by Megan Rix
The three of them kept on shovelling until the shelter was completely hidden by the newly dug soil.
Lucy and Mrs Edwards came out, carrying freshly made lemonade and fairy cakes.
‘Good, we’ve earned this,’ Robert said when he saw them.
‘Those look very appetizing, Lucy love,’ Mr Edwards said when Lucy held out the plate of cakes.
‘Do you like it?’ Lucy asked Michael, as he bit into his cake. Her eyes were shining.
‘Delicious,’ Michael smiled, and took another bite.
Buster was desperate to taste one of Lucy’s cakes too. He looked at her meaningfully, mouth open, tail wagging winningly. When that didn’t work he tried sitting down and lifting his paws in the air in a begging position.
Lucy furtively nudged one of the cakes off the plate on to the ground.
‘Oops!’
Buster was on it and the cake was gone in one giant gulp. He looked up hopefully for more.
Mr Edwards took a long swig of his lemonade and put his beaker back on the tray. ‘So, what do you think?’ he asked his wife.
Mrs Edwards’s flower garden was ruined. ‘It’s going to make it very awkward to hang out the weekly washing.’
‘In a few weeks’ time even I’d have trouble spotting it from the air,’ Mr Edwards said. He was a reconnaissance pilot and was used to navigating from landmarks on the ground. ‘It’ll be covered in weeds and grass and I bet we could even grow flowers or tomato plants on it if we wanted to.’
Lucy grinned. ‘But you’d still know we were nearby and wave to us from your plane, wouldn’t you, Dad?’
‘I would,’ smiled Mr Edwards. ‘With Alexandra Palace just round the corner, our street is hard to miss. But Jerry flying over with his bombs won’t have a clue the Anderson Shelter’s down here with you hidden inside it – and that’s the main thing.’
Lucy shivered. ‘Will there really be another war, Dad?’ It was a question everyone was asking.
‘I hope not. I really do,’ Mr Edwards said, putting his arm round his wife. ‘They called the last one the Great War and told us it was the war to end all wars. But now that looks doubtful.’
Michael helped himself to another of Lucy’s cakes and smiled at her.
Lucy was beaming as she went back inside, with Rose following her.
As Lucy filled Buster’s bowl with fresh water and took it back outside, Rose padded behind her like a shadow. She chose different people, and occasionally Buster or Tiger, to follow on different days. But she chose Lucy most of all. She’d tried to herd Buster and Tiger once or twice, as she used to do with the sheep, but so far this hadn’t been very successful, due to Buster and Tiger’s lack of cooperation.
‘Here, Buster, you must be thirsty too after all that digging,’ Lucy said, putting his water bowl down on the patio close to Tiger, who stretched out his legs and flexed his sharp claws. Lucy stroked him and Tiger purred.
Buster lapped at the water with his little pink tongue.
‘Buster deserves a bone for all that digging,’ Robert said. ‘Or at least a biscuit or two.’
Buster looked up at him and wagged his tail.
‘Go on then,’ Mrs Edwards said.
Robert went inside and came back with Buster’s tin of dog biscuits. Buster wagged his tail even more enthusiastically at the sight of the tin, and wolfed down the biscuit Robert gave him. Bones or biscuits – food was food.
‘Here, Rose, want a biscuit?’ Robert asked her.
Rose accepted one and then went to lie down beside the bench on which Lucy was sitting. She preferred it when everyone was together in the same place; only then could she really settle.
Just a few months ago Rose had been living in Devon and working as a sheepdog. But things had changed when the elderly farmer didn’t come out one morning, or the next. Rose waited for the farmer at the back door from dawn to dusk and then went back to the barn where she slept. But the farmer never came.
Some days the farmer’s wife brought a plate of food for her. Some days she forgot and Rose went to sleep hungry.
Then the farmer’s daughter, Mrs Edwards, came to the farm, dressed in black, and the next day she took Rose back to London with her on the train. Rose never saw the farmer again.
Rose whined and Lucy bent and stroked her head.
‘Feeling sad?’ she asked her.
Sometimes Rose had a faraway look in her eyes that made Lucy wonder just what Rose was thinking. Did she miss Devon? It must be strange for Rose only having a small garden to run about in when she was used to herding sheep with her grandfather on the moor.
‘Do you miss Grandad?’
Rose licked Lucy’s hand.
‘I miss him too,’ Lucy said.
When they all went back indoors, Tiger stayed in the garden. He took a step closer to the Anderson Shelter and then another step and another. Tiger was a very curious sort of cat, and being shooed away had only made him more curious. He ran down the earth steps and peered into the new construction.
Inside it was dark, but felt cool and slightly damp after the heat of the sun.
‘Tiger!’ Lucy called, coming back out. ‘Tiger, where are you?’
Lucy came down the garden and found him.
‘There you are. Why didn’t you come when I called you?’ She picked Tiger up like a baby, with his paws waving in the air, and carried him out of the shelter and back up to the house. It wasn’t the most comfortable or dignified way of travelling, but Tiger put up with it because it was Lucy. Ever since Tiger had arrived at the Edwardses’ house as a tiny mewling kitten, he and Lucy had had a special bond.
They stopped at the living room where Robert was showing Michael Buster’s latest trick.
‘Slippers, Buster,’ Robert said.
Buster raced to the shoe rack by the front door, found Robert’s blue leather slippers and raced back with one of them in his mouth. He dropped the slipper beside Robert.
Robert put his foot in it and said, ‘Slippers,’ again. Buster raced off and came back with the other one.
Robert gave him a dog biscuit.
Michael grinned. ‘He’s so smart.’
‘He can identify Dad and Mum and Lucy’s slippers too,’ Robert told Michael. He’d decided not to risk Dad’s new slippers with Buster today. ‘You’re one clever dog, aren’t you, Buster?’
Buster wagged his tail like mad and then raced round and round, chasing it.
‘Tiger and Rose can do tricks too,’ Lucy said, putting Tiger down in an armchair. ‘And Rose doesn’t need to be bribed with food to do them. Look – down, Rose.’
Rose obediently lay down.
Lucy moved across the room and Rose started to stand up to follow her.
‘Stay, Rose.’
Rose lay back down again.
‘Good girl.’
‘So what tricks can Tiger do?’ Michael asked Lucy.
Lucy pulled a strand of wool from her mum’s knitting basket and waggled it in front of Tiger like a snake wriggling around the carpet. Tiger jumped off the armchair, stalked the wool and captured it with his paw.
Tail held high, he went over to Robert and then to Michael to allow them the honour of stroking him.
Tiger didn’t need tricks to be admired.
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First published 2013
Text copyright © Megan Rix, 2013
Map © TfL from the London Transport Museum collection
Chapter illustrations copyright © Puffin Books, 2013
Cover illustration by Richard Jones
All rights reserved
The moral right of the author has been asserted
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: 978-0-141-34276-4