by Megan Rix
Jack’s leaving was probably going to be hardest for Misty. She couldn’t be expected to understand where he’d gone or why he had to go. All she’d know was that he’d left her.
‘Make sure you give her lots of strokes,’ said Jack.
Amy smiled. She knew how much Jack loved Misty and what an important task he was entrusting to her.
‘At least a thousand strokes a day,’ she said.
Amy couldn’t imagine what the house was going to be like without Jack there. But she was sure it would be a sadder, lonelier place without him. He was six years older than her and some big brothers might not have liked their little sister tagging along with them all the time. But Jack wasn’t like that. He was the best big brother in the world.
Amy swallowed down the lump in her throat. Now was not the time for crying. She had to be strong for Jack and Misty, and told herself she wasn’t the only one having to say goodbye. Amy knew that hundreds of people up and down the country were saying goodbye to the people they loved as more and more men and boys were called up. They too would be frightened and worried about when they’d see each other again.
At first, the war had felt very far away from Amy’s world, but no one doubted England was truly at war now. At school they were growing vegetables on the playing field and knitting scarves and socks to keep the soldiers warm. But Amy wished there was something more she could do to help with the war effort. Anything for it to be over with as soon as possible.
‘I’m glad she has you,’ Jack said as he stroked Misty.
He stood up and pushed his arms into the suit jacket. Then he laced up the shoes he’d polished so hard he could see his reflection in them.
‘Ready to show Mum and Dad?’ he said. Jack was trying on his dad’s suit to wear the next morning – it felt a bit like getting ready for the first day of school.
Misty jumped awkwardly off the bed and followed Jack and Amy as they went down the stairs.
The front door was open and there was a bucket beside it. Once a week, regular as clockwork, their mother, Mrs Dolan, cleaned the front doorstep until it shone. Most of their neighbours did the same. Mrs Dolan stood up as soon as she saw Jack.
‘Oh, son,’ she said, her voice breaking at the sight of her boy going off to war in his father’s best suit. She clenched her floral apron tightly in her fist to stop herself from welling up. ‘Your father will be so proud.’
Doorstep forgotten and cleaning materials abandoned, she led Jack to the front room where his father was waiting. This room had their best furniture and ornaments in it and was reserved for visitors and special occasions. There was a black upright piano in the corner, a floral patterned sofa, two armchairs and a print of a seascape on the wall. Mrs Dolan closed the door so Misty couldn’t follow them inside as she was never allowed in the sitting room.
‘Here he is, all grown up,’ Mrs Dolan said as her unbidden tears turned to sobs. ‘And going off to fight.’
‘Hush, mother,’ Mr Dolan told her, and she sniffed and wiped her tears away on her apron. ‘Our boy needs you to be strong.’
Mrs Dolan nodded, not trusting herself to speak. Amy took her mother’s hand and squeezed it gently.
Misty stared at the closed sitting-room door for a moment and then padded along the hallway to the open front door and sniffed. There was a lazy late Saturday afternoon feeling in the soft, warm air. She didn’t attempt to go out. She’d never been tempted to stray although there’d been opportunities aplenty in the past, but the air with its myriad smells from the street was too interesting not to sniff. Next-door’s dog, over-the-road’s cat, the three round metal pig bins by the lamp post all made her sensitive nose twitch.
She watched as a boy emptied the scraps from his family’s breakfast and Saturday lunch into one of them, waving his hand to ward off the host of bluebottles that buzzed round him.
Every few days the bins were collected and sent to local farms where they were emptied into the pigs’ troughs before being returned and quickly filled up again.
Misty stepped out on to the front-garden path and sniffed. But then she heard a strange sound, little more than a hum, like a soft insect drone at first. Too quiet for a human ear to detect, but Misty heard it. It grew louder and louder. Misty hurried to the closed door of the sitting room and whined softly.
Inside the room Amy was the first to hear the distant but steady drone.
‘What’s that noise?’ she asked.
The sound was strangely ominous and her parents looked at each other uneasily.
‘What is it?’ she repeated, her voice now fearful as the noise grew ever louder.
‘Plane engines!’ said Jack.
Outside in the hallway Misty whined and scratched at the door more frantically. Then came the sound of the siren, wailing faintly at first, but soon growing louder and louder until it was deafening. In a panic, Misty ran from the hallway, out of the house and down the front path and along the street, on and on, desperate to get away from the dreadful wailing that filled her head, thinking only of protecting her unborn pups.
As the air-raid siren joined the sound of the planes, Mr Dolan grabbed his wife’s hand. They’d been warned that there could be bombs at any time, but were not expecting them just before teatime on a warm September afternoon.
‘Bombs!’ he shouted. ‘Out to the shelter, quickly!’
The four of them ran from the sitting room through the kitchen door and out into the back garden, past the outside toilet, to the Anderson shelter at the rear. Mr Dolan pulled away the sacking he’d used to cover the small opening and helped his wife and daughter down the shortened ladder.
‘In you go.’
‘Misty!’ Jack shouted. He turned back to fetch her, but his father grabbed his arm firmly and wouldn’t let go when Jack tried to pull away.
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First published 2014
Text copyright © Megan Rix, 2014
Map and illustrations copyright © Puffin Books, 2014
Map by David Atkinson
Illustrations by Sara Chadwick-Holmes
Cover Illustration by Richard Jones
All rights reserved
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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ISBN: 978-0-141-35191-9