by Anna Fargher
‘In the end, Jack’s mum arranged for us all to go,’ Dickin continued. ‘She quit her factory job and called her Auntie Dora in Cornwall. We’d have to pull our weight on the farm, she said, but we’d get a roof over our heads and maybe a fresh egg or two and you can’t get many of them in London these days, mate.
‘That evenin’ I lay in my kennel with that fluttery feelin’ in my stomach, thinkin’ of all them rabbits I was gonna chase, maybe even a sheep or two if I was lucky. But then somethin’ stopped my daydreamin’. A bleedin’ fox was nosin’ around our cabbages! There’s nothin’ I like more than chasin’ one of them out the garden and I gave it the run of its life, snappin’ at its heels all the way into Vicky Park.
‘Then out of nowhere, somethin’ strange tickled me whiskers like a thunderstorm was comin’. Suddenly, Moanin’ Minnie’s siren started wailin’ and a terrible feelin’ shook inside me. I wasn’t with Jack or his mum to get them into the Anderson shelter. I’d left them back at the house, asleep in their beds.
‘A sound like an angry beehive started filling the sky and a minute later the great crashin’ started. I sprinted home faster than I’d ever run before. There weren’t a star or a moon in the sky, just a red glow above London, like it was bleedin’. All I could see was flames and smoke. Humans ran around, shoutin’ for help, screamin’ for water, and all the streets I knew were gone. When I found my house, I was too late. All that was left was a big pile of bricks.
‘I couldn’t hear my Jack and our mum with them bombs bangin’ all about the place, but nothin’ stops my nose. That’s when I dug up his specs, all cracked, bent and sticky like they’d been dipped in red treacle.
‘The next day, men came and took their bodies away in one of them green ambulance vans. They drove away without givin’ me a second glance and I chased it till my legs gave way and I fell in the street, tryin’ to breathe. I went back to where I found Jack’s specs and lay next to them, still smelling my Jack and our mum, but I knew they’d never come home.
‘Then one day, a lump of bread rolled across the ground by my paws. A man wearin’ one of them metal hats crouched next to me with a sandwich in one hand and a cuppa tea in the other.
‘“So much for the ‘phoney war’ eh?” he said, throwin’ me another bit of crust, but I was too sad to eat. “Not hungry?” he said, scratchin’ that sweet spot behind my ears so’s I couldn’t stop my leg scratchin’ the ground. “Nor me, pal.”
‘Before me stood a bloke, tall and lanky with black-rimmed specs just like my Jack. He came every day to clear the mess from my street with other wardens and I grew fond of them. On his last day, he asked me to go home with him.
‘“There ain’t nothin’ left for us here now, boy,” he said, and he was right.
‘You see, love, that was the end of my last life, but my new one ain’t bad and I bet yours will be all right too. Mr King and me are family now. He looks out for me and I look out for him. I couldn’t save my Jack or his mum and Mr King couldn’t save his family neither. So what I’m sayin’ is that there’re lots of us like you. We’re all in it together and it’s somethin’ like this that brings us all closer. You’ll see it too, mate, I promise ya. And I’m sure your folks’d want ya to be safe. It’s time for you to start your new life now, just like I did.’
‘I won’t leave the umbrella!’ Pip snapped, locking eyes with the terrier as her hackles rose. She glowered, desperately hoping her fury would squash her sorrow. ‘My family has never been without it, I will not leave it here!’
‘It’s all right,’ Dickin said softly. ‘Don’t worry, we can take it with us. But we have to leave this place. Have ya got any other friends or family I can take ya to?’
Pip looked at where James Smith & Sons used to be. Trembling, she cast her eyes on the pub next door, where Dot and Joe had lived. Nothing was left of it either.
‘I don’t have anyone,’ she said. ‘Everyone I knew was here and now they’re all. . .’
‘It’s all right, mate, don’t you worry,’ Dickin said. ‘There’s a place for folks like you. It’s called St Giles.’
‘I’ve heard of St Giles.’ She remembered Mama and Papa had grimaced whenever they heard the name. ‘It’s full of beggars and thieves.’
‘I wouldn’t take ya there if it weren’t safe. St Giles is the place to go when you ain’t got a place to go, and in wartime that ain’t somethin’ to sniff at.’
Pip looked at the umbrella and thought of Mama and Papa. They would have hated it if they ended up there. There had to be another place.
‘Wait!’ she said, and at once her whiskers popped upright with an idea. ‘I know where I’m meant to go!’
‘Good. Where is it? I’ll take ya there.’
‘I’m going to the umbrella museum in Gignese. It’s right in the north of Italy.’
‘Italy?’ Dickin scoffed. ‘You must be crackers! Even after the Allied invasion of the south, northern Italy is still enemy territory!’
‘But I have nowhere else to go,’ Pip said, fighting the tears swimming in her eyes. ‘I am the last surviving Hanway mouse of Bloomsbury Street, but my mother is from Gignese. I have family there. We were going to visit them when Mr and Mrs Smith took the umbrella to show the owners of the museum. It belonged to Jonas Hanway.’ Pip’s voice cracked. She could almost hear Papa telling her about her family and the umbrella where she and her ancestors had lived for over a hundred years. ‘He was the first man to use an umbrella in England. Before him, people had to get horse-drawn carriages when it rained. I come from a long line of umbrella mice and my umbrella belongs in a museum. I have to take it with me.’
‘That’s fair enough, mate, but how are you plannin’ on gettin’ there? There’s crossin’ the English Channel, and there’s travellin’ across Europe, which is at war, in case you hadn’t noticed.’ The terrier shook his head. ‘No offence, Pip, but you’re one little mouse. I’d sooner see Winston Churchill put on a dress and dance in the fountains at Trafalgar Square.’
‘All we ever wanted was to go to Gignese to meet my mother’s family and see where she grew up. A place in the Italian hills that’s filled with important umbrellas, far away from the bombs in London and. . .’ Her voice faltered and, with furious grief, she clenched her paws into fists, stared into Dickin’s flabbergasted face and cried out in a crescendo: ‘Wouldn’t you do anything to go to the place where you had some family left? Where you know you are meant to be? I don’t know how I’ll get there, but I’ll never know unless I try. I just need to find the courage in my heart to begin something new!’
On uttering the same words Mama always used to say when she was struggling, Pip realized she would never hear her or Papa’s voices again. She would never tickle her whiskers together with theirs and see them smile. She would never rest her ears on Mama’s soft, furry chest and listen to her heartbeat before she went to sleep. No longer able to fight the sadness bellowing in her heart, tears raced down Pip’s cheeks and travelled the lengths of her whiskers before hitting the ground in small thuds.
Dickin fell silent. He had to admit, there was truth in what Pip said. He’d do anything and everything to be near his family again. All he had left of them was their gravestones in a Poplar churchyard, and he let nothing stop him from going there whenever he could.
‘Well,’ he said with a sigh. ‘You can’t do it on your own, that’s for sure. I can’t believe I’m sayin’ this, but I think I know someone that could help ya.’
‘What?’ Pip gasped, looking up. ‘Who?’
‘I’ll tell ya on the way,’ the terrier said, energetically wagging his tail. ‘Climb up and grab hold of me collar. I’m gonna help you find them.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, and it’s time we got a move on, we’ve been here long enough,’ he said, dipping his head and shoulders to the ground. ‘Come on, love. This ain’t time for dilly-dallying.’
With a lump in her throat, Pip nervously clutched Dickin’s black, wiry fur in both paws an
d clambered up to the back of his neck.
‘Now you hold on tight, Pip Hanway!’ he said in a muffled voice as he took the umbrella between his teeth. ‘This is gonna be the run of your life!’
CHAPTER FIVE
THE UNDERGROUND
Dickin bounded forward, zigzagging around the splintered wood, pummelled bricks and broken glass now gathered in heaps at the foot of the blasted buildings along Bloomsbury Street. Tightly clutching the scruff of his neck, Pip tearfully looked over her shoulder for one last glimpse of the remains of the umbrella shop. Leaving it behind felt as unnatural and terrifying as if she was losing the whiskers on her cheeks or the ears on her head. She had never known a moment without Mama and Papa or the shop, and as Dickin raced passed the enormous, charred black skeleton of the number eight bus in the middle of the road, Pip felt haunted by the flames that had flickered around the people inside.
Dickin forked sharply right on to Tottenham Court Road and ran headlong into a flurry of people on their morning walk to work. Startled, the terrier suddenly darted between a young woman’s legs. Shrieking in alarm, she fell to the pavement with a thump, sending a nearby newspaper stand tumbling on its side. A tall pile of papers – with Hitler’s Vengeance printed in thick black letters across the top – scattered across the pavement. People gasped and helped the woman to her feet as Dickin galloped past them down a steep flight of stairs leading to the Underground. He raced across the ticketing hall to a closed door. Pip scrunched up her eyes and tightened her grip on Dickin’s fur, waiting for the dog’s body to crumple against the timber. But at the last moment, Dickin leaped upwards and threw all his weight into his front paws. The door burst open and instantly swung closed behind them.
Without a moment’s hesitation, Dickin hurried down the spiralling metal staircase in front of them. Warm, stuffy air struck them in the face, as if they were passing through a veil of cobwebs, and a long-winded screech cried in the distance, followed by a gust of wind. At the bottom of the stairs, Dickin doubled back and scurried beneath the bottom steps. A greasy black metal grate sat at the foot of a wall covered in grubby cream tiles. Briefly dropping the umbrella on the ground, Dickin lifted the corner of the grate with his teeth and awkwardly pushed himself, Pip and the umbrella inside.
‘Blimey,’ Dickin panted in the stuffy gloom, gently placing the umbrella on the narrow metal floor. ‘A chicken could lay hard boiled eggs in here.’
‘Where are we going?’ Pip said, a mixture of fear and excitement turning somersaults inside her chest.
‘Don’t worry, it ain’t much further now,’ he said, glancing back over his shoulder and giving her a reassuring wink. Nudging the umbrella with his nose, the terrier shuffled on his stomach along the narrow vent, which disappeared in a steep, dark descent just ahead. ‘Hang on tight,’ he said, his eyes twinkling in the half-light. ‘Here we go!’
They plunged into the darkness. Scrunching up her eyes, Pip let out a little yelp, feeling her whiskers pulling on her face with the force of the fall. Reaching the bottom with a bump but allowing no time for himself or the little mouse on his back to catch their breath, Dickin snapped up the umbrella between his teeth and sprinted along train tracks glinting through the shadows of a tall, domed, brick tunnel. A few paces later, he came to a stop beside an amber glow coming from a small hole where a number of bricks were missing from the wall. Distant chatter floated through the gap.
‘All right, mate,’ he panted, speaking quickly and dropping the umbrella to the ground. ‘Get down and go inside.’
As Pip carefully clambered down from the terrier’s neck to the cold, dusty earth by his front paws, a high-pitched screech sounded in the distance behind them. With it, a warm breeze started collecting around her whiskers.
‘Where are we?’ she said, peering into the opening. ‘What’s in there?’
‘That’s St Giles,’ Dickin said, quietly bristling with impatience as Pip watched a puddle shimmering in the glow from the wall. Suddenly, a low growl rumbled in the dog’s throat and his ears drew back angrily on his head. ‘Come on, mate, we haven’t got all day!’
His gruff and insistent bark loudly reverberated in the tunnel. Leaping in surprise, Pip looked up at him with a scowl. It was then that she understood why he was angry. Behind the terrier, two tiny white dots were growing larger inside the tunnel. The domed ceiling was becoming brighter and the ground beneath her paws was beginning to shake. Pip shuddered. A vast, wide-open jaw of light was greedily swallowing the gloom and storming along the train tracks towards them.
‘Hurry up!’ Dickin barked again, snatching the umbrella between his teeth and jumping up after Pip as she rushed through the hole. A clang sounded as the terrier stumbled to a standstill.
‘Come on!’ Pip said, feeling the tremors of the approaching train quake her little body. ‘Hurry!’
Leaping forward once more, Dickin snarled in frustration. Again he tried, but it was hopeless. He could not push himself and the umbrella inside.
‘Quick! Pip cried, helplessly watching him falter as the world now thrashed wildly from side to side. She gasped in horror. A white halo of light was quickly glowing brighter around her only friend in the world, carrying everything she had. ‘Dickin!’
But the terrible screech of wheels racing across metal drowned out her yell. Wide-eyed with terror, the terrier turned and faced the oncoming light. At that moment, the silver tip of the umbrella slipped through the opening. Without thinking, Pip threw her paws around it and pulled with all her strength, just as Dickin hurled himself and the umbrella inside. Colliding, they tumbled across the ground and landed in a heap inside the opening in the wall. The train thundered past and disappeared, leaving the dog and the mouse lying petrified side by side, panting with terror and relief.
‘Are you all right?’ Dickin said. Clambering unsteadily to four paws, he shook the fright from the tip of his nose to the end of his tail. The little mouse didn’t stir. ‘Can you hear me, love? Are you OK?’
‘No, I’m not all right,’ Pip said, her lips trembling. ‘I want to go home.’
‘Wherever you are in this world now, mate, you’re home,’ Dickin said frankly as he tenderly nudged her to her paws with his nose. ‘Come on, let’s get you and this bleedin’ umbrella to Gignizzy or wherever it is. . .’
‘Gignese,’ Pip said firmly, correcting him in the same bossy way Mama used to when she said something wrong. ‘My new home is inside the umbrella museum in Gignese.’
‘Right,’ Dickin said, with his tongue lolling out of his mouth in a smile. ‘That’s just what I said.’
CHAPTER SIX
ST GILES
‘So this is St Giles?’ Pip said, looking about her and feeling a mixture of animal scents tingle her nose. They stood in a large chamber, separated from the Underground train tracks by a vast wall that disappeared high into the shadows above them. Eight dusty old bricks lay in disarray on the inside of the opening, crumbling around the edges where the mortar had been nibbled away.
‘This is one of the secret entrances into it, yeah,’ Dickin said. ‘When war broke out we needed a place to hide from the humans. There ain’t a food ration for pets so they started to do away with us to make sure there’d be enough to go around. And then when them bombs came knockin’, it wasn’t just humans that needed shelter, us animals needed a safe place below ground too.’
‘But it isn’t safe.’ Pip frowned. ‘That train nearly flattened us both.’
‘You ain’t wrong there, mate.’ Dickin sighed, sad to see her frightened. ‘I’m sorry about that. Sometimes danger crops up when you least expect it, but without it we’d never test our mettle. You did very well, if ya ask me,’ he smiled. ‘Come on, I’ll show ya around.’
Carrying the umbrella between his teeth, Dickin trotted ahead in the half-light along a well-trodden path. The amber glow Pip had seen from the tracks was seeping over a steep decline, like honey spread over warm buttered bread. From down the hill, Pip could hear the sound of ch
attering creatures busily murmuring to each other, and the smell of sweet and savoury foods tickled her nose.
‘Come on,’ Dickin said, his grin still making his eyes smile despite the umbrella in his mouth. ‘Let’s go and find a nice cuppa tea.’
With a wag of his tail, the terrier promptly bounced ahead and disappeared down the steep slope into St Giles. Feeling the flutter of nerves tremble in her stomach, Pip hurried forward.
‘How did all this get here?’ Pip said, looking wide-eyed at a bustling market below.
‘We have the St Giles Church mice to thank for that,’ Dickin replied, sitting on his haunches at the edge of the market, the umbrella on the ground in front of him, patiently waiting for her to join him. ‘When they saw what was going on, they enlisted the sewer rats and Tube mice to search for a place big enough for us animals to shelter in times of need. They know subterranean London better than anybody and they’re the ones who gnawed the mortar between the bricks inside the train tunnel wall so we could get inside. And that ain’t the only way in. They opened a whole lot of secret doors so we can use the sewers and abandoned chambers like this one. And no human’s gonna risk their lives nosin’ around busy Underground train tracks to notice us. We’re as safe as houses down here.’
The market was filled with every small creature imaginable, from small stray dogs, rabbits, guinea pigs, mice and rats to sparrows, pigeons, frogs, toads, voles and weasels, all intermingling together, haggling at market stalls, sipping on drinks and nibbling on food. Everything was illuminated by rows of the little white lights Pip remembered hanging in the umbrella shop at Christmas, and almost every animal turned and whispered to their neighbours as the terrier padded past them with the umbrella clasped between his teeth. Some curiously pointed their paws and feathers at them, others had their heads hung too low to notice. Their whiskers drooped from their cheeks as if they carried the weight of the world. Like Pip, they had survived the bomb blast the day before and were new arrivals in St Giles.