Catching Falling Stars

by Karen McCombie

  “No!” yelps Rich, trying to scramble after a scampering Betsy and Buttons.

  But I’ve caught my brother by the back of his long grey shorts, and Mum is already fastening the wooden door shut.

  “The kittens will be fine, Rich,” she says quickly. “I just saw them run inside. They’ll be cuddled up under the bed in a minute, all nice and safe.”

  No, they won’t. Mum’s lying – she didn’t see Betsy and Buttons run inside because I pulled the back door closed behind me, even though I shouldn’t have. Dad told us that if a bomb struck a building, it was better to leave the doors open so the force of the blast could escape, and less damage would be done.

  But I’m not going to think about that, because no bombs have ever come near us.

  I’m not going to think about the fact that Mum is now sitting on my right in the darkness, reaching for my hand and squeezing it tighter than she ever has.

  “Glory, Glory, Glory…” Rich mumbles on, burrowing himself into my left side.

  “It’s fine, it’s all fine,” I say softly, soothingly, hoping he can hear me above the siren’s insistent wail.

  “Huh!” harrumphs Mrs Mann, from her bench. “I doubt that very much.”

  For an old lady, her hearing is amazingly good. And my eyesight’s improving; with the light seeping in from the top and the bottom of the badly fitting shelter door, I can just make out the shape of her in the corner. She’s like a walrus. A fat, grunting, bad-tempered bull walrus. Maybe that’s why she’s here; she’s got too big to go crawling under her table.

  “I’ll thank you not to frighten the children, Mrs Mann,” Mum says in a voice that’s tight and tense.

  She’s probably thinking about Dad at work, hoping he can get to the public shelter quickly.

  “Me? You’re accusing me of frightening the children? Well, I’ve never heard the like,” grumbles Mrs Mann. “I’m not the one who has put my children in danger, Mrs Gilbert. I’m afraid it’s you who has stubbornly refused to send your children to safety!”

  Moany Mrs Mann is always rude in a righteous way, as if only her opinions matter and everyone else is being foolish – and she’s only too happy to tell them so. But this is the rudest I’ve heard her be. Mum is going to explode, I know it.

  “Shh!”

  Shh? That’s all Mum has to say?

  “Don’t you try and shush me, Madge Gilbert! If you can’t accept friendly advice—”

  “Shh!” Mum tries to quieten our ignorant neighbour more insistently. Our neighbour who’s as friendly as a scorpion living in a gorse bush.

  “How dare you—”

  “QUIET!” Mum hisses at Mrs Mann.

  “Glory, Glory, Glory,” Rich whispers in a voice so tiny only I can hear it.

  I go to squeeze his hand when I hear him whisper another word.

  “Listen.”

  And now I can make out what Mum’s been trying to tune into. The reason she’s been shushing Mrs Mann. Mrs Mann must hear it too – she hasn’t barked back at Mum.

  It’s a droning sound.

  It’s getting louder by the second.

  It’s become a frenetic drum roll in my chest as well as a noise in my ears.

  It’s right above us, and—

  WHAM!

  For a split second I’m in the eye of a storm: there’s a deafening crack of thunder, a burst of lightning, and I’m being thrown upside down by a twister and spat out again.

  Stillness.

  I’m not where I was.

  There’s no bench under me, just heavy, hot … things on top of me.

  Rich and Mum aren’t holding my hands any more – my fingers are buried in stones and earth.

  I can’t see anything but pitch darkness.

  I can’t take a proper breath because of the smoke and dust.

  I lift my head and try to scream but I don’t have a voice, only a shrill ringing in my ears.

  Overwhelmed with shock and exhaustion, every breath shallower and more difficult to draw in, I let my face fall back on to the bumpy surface where I’m sprawled. I’m so weak. Maybe I should just close my eyes, drift into deeper darkness, let whatever happens happen…

  But my cheek is resting on something soft. Something made of felt and stuffed with wool.

  Duckie.

  Duckie is with me but Rich is not.

  And now I’m clawing, fighting my way through rubble and dirt. A second ago I was limp as a jellyfish washed up on shore, but now I’m a fierce lioness, tearing at whatever’s around me, roaring though I can’t hear myself.

  Rich needs me. I’m not going to stop till I find him.

  Together we’ll escape – from whatever this is – and feel cool air in our lungs and warm sun on our faces.

  I hope…

  Butterflies.

  Twirling, dancing butterflies.

  Dozens of them bob and weave outside the window as the bus pulls up and grinds to a halt. One lands on the glass, its white and apple-green wings opening and shutting like angels’ wings. I put my finger up on my side of the window, trying to connect with it, but it flutters off to join its friends.

  Isn’t it a bit late in the year for butterflies?

  “Thorntree! Anyone for Thorntree?” the bus driver calls out, making Rich jump beside me.

  My brother’s always been nervy but he’s been jumping at everything lately: Betsy or Buttons trying to leap on to his lap, the jangling bell of the scrap man coming down our road, kids cackling and shouting out in the street. All of that’s got him more twitchy than usual.

  It’s no surprise, though. It’s only been a couple of weeks since we were blown up.

  “Thank you, driver!” Mum replies, getting to her feet and brushing sandwich crumbs off the skirt of her smart blue town suit. “Come on, you lazy lumps!”

  She’s talking to me and Rich, of course. We’re both tired from the long journey, on two bumpy, rattling buses, staring at the view for hours as the London suburbs gave way to Essex countryside.

  Standing up from the long back seat we’ve been sitting on, my legs feel as weak and wobbly as a newborn kitten’s.

  “Glory, Glory, Glory?” says Rich, who’s been huddled between me and Mum all the way. “Are you scared now too?”

  Oh, he’s seen me stumble.

  “Not a bit!” I lie brightly, hoping he doesn’t see that my hands are shaking too. “I’ve just got pins and needles, that’s all.”

  I hope Rich believes me. On the way here, I told him how excited I was, how I was looking forward to all the adventures we’d have. I didn’t tell him that the reason I couldn’t finish my paste sandwich was because my tummy was in such a knot with nerves that I thought I might be sick.

  “Quickly, my darlings!” Mum chides us.

  Rich shuffles over so that I can help Mum pull suitcases and bags from the rack above, then the three of us try to exit the bus without battering passengers as we go. (I see some of them staring at Rich. He does look quite strange, with his one black eye and the eyebrow above it mostly burnt away. They should see the rest of him.)

  But at last we’re off, with the bus door clattering and creaking shut behind us.

  I put down the suitcase and awkward brown paper parcel I’m carrying, and dig about in my bag for my gloves. The weather’s still Indian summer warm, but Mum told us to pack for chillier weather too, and right now I’m glad of the gloves in particular. The string of the big parcel is cutting into my fingers. Though I’m actually glad too that I have all this awkward luggage; it gives my shaking hands something to do.

  “Where’s the pavement?” asks Rich, staring down at the bare, brown earth beneath his polished leather boots. He’s speaking too loudly – Mum had to keep shushing him on the bus – because his hearing is pretty bad after the blast. Mine was bad too, but I’m getting back t
o normal. As normal as I can be after what happened.

  “Thorntree is just a little country village,” Mum tells him, as she lifts a hand to tidy her already tidy, rolled hair. “Things are different here, Rich.”

  Now that I’m kneeling, I see that my brother’s long socks are slipping down. I reach over and hoist them up, so no passers-by can stare at the fiery pink patches on them. At least the clusters of blisters have healed now. They made him look like he had some strange tropical disease.

  “And what’s that smell?!” Rich asks, wrinkling his freckly nose, unbothered by me sorting him out (because I always sort him out).

  Now I smell it too. It’s not the sugary scent of the sweet factory; it’s the lingering stench of boiled vegetables, or something very like it.

  Glancing around, I see a collection of old houses, shops and buildings, all huddled around a village green, with a large, sprawling oak tree and a small, lily-pad-dotted pond. And hovering over the green are swathes more butterflies. I’ve suddenly remembered what they’re called, and at the same time spotted where the smell is coming from.

  “Cabbage whites,” I murmur.

  “Oh, my goodness, yes!” cries Mum, catching sight of the sea of knobbly round cabbages growing where there’d normally be grass. “Well, that’s the biggest vegetable plot I’ve ever seen.”

  “Is it for the war effort, Glory?” Rich asks me. They talk about nothing else at school. Everything is for the war effort; there are special bins outside the playground for scraps of paper, cloth, glass and metal. There’s even one for food scraps, to feed pigs.

  Not that Rich will be going to back to his school for a while…

  “Yes, it’s for the war effort,” I tell him as I start gathering up our luggage, like a packhorse.

  It’s ever so quiet round here, I think, gazing about and not seeing a single person. It’s like a ghost town, with the white butterflies as flitting, tiny spectres.

  “Will we be eating cabbage a lot?” Rich asks, his skinny, bruised face crumpling with concern. He hates cabbage.

  “I’m sure there’ll be lots of other lovely things to eat, Richard,” Mum reassures him as she begins to walk, following some scribbled instructions on a piece of paper in her hand. “Right, come on; I think it’s this way…”

  Gas mask boxes bashing our hips, we trundle behind her, sneaking a peek into the grocer’s shop window with its stacks of tantalizing tins. They’re piled so high you can’t see inside.

  “‘Pass The Swan, and take the lane on the right’,’’ Mum reads from her note.

  “I don’t see a swan, Mum,” says Rich, looking over at the pond as we follow her. “There aren’t even any ducks!”

  “Not that kind of swan, Rich. It’s the name of this pub,” I tell my brother, nodding at the building we’re coming up to. It’s a proper old-fashioned inn, peppered with small windows – just the sort of place you could imagine a highwayman staying in centuries ago. A sign sways on creaking chains above the open door, but the picture on it is so faded that you can only guess that the flakes of paint once showed a graceful swan.

  My heart lurches when I spot that we’re being watched. Well, that I’m being watched. From one of the pub’s upstairs windows an unsmiling, scrawny-looking girl is staring at me, elbows on the windowsill, pale-coloured eyes roving over me.

  But what’s to see? I’m nothing special. A thirteen-year-old girl in a flowery summer dress with a white Peter Pan collar. Grey socks. Buckle shoes. Bobbed brown hair held back on one side with a slide.

  Maybe she’s staring because I’m wearing my winter coat on a warm day, since I didn’t fancy carrying it.

  Or maybe she’s gawping at the vivid, puckered scar on my right cheekbone.

  “We must be near the farm,” Rich suddenly calls out gleefully. “I can hear a pig! Oh, piggy-wiggy, where are you, oh piggy-wiggy, where are you…”

  As Rich breaks into a silly little sort-of-song, the staring girl gives a sudden, snorting laugh, and then disappears inside.

  I feel the faintest flurry of dread. It’s not the friendliest of welcomes, after all.

  “Rich, it can’t be the farm quite yet,” Mum says with a smile. “According to Vera, we have to walk quite a way down the lane before we get to Mr Wills’ place.”

  Vera works alongside Mum at the parachute factory. She came around to see us the day the after the bomb fell, and went from tut-tutting over the mess the broken glass had made in the back rooms to rolling up her sleeves and helping Dad clear the place up.

  She wouldn’t hear of Mum getting out of bed to make tea for her; in fact, she made the tea, and came to serve it to us on a tray, with a cake she’d baked and brought specially. What a sight me, Mum and Rich must’ve been; all huddled together in my parents’ big brass bed, a bundle of clean cotton nighties and pyjamas covering messed-up and bloodied skin.

  “You know what I’m going to say, don’t you, Madge, love?” Vera had said kindly, reaching over to pat Mum’s hand.

  “I think so,” Mum had replied, though it hurt her to talk, since she’d taken a blow to her jaw in the blast.

  “The kiddies can’t stay here…”

  Not with the planes now aiming for London, ready to drop their cargo on us all, Vera meant. I think she was trying not to say the words out loud, for Rich’s sake, but he was curled up asleep with Duckie, his small body – dotted with scars, blisters and burns – trying to rest and heal itself.

  “I’ve been chatting to your Norman, and he agrees with me,” Vera carried on, her voice turning matter-of-fact as soon as she noticed Mum crumble, her eyes filling with tears. “And I’ve sorted something out for you.”

  She passed Mum the paper with a name and address on it.

  And here we are now, walking down the country lane to the sanctuary of a farm that belongs to some relative of Vera’s husband, George. There had been talk about the schools around our way doing a mass evacuation again soon, but after what happened, Mum and Dad just wanted us gone, out of harm’s way, as quickly as they could arrange for it.

  So this morning we had the difficult job of saying goodbye to Dad before he left for the factory. “Here; buy yourselves a treat!” he’d said, and me and Rich stared down at the shiny silver sixpences he pressed into our palms. Before we knew it, he was hugging the breath out of us both and then hurrying off with a gruff “Take care,” shouted over his shoulder.

  “Will there be cows, Mum?” Rich asks, bumbling clumsily along with his bags and boxes.

  Yes, Dad will miss us dreadfully, but he won’t miss questions like this. Those questions Rich asks over and over again when he’s anxious, no matter how well they’re answered.

  “I think so, but I’m not sure,” Mum says for the hundredth time. “Vera’s never visited the farm, so she doesn’t know if Mr Wills grows wheat or beanstalks, or keeps sheep or elephants!”

  Rich laughs, and the laughing means he’ll stop worrying for a little while and won’t ask his question again straight away.

  “Look, there’s a sign up there – what does it say, Rich?” I ask, distracting him too.

  “East … field … Farm,” Rich squints and reads slowly. “That’s it! We’re here!”

  He runs ahead excitedly, though slowed by his clunking luggage. Mum and I smile at each other and quicken our pace to catch him up.

  The sign points us down a rutted, muddy lane, with a wide gate at the end, the sort you see in fields. There are two boys sitting on it, wearing shirts and pullovers, long shorts and wellies. They watch us struggle towards them, and the dark-haired skinnier one of the two looks as though he’s about to jump off and help – till the one with fairer hair puts an arm out and stops him.

  Are these Mr Wills’ sons? I’m confused… Vera told us that the farmer is a widower, with one younger and one older son. But both these lads look roughly about twelve or thirteen y
ears old, around the same age as me maybe. Does Mr Wills have three sons? I wouldn’t be surprised. Vera seemed vague about the details. It’s her husband’s cousin, after all.

  Beyond the unhelpful boys I can see a messy yard, littered with tractor paraphernalia, and chickens pecking at the straw and stone-speckled ground. It looks about as picturesque as the coalman’s place round the corner from our flat. Or the rubble-strewn wasteland that was the Taylors’ house and our back garden just a fortnight ago.

  My tummy lurches in alarm. What is this place we’ve come to? Yes, we’ll be safe from the Luftwaffe and their bombs and strafing guns, but Mr Wills and his sons … they’re just strangers to us. How can this farm, this family, replace Mum and Dad and home?

  “Hello,” Mum calls out to the boys, as she daintily picks her way down the lane in her patent, high-heeled, Sunday-best shoes. “Is Mr Wills here?”

  “In the field,” says the fair-haired boy, lazily thrusting his thumb in the direction of a gate in the hedge to the left of us. His hair is the same colour as the dirty straw littering the farmyard.

  “Right,” murmurs Mum, turning to look in the field and seeing a man on a noisy tractor. “Here goes. Mr Wills! MR WILLS!!”

  Nothing. The tractor chugs on.

  “Glory, Glory, Glory?” says Rich, squeezing my hand.

  “Don’t worry,” I tell my nervy, worried little brother. “He’ll hear.”

  “He’ll hear this.”

  Then my dainty, ladylike, pretty mum startles us by putting two fingers in her mouth and letting out the loudest, most piercing whistle I’ve ever heard.

  It works! The farmer looks round, sees he has visitors and switches off the grumbling engine of his tractor.

  “Where did you learn to do that?” I ask Mum, as the farmer ambles towards us.

  “It’s loud in the factory. Sometimes it’s the only way to get someone’s attention,” Mum replies with a pleased grin, which changes to a look of concern when she sees that Rich has his hands slapped over his ears. “Oh, sorry, sweetheart … I didn’t mean to startle you.”