A Place to Hang the Moon

by Kate Albus

  The children saw the sense in this. They shook their heads.

  “Therefore,” Mr. Engersoll continued, “I believe now is the time to proceed to a discussion of other—ehm—external options?”

  Anna’s eyes met William’s. “He’s talking about adoption,” William explained. He looked at the solicitor. “Is that right?”

  “Perhaps,” Mr. Engersoll replied. “Let me continue, however, as I fear circumstances may make adoption…challenging. First, I assume you would prefer to remain together?”

  This question Anna understood perfectly. A fat tear slid down her cheek.

  “What sort of question is that?” Edmund fairly bellowed.

  William stiffened. “Yes, sir.” He took a deep breath. “We would prefer to remain together.”

  A sniffle escaped from Miss Collins.

  “Of course,” Mr. Engersoll said. “I am sorry. What I mean to say is—” He removed his spotless spectacles to polish them. Anna climbed onto William’s lap, where she buried her wet face in his shirt. Edmund’s fists were clenched as Mr. Engersoll proceeded gingerly. “It’s only that…three is rather a lot to adopt, especially with the war going on. Families aren’t sure they can keep their own children safe, let alone take on more.” The solicitor replaced his spectacles and leaned close to the assembled siblings. “Which brings me to my recommendation for the three of you…”

  William thought he saw the old man’s eyes twinkle. But that couldn’t be right. This was not an occasion for twinkling.

  “I wonder whether,” Mr. Engersoll said, “in this very special case…the war might, in fact, be seen as rather…an opportunity?”

  William assumed he had misunderstood. “An opportunity?”

  Mr. Engersoll’s fingers met in a steeple under his chin. “You are aware of the latest round of evacuations currently being carried out in London and other—ehm—imperiled locations around the country?”

  The children nodded. They knew that thousands of children had already been evacuated from London to the countryside last September, after war was declared, in the hopes of keeping them out of harm’s way should the Germans bomb the city.

  “I should like for you to consider,” Mr. Engersoll continued, “the possibility of being evacuated yourselves.”

  William frowned. “But…wouldn’t we be safe at school, sir?”

  The solicitor looked from one to the other of them. “You probably would, William, but as it doesn’t solve the problem of finding you a proper guardian, I’m not sure going back to school is what’s best for you.”

  Not going back to school. Edmund was beginning to like the sound of this.

  Mr. Engersoll leaned even closer, his voice a near whisper now. “What if…the three of you were to be evacuated with the rest of London’s schoolchildren? Off to the country with you, where you would no doubt make a most favorable impression on whatever family was lucky enough to have you? Is it not possible that an arrangement intended as temporary could evolve into something…permanent?”

  William glanced at Edmund, then Miss Collins. “You mean,” he said, measuring each word, “that we should be evacuated and hope that whatever family takes us on wants to keep us forever?”

  Mr. Engersoll leaned back and folded his hands in his lap. “Precisely.”

  Edmund snorted. “Right. So…we’re to ship out to the wilderness, where we just happen to be scooped up by some kindly…farmer and his wife…who’ve been waiting all their lives for three half-grown children to drop into their laps?”

  Mr. Engersoll sighed. “It does sound preposterous when you say it that way.” He was not to be put down so quickly, however. “Is it outside the realm of possibility, though? You would be doing just as nearly a quarter of a million other children are doing, so it’s not as if you’ll be put on a train alone to seek your fortunes. And at the very least, evacuation will offer you the possibility of a permanent guardian.” He cleared his throat again. “You would need to be circumspect, of course. You couldn’t tell anyone the truth about your grandmother, or your inheritance, at least until you were sure you’d landed somewhere that you all agreed was a suitable home. We don’t want anybody taking advantage of you.”

  William wrinkled his nose. “So…we’d be lying?”

  “Well,” said Mr. Engersoll, looking rather guilty at the mention of lying, “I wouldn’t want you to lie, so much as to…omit the truth, I suppose. That is, you needn’t tell anyone that you left London because your grandmother died…only that she sent you away for your own safety.”

  “Which is lying,” Edmund said.

  The solicitor gave a sad sort of smile. “It isn’t a perfect plan, children. I understand. But among the limited options I see for you, this one offers the best hope, in my imagination.”

  Hope and imagination. How funny that the dour old solicitor should choose those words. For children—above all other creatures—are naturally endowed with extraordinary capacities for both. Indeed, having grown up in the care of a grandmother who lacked much in the way of warmth, William, Edmund, and Anna had spent untold hours imagining what a real family might look like and hoping one day to find themselves in one. And now, in the silence of the parlor, each of the children could imagine the faintest glimmer of hope in the solicitor’s admittedly preposterous plan.

  “What if we don’t find a suitable place?” William asked. He thought, but didn’t say out loud, What if we do find one, but they don’t want us, even if we do come with an inheritance? He wasn’t sure which of those was worse.

  Mr. Engersoll sighed. “Why don’t we cross that bridge when we come to it?”

  The children sat for a long moment, considering.

  Edmund set his teeth in a grimace. “It’ll never work.”

  And yet the children found themselves in the nursery the following week, packing their suitcases. Mr. Engersoll had contacted a colleague in the Ministry of Health and arranged for William, Edmund, and Anna to join the students of St. Michael’s, a North London primary school, when their evacuation occurred.

  For the most part, the wartime evacuations of London were accomplished through the schools. Children packed their things and boarded trains with their teachers, to be delivered to the relative safety of the countryside. There, willing strangers gathered in churches and schools, in village halls, even in theaters and cattle markets, to select evacuees to host until such time as London was safe again and the children could return to their families.

  “It’s an awfully small suitcase,” Anna said, reading aloud the official packing list Mr. Engersoll had obtained for them. “‘Nightgown, handkerchiefs, face cloth, toothbrush, comb, sturdy walking shoes’—right, I’ve got those. ‘One small family memento.’”

  “No worries there,” Edmund said. “That’ll save you some room.”

  Anna ignored him, continuing down the list. “‘A small bag or rucksack for school materials…if possible, a coat…’”

  “If possible?” Edmund wrinkled his nose.

  “Not everyone’s got a coat, Ed,” William said absently. Edmund paused a moment in his packing to digest this notion.

  “‘A favorite storybook,’” Anna went on. “One?” she asked.

  The very idea. To pick just one favorite book seemed as impossible as—well, as finding a family through a mass wartime evacuation. But there you have it.

  Anna surveyed the nursery shelves, taking down books here and there, considering each, then moving on.

  The Arabian Nights?

  “Far too heavy,” Edmund advised, “and I’m not carrying it for you.”

  Peter and Wendy? All those lost boys looking for a mother. A bit too close to home.

  Heidi? Agh. More orphans.

  A Little Princess. This one, Anna hadn’t read. She paged through the book, catching phrases: warm things, kind things, sweet things…nothing so strong as rage, except what makes you hold it in…a princess in rags and tatters…Anna snapped the cover shut and nestled the book in her suitcase.


  William’s selection was decided by an assignment he had made himself two years ago. On his tenth birthday, William announced to no one in particular that he planned to read the Encyclopaedia Britannica straight through, beginning to end. He read other things along the way, of course—heavens, to think of reading nothing but the Britannica for years and years—but had carried on with his quest. He had just started the fourth volume: HER(cules) to ITA(lic). He hefted it off the shelf. Surely the war would be over and done before it was time to move on to volume five and the doings of ITA(liysky, Aleksandr Vasilyevich Suvorov)?

  Edmund, retrieving a well-worn copy of The Count of Monte Cristo from the topmost shelf, marveled at his brother’s utter lack of sense. He poked William in the stomach with a corner of The Count. “You can borrow this, if you like, once you realize what a stupid choice you’ve made.”

  Miss Collins joined the children toward the end of their packing. Her eyes were red-rimmed, and she pocketed her handkerchief as she entered the nursery. “Now, children—shall we go through your suitcases and ensure you’ve not forgotten anything?”

  “Mine hardly latches,” Edmund replied. “Even if I had forgot something, I don’t know where I’d put it.”

  “Even so—let’s have a look, shall we?” Miss Collins opened Edmund’s suitcase to reveal an impressive selection of sweets. Dairy Milk chocolate bars and jelly babies, Cadbury Roses and wine gums, even a roll of Parma Violets. A weary smile played at the housekeeper’s lips. “Edmund, dear, hadn’t you better use your suitcase for essentials?”

  “These are essentials, Miss Collins. What if they haven’t got jelly babies in the country?”

  “Hmmm. The horror. Perhaps if we just…edited…a bit? Don’t you think that by wintertime you might fancy some extra socks more than jelly babies?”

  “I can’t imagine ever fancying socks over jelly babies.”

  “Indeed. Well, let’s have a look-through, and if all the necessaries are there, I suppose some extra sweets aren’t going to hurt anyone.” Miss Collins set to work on Edmund’s suitcase as Anna and William silently considered slipping down to the kitchen to see what sorts of treats they might fit into theirs.

  Making her way through each of their cases in turn, Miss Collins looked up. “Have you got your gas masks?” The children hesitated for a moment, none of them certain where theirs had got to. The masks had been distributed throughout England back in September. The children had received theirs while they were away at school, and they seemed novel at the time. Edmund had especially enjoyed the way the mask amplified rude noises made with one’s mouth. With time, however, even this became tiresome, and the masks were forgotten. Edmund and William found theirs, at last, on the topmost shelf of their bedroom closet. Anna’s was discovered under her bed.

  The packing done, Miss Collins gathered the children and handed each a slip of paper inscribed with addresses and telephone numbers. “Right, then, children. Fix these to the insides of your suitcases. I’ll be staying with my sister near Watford.”

  “Why aren’t you getting evacuated, Miss Collins?” Edmund asked. “They’re not just doing children, you know. They’re sending the elderly—” He stopped, midsentence. It had sounded more rude than he intended.

  William sighed, but Miss Collins didn’t fuss. “My sister’s is evacuation enough for me, Edmund. Now—you’re to contact me and let me know your whereabouts straightaway, all right? I’ll pass the information along to Mr. Engersoll, but his address and telephone number are here as well. Should you need anything at all…” Here, the old housekeeper faltered. She rummaged in her apron pocket for her handkerchief and pressed it to the end of her nose. “Oh, children…I’m sorry.”

  William went to her side. “It’s all right, Miss Collins. We know you’d carry on living with us if you could.” Anna was blinking back tears. Edmund stared resolutely at the nursery rug. He made it a point of pride that he didn’t cry. Not ever.

  Miss Collins laid a hand on William’s shoulder. “If you only knew how I wish I were twenty-five years younger.”

  She pocketed her handkerchief with a sniff and squared her shoulders. “Now—while I rather agree with Edmund’s assessment of Mr. Engersoll’s scheme—namely that it’s a bit far-fetched—if there were ever three children who could make such a thing happen, it would be you.” At this, the children gave wan smiles. “But remember—you’re not to advertise your situation to anyone—not until you find yourselves in a place where you all three agree the time is right to let someone in on your secret. Do you understand?”

  Edmund smiled in a macabre sort of way. “So, we’re not to introduce ourselves by saying ‘We’re the Pearces, and we’d like you to adopt us straightaway…and by the way, we’ve got a bit of money that could be yours if you took us on’?”

  Miss Collins gave a dark chuckle. “Indeed, Edmund. I wouldn’t advise it.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  The next morning, Mr. Engersoll arrived at seven to drive the children to the schoolyard from which they would embark.

  Miss Collins presented each of them with lunches to stow in their rucksacks. “Sandwiches, apples…and the little that’s left of the chocolate,” she said, offering Edmund a tiny smile. She embraced each of the children in turn, alternately wiping Anna’s eyes and her own as they said their goodbyes. “Best behavior, now,” she whispered to Edmund, who dodged her attempt to smooth a rogue cowlick with her palm.

  She held on to William an extra moment. “Take good care of them,” she said.

  William swallowed a hard thing at the back of his throat but found that this accomplished nothing. This is what happens, sometimes, with hard things at the back of one’s throat. “I will,” he said.

  With that, the children proceeded—rather like Sherpas—wearing their winter coats, rucksacks slung over their shoulders, suitcases in one hand, gas masks hung round their necks, to Mr. Engersoll’s waiting car.

  In gentler times, the children had always adored drives through London. This morning, however, dreadful weights lodged in the pits of their stomachs, and none of them took any notice of the waking city as it passed. Anna sat between her brothers, squeezing William’s fingers so tightly they went white. Edmund, though he would never admit it, was prone to motion sickness and was just hoping he wouldn’t have to ask the solicitor to pull the car to the side of the road. He distracted himself by concentrating hard on how remarkably shiny Mr. Engersoll’s bald head was.

  Regent’s Park passed in a blur of green. William noted a small sign for the zoological park and wondered whether he would ever go there, now that he was leaving London. It seemed an awful shame, he thought, never to have seen the zoo. He recalled reading, somewhere, that the elephants and pandas had been evacuated already. Just like us, he thought.

  Several miles on, Mr. Engersoll startled the three of them from their reveries. “Here we are, children.” He parked the car at the side of a large building bordered by an iron fence. Unfolding themselves from the back seat and retrieving their things from the trunk, Anna, Edmund, and William made their way along the fence line until they could see into a paved schoolyard where seventy or eighty children milled about.

  The solicitor walked his charges past the swarm of children to a young woman with a clipboard. She had kind eyes, William noted. Mr. Engersoll inquired after a Miss Carr, whom he understood to be the directress of operations.

  The kind-looking lady pointed out a hawkish woman near the side gate. “That’s Miss Carr.” She smiled at Mr. Engersoll, then offered the children a wink as they walked toward the woman in charge. She was waggling her finger at a boy about Anna’s age.

  The solicitor cleared his throat. “Miss Carr?”

  She turned. “Yes?”

  “Harold Engersoll. I’m here with the Pearce children?”

  The woman hesitated, then gave a nod. “Ah, yes. I was advised you were coming.” She looked the children up and down. “Twelve, eleven, and nine, I recall?”

 
“Yes, ma’am,” William replied.

  “Wait here, please. You’ll need to be checked.”

  “Checked for what?” Edmund asked. The woman’s suit, he noted, was the color of a stagnant pond. To his credit, he did not say this aloud.

  “For nits,” Miss Carr replied.

  Anna wrinkled her nose. William took a step backward.

  “We haven’t got nits,” Edmund said.

  Poor hygiene had been one of the complaints among host families from the first wave of evacuations. Official memoranda had been distributed, indicating that children should be thoroughly inspected prior to evacuation.

  Judith Carr was not a woman who disregarded official memoranda. She offered Edmund a tight-lipped smile. “We’ll just make sure, then, won’t we?”

  Edmund looked to Mr. Engersoll, but the solicitor raised his eyebrows in an expression of defeat.

  Thankfully, it was the woman with the kind eyes who was charged with their inspection. She greeted them with a smile, introducing herself as Mrs. Warren.

  “We’ll just get this over and done quickly, shall we?” She gave another wink as she used her index finger to part Anna’s hair down the middle and bent to look closely. Anna’s eyes burned at the indignity.

  “You three are from outside the school?” Mrs. Warren asked. They nodded. “That must be a bit of a challenge, I expect? Not knowing anyone?” The children gave another silent nod as she moved on to William.

  “Well, you know someone now.” It was a thoughtful thing to say, and it warmed the children’s hearts.

  “You’re being evacuated as well?” William asked.

  “I am,” she replied, turning to Edmund, who gritted his teeth and bent his head in submission. “As a teacher, I’m expected to facilitate the evacuation. My husband is away fighting, so it almost doesn’t even feel like leaving home, the way things are.”

  Giving their heads the all clear, Mrs. Warren nodded. “Now—if the three of you need anything on the journey, don’t hesitate to find me.” She turned with a wave and crossed the yard.