Back Home

by Michelle Magorian

Beth lifted the wheelbarrow up again and Rusty joined her. Together they pushed it along the bumpy road. No sooner had they heaved it up one hill than they were leaning back and skidding on their heels to prevent the barrow from careering down the other side.

  When they reached the foot of the final hill, they hauled the wheelbarrow up to a hedge, leapt up on to the bars of a gate, and sat straddled across the top. Rusty turned herself around so that she could see the fields.

  ‘You know, I can’t get over how green it is here.’

  ‘Isn’t it green in America?’ asked Beth.

  ‘It’s green in Connecticut, but not like this. I mean, this is greener than green.’

  They sat silently, drinking in the view: the yellow stubble of cut cornfields, the pinky-brown soil of a ploughed field, the rows of green leaves in vegetable patches, the hedgerows interspersed with low walls made of small grey rocks.

  ‘It sure is pretty,’ murmured Rusty. ‘Everything’s so small here, though. Even the trees seem small.’

  ‘Are you ready for a hard one?’ asked Beth.

  Rusty leapt to the ground. ‘Sure I am. Let’s go.’

  Beth spat on the insides of her hands and rubbed them together.

  ‘This is more like going up a wall, not a hill,’ said Rusty, as they began to push.

  Halfway up, they stopped and leaned heavily against the wheelbarrow for a rest.

  They took a deep breath and with grinding slowness eased the wheelbarrow further upward. A handful of branches rolled off it down the hill.

  ‘Maybe if we yell, like the Indians, that’ll give us more strength.’

  Beth nodded, red-faced.

  ‘Ready,’ said Rusty, ‘set, go!’ And with that they whooped and howled and screamed their way up the rest of the hill. As soon as they had tipped it over the top, they pushed it off the road, flung their arms around each other and danced in circles.

  ‘Yahoo!’ yelled Rusty.

  In the distance there was a pyramid of wood, branches and rubbish. Several boys and a girl were attempting to drag an enormous branch towards the mound. As Rusty and Beth pulled the wheelbarrow through the gate, two of the boys looked in their direction and waved.

  ‘My brothers,’ explained Beth.

  The taller of the two ran over to help them.

  ‘Where did you find all this?’ he exclaimed.

  ‘At Beatie’s. Rusty chopped and sawed it up.’

  The boy gazed at her in admiration.

  ‘Hi,’ she said.

  ‘Pleased to meet you.’ And he held out his hand.

  He was a skinny boy with untidy auburn hair that stuck out at weird angles and hung across his forehead. His large ears protruded like a pair of jug-handles. He was slightly smaller than Beth. As he shook her hand vigorously, she noticed that he had the same blue eyes.

  ‘Harry’s the name.’

  He let go of her hand, flung his arms around the pile of wood as if embracing it, and dragged up a huge pile of branches.

  ‘By the way,’ he said, through the spaces in the wood, ‘any news about the Japs?’

  ‘Not a sausage,’ said Beth. They began walking. ‘You don’t think that after all this they’ll change their minds, do you?’

  ‘No,’ said Harry. ‘Those awful bombs the Americans dropped will make them agree to anything.’

  Rusty felt embarrassed.

  ‘But if it stops the War, won’t the Americans have saved lots of lives?’ she said.

  Harry shrugged. ‘All I know is that they dropped them on women and children. Makes you sick.’

  ‘Harry’s a pacifist,’ said Beth.

  ‘What’s a pacifist?’

  ‘Someone who doesn’t believe in war.’

  ‘But wouldn’t you fight if there was a war?’

  ‘I’d be a conscientious objector,’ he said.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I’d refuse call-up.’

  ‘Is that the same as being drafted?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Rusty gave a low whistle. Back home, no boy she knew would ever refuse the draft. Even Skeet was just dying to fight for his country. Anybody who refused was a coward. Rusty didn’t know what to say.

  They had almost reached the bonfire when a younger boy joined them. He had straight mousy hair, a snub nose, and freckles. He nodded to Rusty and gathered an armful of wood from the barrow.

  ‘This is Ivor,’ said Beth. ‘He’s my youngest brother.’

  ‘Hi.’ He gave another nod and went back to the bonfire.

  ‘How old is everybody?’ said Rusty.

  Beth lifted up the handles of the wheelbarrow and spilled the wood out.

  ‘Harry’s twelve, Ivor’s ten, and my sister Anne, who you haven’t met yet, is seven.’

  After they had placed all the branches against the pile, Rusty and Beth stood back for a moment.

  ‘What now?’ asked Rusty.

  ‘Come home with me. We’ll go for a cycle ride.’ Beth turned swiftly. ‘Harry,’ she said, ‘can Rusty borrow your bike?’

  He nodded. ‘The front tyre needs pumping up, though.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Rusty, but Harry had his back to her and was absorbed in dragging another piece of wood towards the bonfire.

  Rusty had imagined that Beth’s house would be bigger. Instead, it was grey and small and tacked on to another house. Back in Connecticut, no one’s house was joined to anyone else’s; each one stood on its own patch of land. A tall thin woman in her thirties waved to them through an open window at the back. ‘You must be Rusty,’ she said in the same sort of accent that Ivy had.

  ‘We’ s takin’ the bikes,’ said Beth, and she chatted to her mother about the big bonfire they were making.

  At the back of a small vegetable garden beyond a dilapidated shed, Rusty noticed a small girl peering at her over a swinging hammock.

  ‘Hi,’ she said.

  The girl smiled. ‘Hello. You Rusty?’

  ‘Uh-huh. How’d you guess?’

  ‘Beth told us about you. Your clothes look American, too. Nice colours.’

  ‘You must be Anne.’

  She was about to walk over and chat with her when she felt Beth touch her shoulder. ‘Let’s pump Harry’s tyre up.’

  ‘Are you staying for tea?’ asked Anne.

  ‘I’d like to, but...’ She shrugged.

  Beth’s mother leaned out of the window.

  ‘You’re welcome to,’ she said. ‘I can phone Beatie’s and ask yer mother.’ That’d be swell.’ ‘I’ll tell you what she says when you gits back.’

  As Rusty cycled, barefoot, she felt like an eagle released from its cage. Having been used to wide, smooth roads and riding on the right-hand side, she had felt a little uneasy at first, but with Beth leading she soon grew used to the hilly, high-hedged lanes and ringing the bicycle bell each time they approached a corner. Once, they had to press themselves back against the hedges to allow a lorry to pass.

  In spite of the battered state of Harry’s bicycle, it was much better than the one she had back home. Not only was it lighter, but she was able to free-wheel on it.

  She loved the feel of it beneath her as it shuddered over loose stones and sailed past fields. She even liked pushing it up steep hills, and having to suddenly leap off it and fling herself into a hedge every time she and Beth heard the beep of an approaching car.

  They had been cycling for some time when she noticed a tiny railway line.

  ‘Say,’ she yelled, ‘is that for little kids?’

  Beth stopped and waited for her to catch up. Rusty eased herself up alongside.

  ‘It leads to Staverton Bridge station,’ said Beth.

  ‘You mean regular trains run along here?’

  ‘Yes. Come on, I’ll show you.’ And she pushed the bicycle forward.

  Sure enough, a small building came into view. Rusty gaped at it, astonished. They cycled up to it and hopped off their bikes.

  ‘You mean this is a regular station?’ asked Rusty,
amazed.

  ‘Yes. Want to have a look?’

  ‘You bet.’

  Little lamp-posts stood on the platform. Across the tiny track was a small signal-box. A field and a clump of trees stretched out beyond it. There was a railway station with a small garden in front of it. Beth and Rusty stood barefoot on the scorching platform, the sun beating hotly down on them.

  Rusty’s thick hair clung damply to her T-shirt. She let her bike rest against her legs and scooped her hair up on top of her head to allow some air to cool her neck.

  ‘Where does that river go?’ she murmured.

  ‘Past our school. The railway lines run alongside it.’

  ‘Oh, I wish I could go for a ride on it.’

  Beth began to wheel her bike out. ‘The school actually gets complaints from the people around here who take that ride.’

  ‘What about?’ said Rusty. She allowed her hair to fall in a hot heap around her shoulders.

  ‘Sometimes they see us swimming.’

  ‘What’s wrong with that?’

  ‘We aren’t wearing swimsuits.’

  ‘They shouldn’t look, then.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  They mounted their bicycles and began cycling steadily. It wasn’t too hilly now.

  ‘Do your parents complain, too?’

  ‘No. They think the school’s a bit strange, and so do the villagers, but we love it. They both hated school, so they’re pleased we like it so much.’

  ‘Why don’t they send you to a regular school, instead of a private one?’

  ‘Because we’d have to leave at fourteen. At my school, if we want to go to university or college or whatever, at least there’s a chance. I mean, it’s up to us.’

  They dawdled past a bridge and high hedges and grey stone houses.

  ‘Does that mean that if you want to take exams for college, you have to go to a private school?’ asked Rusty.

  ‘Yes. Unless you can get a scholarship into a grammar or a public school. And,’ she continued, ‘at most other schools the boys are separated from the girls. At least at this school me and my brothers can all stay together.’

  ‘Do you want to go to college?’

  ‘No. I want to be a farmer.’

  ‘But,’ said Rusty, ‘if you don’t want to go to college, you might as well go to a regular school.’

  ‘My school has its own farm, so I can help out. Next term I move into the senior part of the school. They have stables there.’

  ‘You’re kidding!’

  She turned and smiled. ‘I’m bloody lucky. I know that. If my parents weren’t working on the Estate, I wouldn’t be able to go there at all.’

  That afternoon they cycled all through the lanes, stopping every now and then to laze in the grass or lean over a gate and talk. Rusty still felt like a visitor on holiday in a foreign country. She found herself automatically reminding herself to tell Skeet about this, or Janey about that, or Uncle Bruno and Grandma Fitz about something that Beth had said, or Aunt Hannah about a little stone church she had seen, or Gramps about English bicycles.

  It was as they drew nearer Beth’s home that Rusty’s spirits began to sink. It’d soon be time to return to Beatie’s place. But as they pushed open the large wooden gate into the garden, Anne appeared from the back doorway.

  ‘You’s stayin’ for tea,’ she announced.

  A few old mats were thrown on to the scrubbed wooden table, and soon home-made brown bread, butter, plum jam, cheese, tomatoes, boiled eggs, lettuce, and dark carrot cake were spread out on them.

  It was such a chatterbox family. For a while they talked about the bonfire, so Rusty was able to join in, but then they started to talk about other things and to use words that she didn’t understand. Every now and then they would drop into a Devonshire accent, which made it even more difficult.

  It was Beth’s mother who drew her back into the conversation. ‘Come on, you lot,’ she said. ‘Rusty don’t know what yer on about.’

  Beth, who was sitting beside Rusty, looked apologetically at her. ‘Sorry, I forgot.’

  ‘Tell us about America,’ said Mrs Hatherley.

  So Rusty told them about blueberry pie, and milkshakes with walnut syrup, and how she had seen a wonderful film called The Wizard of Oz and it was in colour.

  ‘Is it true,’ said Beth’s mother, ‘that you can actually ‘ave yer hair permed by a hairdresser and that it stays?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Rusty. ‘You must mean having a permanent wave put in your hair. Aunt Hannah sometimes has that done.’

  And she told them how they made Valentines and how she went through crazes of collecting things like coins and dud bullets and arrowheads.

  ‘Real Indian arrowheads?’ asked Ivor, the quietest of the four.

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  And she told them how they sometimes had corn muffins for breakfast, and how one afternoon they’d been taken to see a brand-new musical called Oklahoma and there were cowboys dancing and singing and leaping all over the place. And how they’d make fudge and listen to phonograph records.

  Rusty was absolutely the centre of attention. Everyone was listening, wide-eyed, to her. She left out the fact that she had to save up all her allowance and do odd jobs so that she could go to the cinema and buy milk-shakes and roller-skates.

  Eventually the talk returned to the bonfire.

  ‘Roast corn on a stick is nice,’ suggested Rusty.

  They shook their heads and started on about the school and the work being done on it, now that all the evacuees had left. Rusty was beginning to grow sick of the sound of their school, especially since she wouldn’t be going to it. She had expected to feel different with a big family again, not so lonely. Instead, she felt even lonelier.

  At six o’clock the radio was turned on, only they called it a wireless. It was a huge, brown, wooden affair that sent out lights when it was switched on. A man with a voice like something out of an English film was reading the news. Back home, she wouldn’t have bothered listening to the news at all, so she was surprised when everyone fell silent, even seven-year-old Anne.

  The news was disappointing. There was still no news of a Japanese surrender.

  ‘Cheer up, my loves,’ said Mrs Hatherley. ‘They might announce something on the Nine O’clock News.’

  After tea, Rusty had to return to Beatie’s house. Beth was going off to give some more help with the bonfire, so Rusty walked back by herself. She found that she was walking deliberately slowly. She couldn’t understand why she felt so miserable. What was wrong with her? She imagined that she was in bed and Aunt Hannah was sitting at the end of it, and they were talking.

  ‘Aunt Hannah,’ she whispered, ‘why don’t I fit in? I just can’t figure it out.’ And she tried to guess what kind of answer Aunt Hannah would have given.

  ‘Wait till you go to school’ came the words in her head. ‘It’ll get better.’

  Of course, thought Rusty, all the Hatherleys went to the same school. Once she started at her own school, then she’d make friends. Grandma Fitz had warned her that the first few months might be lonely. She stopped and leaned against a hedge. The first few months! She saw the long years without the Omsks and the Fitzes and her friends stretching out before her.

  ‘Walk tall,’ she muttered, thinking of Gramps.

  She straightened herself up, swung her sandals carelessly in her fingers, and continued walking.

  11

  There was a loud hooting from the front garden and someone was yelling. As Rusty tipped herself hastily out of the camp bed, it fell over. She stepped on to the chair by the window and peered down.

  Mitch Flannagan was sitting in a jeep with Ivy. ‘Wake up, everyone,’ he yelled. ‘Wake up!’

  Rusty heard Beatie move on the landing and voices coming from downstairs. She leapt off the chair and flung open the door.

  Beatie was halfway down the stairs, followed by a bewildered and sleepy Charlie and Susan. Rusty met her mother on the first-floor lan
ding. She was wearing the oldest-looking pair of pyjamas Rusty had ever seen. They were faded pink with patches on them.

  Rusty jumped down to the bathroom landing and slid down the banisters. By the time she reached the hall, Beatie had disappeared into the garden.

  ‘What is it?’ Rusty cried. ‘What is it?’ She ran through the hallway and collided with Beatie coming back.

  ‘It’s the Japs,’ Beatie cried ecstatically. ‘They’ve surrendered.’

  ‘Oh thank God,’ whispered a voice behind her.

  Rusty turned.

  Her mother was standing, with her green W.V.S. coat around her shoulders.

  Just then came the faint sound of church bells ringing. Peggy, startled, grabbed Beatie by the arm.

  ‘It’s the invasion,’ she gasped.

  Beatie laughed. ‘Oh, Peggy,’ she chuckled. ‘No, it’s not. No more invasions. No more war.’

  Peggy smiled at her own foolishness.

  Charlie and Susan came rushing in from the garden, squealing with excitement, followed by Mitch.

  ‘Hurry up!’ he said. ‘You’re missing all the fun. They’ve lit bonfires in Plymouth. You can just about see the light from them up the hill. And people are letting off fireworks in town. Come on, you kids, just put sweaters on over your pyjamas,’ he said. ‘Move.’

  ‘I bet they’re lighting the big bonfire here,’ said Rusty.

  ‘There’ll be nothing left to celebrate with tomorrow,’ said Peggy.

  ‘Oh, who cares!’ yelled Mitch. ‘It’s over. All over. I can go home.’ He flung his arms round Beatie and twirled her around. ‘O.K., baby, let’s cut a rug.’ And he proceeded to manoeuvre her all over the hall.

  A hooting from the jeep interrupted this strange display.

  ‘That’s Ivy,’ he said, ‘telling you to hurry up.’

  Charlie and Susan, Beatie and Rusty tore up and down the stairs, throwing on the nearest clothes at hand.

  It wasn’t until they had run out into the garden and clambered into the jeep that Rusty realized her mother wasn’t with them. For a moment the sinking feeling returned. Surely she didn’t have to ask permission to celebrate, did she?

  It was Beatie who commented. She saw Peggy standing in the porch, smoking a cigarette. ‘Come along, Peggy,’ she said.

  Peggy shook her head. ‘No. You all go on.’