Catching Falling Stars

by Karen McCombie

  “No. The police will arrange for them to be taken to a prisoner-of-war camp, Richard,” Auntie Sylvia explains. “They’ll be treated fairly and allowed to write letters home to their mothers, through the Red Cross, I expect.”

  Suddenly, I remember the letter in my pocket, unsent and now crushed.

  I’ll post it later; if Thorntree is now just as dangerous as London, we might as well be back there with our parents.

  “And you’re not to worry yourself, young Richard,” says Reverend Ashton, about to give my brother a reassuring pat of the hand, till he thinks better of it. “I spoke to the military police, and they say this is a complete one-off. This pilot fellow was way off course, miles from where he should’ve been.”

  Rich blinks at Reverend Ashton, hanging on his every word.

  “The squadron he was part of dropped their bombs in the early hours and then headed back to base. So you see, our little corner of England is still the best, safest place for you to be. The same can’t be said for those poor souls down in Lond—”

  Auntie Sylvia looks as horrified as I feel hearing those words. Luckily, she dives right in before the vicar blurts out how bad things are at home and frightens the living daylights out of Rich.

  “Thank you very much for coming to tell us the news,” she says while getting to her feet, which forces a comfy and surprised Reverend Ashton to do the same. “We won’t keep you. You must have so much to do!”

  As Auntie Sylvia holds the back door open for the vicar, my head buzzes with thoughts of home, anxious to know the state of my city, and more importantly, my little patch of it. (Oh, I hope this raid wasn’t on our doorstep!)

  “Now, I think we’ve had quite enough excitement for one day,” says Auntie Sylvia, coming back and settling herself down to bandage Rich’s other hand. “But would anyone like to hear some more cheerful news?”

  “Yes, I’m sure we would, wouldn’t we, Rich?” I answer for both of us.

  Rich nods enthusiastically.

  “Well, for the last few weeks Reverend Ashton has been rather pestering me about something. Two things, actually,” Auntie Sylvia begins.

  I think of last Sunday, when she sent us off to the common, on our doomed damson hunt. Sure enough, she didn’t exactly look as if she was about to engage in an enjoyable conversation with the vicar. If fact, she looked so tight-lipped and serious, I’d thought she was going to talk to him about sending us away.

  “You see, Miss Montague has enlisted in the WAAF—”

  “What’s that?” Rich interrupts, patiently holding his hand in the air while Auntie Sylvia pops a safety pin into the bandage to hold it in place.

  “Women’s Auxilliary Air Force,” I tell him. It immediately makes me think of Lil in the Land Army, and I feel a pang of longing for my dizzy-headed sister.

  “Exactly. Anyway, for the last few weeks, Reverend Ashton has been trying to persuade me to take over her role as organist.”

  “You’re going to play the organ in church?” I ask, amazed at the idea of Auntie Sylvia being brave enough to place herself publicly on view to the villagers.

  “Yes, yes I am. Reverend Ashton says it’s my duty not to waste the talents I’ve been given, such as they are,” Auntie Sylvia continues. “But more importantly, Reverend Ashton has asked me repeatedly to come out of retirement and teach in Miss Montague’s place. I have to confess, I’ve been very much against the idea up till now. But as a certain young man is a pupil at Thorntree School, I rather thought it might be something I should reconsider.”

  She’s smiling kindly at my brother, who hasn’t a clue what she’s saying.

  “You mean, you’ve decided to be Rich’s teacher?” I double-check.

  “Well, yes, that’s what I wanted to tell Reverend Ashton before church this morn—”

  She doesn’t get to finish her sentence.

  Rich suddenly understands, and he reaches over and throws himself around her neck, wrapping Auntie Sylvia in a grateful cuddle before she can do anything about it.

  “Well!” she says, uncertain what to do with her own hands and holding them uselessly in the air. “I take it you’re pleased with the news, Richard?”

  “Oh, yes, yes I am!” I hear his muffled response.

  Auntie Sylvia locks eyes with mine, and I see hers are twinkling behind the glass of her spectacles.

  “Jolly good,” she mutters softly, and lets her arms settle stiffly across my brother’s back.

  So Auntie Sylvia cares enough about Rich to become the teacher at his school.

  Rich can hardly believe his good luck.

  The bombing in London is still bad.

  Things here aren’t perfect, but these three reasons mean I’ll be tearing up my letter to Mum and Dad and throwing it on the fire. And then I’ll write them a new one.

  Dear Mum and Dad,

  Rich and I are very happy and having a lovely time with Miss Saunders, who we now call Auntie Sylvia…

  “…and of course, I don’t suppose you have much of a chance to see beauties like this in London!” says Mr Carmichael.

  He’s talking about a newt.

  It’s wriggling about in a glass jam jar that Mr Carmichael dipped in the stream just now on our “nature” excursion.

  I want to tell him that we do, actually, because there’s a river close by where we live in London, and then there’s the big fishing pond at Alexandra Palace. And on day trips to the Lea Valley with school we get to see all sorts of wildlife.

  But thinking about that has reminded me of all my old classmates and everything familiar and I feel a sudden, sharp pang of homesickness in my chest…

  “Mmm” is all I manage to mutter to my teacher instead.

  “Now this, of course, is the palmate newt, which people often muddle up with the common newt because of… Hey, Johnny! Leave that bird nest alone and come down from that tree this instant!”

  Thank goodness for Johnny.

  Since no one in class talks to me, I’ve ended up walking and talking all morning with Mr Carmichael, and it’s become a little tiring. I mean, his knowledge of the hedgerows and berries and birds is very interesting, but he has tried to turn the conversation to Auntie Sylvia every now and then – “Is she taking good care of you, especially after yesterday’s near-miss with the plane?” – and I don’t feel comfortable being a tattletale. Yes, the whole village might wonder what she’s like behind closed doors, but Auntie Sylvia’s been too kind to Rich, to both of us, for me to betray her trust.

  So now I’m glad I can just sit here in peace for a few minutes and eat my sandwich, while Mr Carmichael is busy yelling at Johnny, who seems to have got himself stuck halfway up an oak tree.

  “Who’s your friend?” a voice asks.

  It’s Lawrence. He sits down next to me, brushing his fair hair back off his face, and I notice that his eyes look the goldy-brown of syrup in this light.

  “Huh?” I mumble, through a mouthful of cheese sandwich. I feel shy and stupid; I don’t know what he’s on about.

  “What’s his name?” Lawrence carries on, with a grin. He’s nodding down at the jam jar that Mr Carmichael left behind.

  “Ha! His name’s Bob,” I find myself joking, plucking a random name from the air for my “friend” the newt.

  “Well, hello, Bob – nice to meet you!” Lawrence jokes back, lifting the jar to inspect the wriggling creature at close quarters. “Hmm? What’s that you say, Bob?”

  He puts the jar to his ear, pretending to listen to something. I can’t help giggling.

  “You want to get back home? Your wife’s got the dinner on? Fair enough!”

  And with that, Lawrence leans forward and pours the newt and the tea-coloured water back into the stream.

  “Oh!” I gasp. “Won’t you get into trouble for doing that?”

  I’m pleased he
did – the poor newt wasn’t having the best time trapped in the jar – but Mr Carmichael might go as mad at Lawrence as he was with Johnny just now.

  Lawrence glances over his shoulder, then lays the jar on its side.

  “I’ll say I kicked it over by accident when I came over here to ask you how you are,” he says, turning his beam of a smile in my direction. “So how are you? And how’s your brother?”

  “I’m fine,” I tell him, still feeling a little shy. “And Rich is fine too. Well, he burned his fingers on those bullets he picked up and had to wear salve and bandages on his hands all day yesterday.”

  Rich quite enjoyed the novelty of his bandaged hands, and having me feed him his lunch and tea like a baby. He even came out with a disappointed “Aw!” when Auntie Sylvia unwound them this morning before they set off for school together.

  “Snap!” says Lawrence, pulling a dented bullet out of one pocket and holding up the fingers of his other hand so I can see the blisters on his thumb and forefinger.

  I can’t help laughing, but then immediately sober up when I remember I owe Lawrence something. An apology.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to say thanks, for protecting Rich, I mean. Everything got so busy when all the people came running…”

  “S’all right,” says Lawrence. “I thought it would be easier to shield him than Popeye. He’s a lot smaller.”

  Lawrence is funny. I thought he was just annoying – along with Jess and Archie, he was probably responsible for the snails in my desk after all – but he is actually funny. And I owe him a second apology.

  “And sorry … for shouting at you up at the farm,” I say sheepishly. “I thought you were teasing Rich. A lot of people do.”

  Even Jess, I think, remembering that day she was egging Rich on to jump at the butterflies and mimicking what he was saying.

  Lawrence stops grinning and just nods, playing around with a blade of grass in his fingers.

  “Well, I wouldn’t do that. Your brother’s a nice kid. Better than a lot of the kids in this place…”

  He sounds bitter. I’m not sure what to say, so I don’t say anything.

  “You getting on all right here? In the village?” Lawrence asks, turning the conversation back to me.

  “Um, it’s fine, I suppose. It’s just … well, the people in Thorntree aren’t very friendly.”

  The words are out of my mouth before I know it. I hadn’t meant to say that to Lawrence at all, especially since – until yesterday – I thought about him as one of those unfriendly people.

  “Ha!” Lawrence laughs out loud. “You’re not exactly friendly yourself, you know, Glory Gilbert!”

  “Me?” I say in surprise.

  “You should have seen the look you gave me and Archie that first day you walked up the lane to the farm,” he says, with his cheek-to-cheek grin. “Your mum was looking at this bit of paper, Rich was just sort of hopping around the way he does – and you … you just looked straight at me and Archie and gave us this scowl.”

  He pulls a face that’s part frown, part glower, part ridiculous. It would be funny if it wasn’t an impression of me.

  “It was like you hated me and Archie without even knowing us!”

  “I didn’t mean to do that,” I say hurriedly. “I was just nervous and not sure what to expect…”

  “Well, maybe you do it because you’re nervous, but it makes you look like you want everyone to keep a million miles away from you. You might as well just growl!”

  “Is … is that the way I seem to everyone?” I ask Lawrence, stunned, and thinking of how my classmates steer clear of me.

  “Well, yes,” he replies with a so-what shrug. “We thought you were as stand-offish and snooty as Miss Saunders.”

  There it is again, the fact that people don’t really like Auntie Sylvia…

  “But most of the people at school aren’t worth knowing anyway,” Lawrence carries on, twiddling the blade of grass in his fingers. “The locals all stick together, the evacuees all stick together, and then there’s me, Archie and Jess, and none of ’em bother with us at all.”

  He’s right; I might not know my classmates very well, but I can see there’s a big divide between the locals and Londoners. And sure enough, none of them talk to Lawrence and his friends.

  “Why? I mean, why don’t they bother with you?” I ask him, pushing aside my shyness now that curiosity has got the better of me.

  Lawrence splits the blade of grass with his fingernail, and seems to be thinking; thinking if he’ll tell me, if he can trust me, maybe.

  “Right, then!” Mr Carmichael shouts out. “Now that Johnny has kindly deigned to get down from the tree, let’s continue with our educative walk, girls and boys! And no, we are NOT going to go and look at the crash site again, so don’t keep asking!”

  Lawrence is on his feet before me, and I presume he’s going to head off and find Archie and Jess … but he doesn’t.

  As I start walking, he falls into step beside me.

  Mr Carmichael hesitates, as if he’s waiting for me to catch up with him, then frowns when he sees that I’ve made a friend.

  And from my teacher’s expression, he seems to think Lawrence is the wrong sort of friend for me to have…

  “What’s wrong with his face? Looks like he’s chewing a wasp!” says Jess, looking back at the church hall, where Mr Carmichael is standing in the doorway, his eyes on us all and deep lines furrowing his forehead.

  “I think he’s wondering why I’m not staying to help tidy up today,” I tell her.

  “Why aren’t you staying to help, Hope ’n’ Glory?” she asks bluntly, as we all go through the gate out on to the lane.

  “I’m just a bit tired,” I say, coming out with a little white lie.

  It’s too complicated to explain that I want to know how Rich got on with Miss Montague. Auntie Sylvia took him down to school this morning and was going to pick him up at lunchtime, “so there’s no nonsense,” she said sniffily. I love the fact that Auntie Sylvia wants to keep an eye on my brother. And I’m sure she also wanted to look around the school with fresh eyes, now she’s decided to take over Miss Montague’s class shortly.

  “Me too,” says Jess, swinging her battered satchel back and forth. “Didn’t get to bed till late ’cause of having to help out in the pub.”

  Mr Carmichael is still watching us, I notice. He clearly wasn’t impressed with Lawrence hanging around with me today on our nature walk, and he looks even less impressed with the company I’m keeping right now. To be honest, I’m not really sure why Jess, Archie and Lawrence waited for me in the yard after school today. Perhaps Lawrence has told them that I’m … all right?

  But do I feel all right about hanging around with them?

  I don’t know much about Archie since he never talks – he just stares a lot with those puppy-dog eyes. As for Jess, well, she still scares me a bit. Quite a lot, actually.

  “Er, aren’t pubs closed on a Sunday?” I ask Jess, as the thought suddenly occurs to me.

  “Yeah, but sometimes Charlie the landlord has some friends round, for a private drink,” she says with a wink. “And the place was lively last night, with everyone talking about the plane! I was cleaning glasses till all hours.”

  I feel a twinge of pity for Jess, having to work till late last night, when all I’d had to do was cuddle up in Auntie Sylvia’s comfy spare bed with Rich and his toys.

  “Hey, remember that pub on the corner back home, Archie?” Jess turns and asks the other boy. “That place was mad on a Friday night! What was it called again? The Lamb and what?”

  “The L-L-Lamb and F-F-Flag,” Archie stutters his reply.

  I’m so unused to hearing his voice that it’s always a surprise to hear how soft and low it is compared to Lawrence’s confident boom.

  “They were evacuated to
gether,” Lawrence tells me now, while Jess gabbles some story about the rowdy-sounding Lamb and Flag and she and Archie fall around laughing behind us. “They went to the same school in the East End of London.”

  “Oh! I didn’t realize the two of them knew each other before they came to Thorntree,” I say as we walk ahead together.

  I also had no idea that Archie had an actual stammer. When the plane came at us, I thought he was just stuttering in shock. But if he has a real, actual stammer … that must be the reason why he never answers a question in class, or talks out loud in front of everyone.

  “So Jess and Archie have been in Thorntree over a year?” I ask, keen to know more.

  “Uh-huh,” says Lawrence, lazily kicking at a stone in the road and sending it flying. “And when they were evacuated, the rest of their school got billeted in Basildon, except for them.”

  “What do you mean? Why didn’t they stay in Basildon too?” I ask.

  “They didn’t get picked by anyone there,” Lawrence says with a shrug. “The evacuation officer had to scramble around half the villages in Essex trying to persuade someone to take the two of them in.”

  “Oh, how awful,” I reply. “But why didn’t they get picked?”

  “Well, Archie won’t talk to anyone he doesn’t know, ’cause of his stammer, so people thought something was wrong with him,” Lawrence says matter-of-factly. “And Jess – she’s just a bit mouthy, isn’t she? You can imagine how well that went down!”

  “You talking about me, Florence?” Jess bursts in, jumping on Lawrence’s back.

  “Oi – don’t call me that!” Lawrence laughs, trying to wriggle her off him, but she hangs on so tight he ends up giving her a piggyback. “Anyway, I was just telling Glory why you two ended up here on your own.”

  At his words, Jess stops grinning and flops her head on Lawrence’s shoulder. She shoots me a sideways glance.

  “I miss my lot,” she says, almost softly. “Got three brothers and a sister in Basildon. Only seen them once since we got here. But then I haven’t seen the two little ones at all; they’re back in London with my mum and dad.”