked.
I shook my head. I was frightened he would give me more tuna sandwiches to punish me for being naughty.
#
I wanted to try the same thing an hour later, but there were too many people around.
We had reached the airport by now. There hadn't actually been any planes fly from there since Mum and Dad were little children, and most of it was now covered in houses, but we all still called it the airport anyway because that's what it had always been called, as long as I could remember.
Once we were on the main road out of Ramsgate, there were more and people walking along beside us. Most of them had suitcases, and a few of them had dogs (I like dogs but we've only ever had a cat and even that got run over when I was six). One of the men had his bags in a wheelbarrow, and there was a lady on crutches who was all on her own.
There was a little girl, much younger than me, kicking and screaming on the grass by the side of the road, and I saw some of the looks people were giving her as they went by. I didn't want people to look at me like that. I was eight years old, not a baby any more, and now the road was busy I couldn't just refuse to walk, not in front of witnesses. I would wait until it was quieter before I made another stand, unless I could talk Dad into taking another break first. He said that he wanted to go four miles, but I wasn't sure how long that was. I think a mile is longer than a kilometre, but I wouldn't swear to it. And I'm not quite sure how long a kilometre is anyway. I know it's longer than a football field, but not as long as a marathon.
"Are we stopping soon?" I asked Dad.
"Soon," he replied.
"When?"
"Soon."
"When, though?"
"Maybe in another half an hour. There's a big roundabout up ahead. When we get there."
"Half an hour? I don't think Ben can make it that long. He's looking tired."
Dad smiled. He hadn't smiled much since the bombs had first dropped, so it was good to see. It told me that maybe things would return to normal now that we were going to Canterbury.
The English Refugee: The Day It Happened Here Page 5