by Lesley Parr
‘But it’s your turn to do the dishes,’ I say.
Ronnie gives Mrs Thomas his best doe eyes, the ones Mum used to fall for. She laughs. ‘Five minutes – and then dishes! But keep the noise down, mind.’
Ronnie and Florence walk out, still holding hands. I go to follow them.
‘You going too, Jimmy?’ Mrs Thomas says. ‘That’s nice. You can think about what to call your chicken.’
‘Chickens don’t need names,’ I say. ‘They just need to taste nice.’
‘Oh, Jimmy, why can’t you …’ But she doesn’t finish, just sighs and wipes her forehead with the back of her hand. I stomp out of the door. I know it was a stupid thing to say, no one’s going to eat them, but I wish she’d stop pretending this is our home.
Ronnie and Florence are in the coop, letting the birds peck all around them. Florence is giggling and stroking the big white one that Mrs Thomas says is mine. She looks up.
‘She’s lovely, Jimmy.’
‘She’s a chicken.’
Florence pulls a face and turns back to the bird. ‘Well, I think you’re beautiful. Don’t you listen to that Jimmy – he’s a silly boy. You’re like a big fluffy snowball … ooh, that’s a good name for you.’
Ronnie giggles too. ‘Snowball.’
‘I am not calling her Snowball!’ I say.
Back in the kitchen, Ronnie’s standing on the little wooden step that Mr Thomas made him so he can reach the sink. He’s elbow-deep in bubbles and singing ‘Run Rabbit Run’ really quietly.
Mrs Thomas is searching in her handbag; she looks up. ‘Jimmy, be a love, would you? Nip to the shop and get us some bacon and oats, please. Here’s the money.’
‘Can’t Ronnie go?’ I ask.
‘No,’ Mrs Thomas says. ‘I’ve asked you.’
‘But …’
‘No buts – just do as I ask.’
I’ve got no choice. I take the coins and turn sharply, my elbow catching a chair. It hits the floor with an echoing crash.
‘Jimmy! Be careful,’ Mrs Thomas says, her face and shoulders scrunched up tight.
‘It was an accident.’
‘Yes, bach, I know, but if you wake your Uncle Alun …’
‘He’s not my uncle!’ And I don’t know why I do it – something inside me just snaps – but as I pass the chair, I give it a good kick.
It’s like time freezes. Florence gasps. Ronnie stops singing. I feel my cheeks burn but it’s too late now.
Mrs Thomas glares at me before slowly picking up the chair and sliding it under the table. Her voice is an angry whisper, which is worse than being shouted at. ‘Uncle or not, Alun needs his rest. He needs it because he goes down a filthy pit, digging and scraping for coal to keep this roof over our heads – all our heads, whether you like it or not. Now get to the shop.’
‘It’s all right, Aunty Gwen.’ Ronnie’s standing on the floor, suds dripping off the ends of his fingers. ‘I can go for you.’
Mrs Thomas answers him but keeps looking at me, her voice tight, like she’s holding something in. ‘No thank you, Ronnie. I’ve asked your brother.’
She pushes past. It sounds like she’s gone into the parlour. I think I hear a sob. My face feels so hot; I never meant to make her cry.
Florence gives a low whistle. ‘I bet she’d have slammed that door if Alun wasn’t in bed.’
I shove the money deep into my pocket. ‘Shut up, Florence.’
Ronnie sniffs. She goes over to him. ‘Come on,’ she says, helping him back on to the step. ‘Clean those dishes up all nice, make your Aunty Gwen happy, eh?’
He nods and scrubs at the porridge bowls again. There’s no singing now. Florence ducks into the pantry, comes out with a mop and bucket and starts wiping the soapy water off the floor.
‘What are you doing?’ I ask.
‘Stopping you from getting a beating, that’s what. If we can get this place all neat and tidy, then they might not whack you.’
Ronnie’s stopped again. He turns on the step and wobbles. He looks like he’s just seen Hitler march through the kitchen. ‘Florence! Uncle Alun and Aunty Gwen don’t beat us.’
She looks at me.
‘They don’t,’ I say.
‘But she was properly angry,’ Florence says. Her words sound a bit like a question.
‘She wouldn’t beat us though,’ Ronnie says. ‘Does Phyllis—’
‘No,’ Florence says quietly. ‘Phyllis doesn’t.’
She keeps looking towards the door, like she wants to run away.
‘Just do the dishes, Ronnie,’ I say, grabbing her by the arm and leading her out of the kitchen. ‘We’ll go to the shop.’
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
FUGITIVES
We walk in silence. Every now and then Florence looks sideways at me but I keep my eyes ahead. We round the corner into Phyllis’s street. There’s a little gang just outside the shop, looks like lads. Four of them; one skinny and small, two huge and one normal-sized.
Florence spots them too. ‘Blimey, I think it’s—’
But she doesn’t get to finish her sentence because scrawny Jack yells, ‘Over there! Look! It’s them!’
And suddenly three of the lads are running at us full pelt. The other one – the normal-sized one – follows. I recognise his jumper; it’s Duff.
For a split second, Florence looks like she wants to stand and fight, but even she isn’t that tough. We turn and run, back along the street, down the hill. We race on, past all the side streets that look the same, down to the bottom where terraced houses flash past on our left. Angry shouts come from behind.
‘Run, you filthy vaccies!’
‘We’ll smash you when we catch you!’
‘We’ll rip your stinking heads off!’
That was one of the twins. I reckon he could tear my head clean off if he wanted. And this is their turf. Even if we outrun them, we can’t hide.
Just after the last house in the terrace, Florence makes a sharp left. ‘Come on!’ she screams. I look back; Jack’s fallen over and they’ve all stopped to help him up. I sprint round the corner after her and see …
A dead end.
I bend over, gasping for breath. Thudding boots and shouts get louder. This is it. I’m going to die. I’m going to die in Wales with Florence flipping Campbell and I’ll never see London again.
‘Come on,’ she whispers.
‘Come on where?’ I say. ‘There isn’t anywhere.’
We’re standing on a small patch of concrete facing a shed. It’s wedged between the last terraced house on the left and the huge, high wall of the Miners Institute on the right.
‘There is.’ She points to a narrow gap between the house and the shed.
‘We’ll never fit through there!’ I don’t want to try. I hate tight spaces.
She moves forward, presses her back against the wall and looks me up and down. ‘Of course we will. There’s space behind. I found it the other day, and you – you’re not fat or anything. Just breathe in.’
She starts to move sideways like a crab, her head turned away from me. She reaches the back of the shed and disappears. From the road, the thud of boots gets even louder. My heart thumps hard against my ribs. The gap’s so small.
But it’s better than getting my head kicked in.
I edge my left shoulder in first, turning my face to the road so I can see them when they come. Taking a big breath, I squeeze in and shuffle along. My clothes scratch against the walls and it feels like my ears will tear off. I need to breathe out, there’s too much air inside me. I keep moving but it feels like forever.
Oh heck, I’m stuck.
Thudding boots.
Closer.
I can’t breathe. My head’s fuzzy and light, like when I had the fever.
Boys run past, down the hill, sounding confused now.
‘Where are they?’
That’s Jack.
‘They can’t just disappear!’
That’s Duff.
‘You go that way, we’ll look by the river.’
That’s one of the twins.
I push.
I’m through.
I close my eyes and whisper, ‘Thank you, God.’
We’re in a tiny square, like the world’s smallest schoolyard. To my left is the house; the institute’s on the right and the shed is behind me now. In front is another wall, about five feet high, with railings running all along the top. Florence is leaning against it, her arms folded. ‘You took your time.’
I rub my sore ears. I take my hands away and there’s a bit of blood. Florence looks from my fingers to my face.
‘Your ears are pretty big, eh?’
‘They aren’t.’
She cocks her head from side to side and I cover my ears, pretending to rub them again.
‘Well …’ she says, ‘they’re a bit sticky-outy.’
‘That gap is tiny.’
‘Not that tiny, my ears are fine.’ She tucks some hair behind one and fiddles with her ribbon again.
‘Perhaps I just have a bigger head than you,’ I say, wiping the blood on my shorts.
She raises her eyebrows.
‘You know what I mean,’ I say.
Florence grins.
I push the toe of my shoe along the ground. A layer of black dirt crumples up, showing concrete underneath. There’s nothing else around except a few old sweet wrappers and twigs.
‘The lads all ran past,’ I say. ‘I saw them.’
‘Good.’
‘So what do we do now?’
Florence goes all dramatic. ‘Lie low, Private Travers. The enemy is near.’
It makes me laugh. She moves her eyes about like she’s watching for snipers. I try to speak but she holds a hand up to my face and makes her voice go deep and manly. ‘Careful, Private – careless talk costs lives.’
Still laughing, I push her hand away. ‘So we just wait here?’
‘Got no choice, have we?’ She sits down against the wall. ‘Best to wait till the coast is clear.’
‘How will we know?’
Florence shrugs. ‘Dunno, but we’re safer here and those two big lads can’t even get through.’
‘True.’ I look at the gap and wonder how I did. ‘Jack could though, he’s properly skinny.’
‘Well, that wouldn’t matter.’ She holds her arm up and flexes her muscles like a circus strongman. ‘We already know I can take him.’
CHAPTER NINETEEN
SECRETS
I walk around and around, running my fingers along the walls. Florence sits with her knees bent, scratching in the damp dirt with a stick.
‘Do you think this is coal dust?’ I say, scraping at the black ground with my shoe again.
‘Must be,’ she mutters. ‘It gets everywhere, Phyllis says.’
I grab the stick.
‘Hey!’ Florence swipes at me but I hold it out of her reach.
‘Noughts and crosses?’ I say, sitting down and making a grid in the coal dust.
We play best of nine. A few times, Florence tries to take an extra go but I spot it. In the end I win five games to three. She’s fuming.
‘Best of eleven,’ she says, grabbing the stick. She’s quick at arithmetic. I have to think about it to make sure she isn’t trying to cheat again.
‘No, I’ve had enough now,’ I say.
She huffs. ‘Just because you won.’
‘Of course.’ I try grinning at her but she’s obviously a bad loser.
Florence starts scratching the ground again. I sit down against the opposite wall.
‘How did you know this was here?’ I ask.
She doesn’t look up. ‘I did a recce. It pays to know your surroundings, especially in times of war.’
Florence has an odd way of speaking sometimes. I didn’t notice in London because I never really talked to her.
‘Hitler doesn’t care about places like this,’ I say.
‘He might. Anyway, it wasn’t Hitler we just had to run from, was it? Hiding places are always handy.’
Florence scratches a picture into the coal dust.
I wonder why she needs places to hide but I don’t know how to ask. So I just say it. ‘Why did you think Mr and Mrs Thomas would beat me?’
Florence’s stick stops, hovering over her picture. Her face all dark and scrunched up, she scribbles and scribbles hard into the dirt until her picture has gone. When she looks up at me, there are tears in her eyes. Angry ones, I reckon.
‘Don’t you ever get a thump?’ she asks, quieter than I’ve ever heard her speak.
I look at the ground so I don’t have to see her face. ‘My nan slapped my legs when I was small, if I got too near the fire.’
‘That’s not what I mean. Those sorts of taps are nothing.’ She throws the stick hard at the shed wall. It pings off and I have to dodge.
‘Watch it, Florence!’
We sit there saying nothing for about a million years.
Florence gets up and paces around, looking at the sky, the walls, anywhere but at me.
‘It’s Mum mostly, that hits us. Me and my brothers and sisters.’ She kicks at a dry patch of coal dust and a little cloud puffs up. ‘Dad sometimes gives us a clout but we can usually get out of his way quick enough. But her … she knows how to corner you.’
‘Don’t your brothers and sisters look out for you?’
‘Them? The four oldest have left home now, got out as soon as they could. Can’t blame them. The other three are just glad when they aren’t the ones getting hit. If it’s me then it’s not them, is it?’
I feel sick. I could never let Ronnie take a beating for me. ‘But you’re the youngest! They’re supposed to look after you.’
Her laugh comes out harsh. ‘We’re Campbells, Jimmy. We don’t look after each other. We’re not like you and Ronnie.’
I think back to all the times in PT when Florence got changed at the back of the classroom, of the bruises I saw on her arms and legs. Miss Goodhew asked her about them once and Florence said she bumped into things and fell over a lot. I don’t think Miss Goodhew believed her. But she didn’t do anything to help her either.
Florence sits down again, but next to me this time. Her voice is really small.
‘You won’t tell, will you?’
‘I won’t tell.’
‘Cross your heart?’
‘Cross my heart.’ I make an X over my chest with my fingers.
I don’t know if it’s because she’s trusted me with her secret or if I just want to change the subject again, but the words tumble out.
‘I found a skull. In a tree. It’s a human skull and I don’t know how it got there or whose it is but it’s real and I’ve got no flaming idea what to do about it!’
Her mouth hangs open, properly actually open, then she says, ‘Scary.’
‘Yeah.’
She whistles long and low, just like a boy.
‘Bleurgh.’ She shakes her shoulders, all dramatic again. ‘Horrible.’ She thinks for a minute. ‘So where’s this tree?’
‘Up the mountain.’
‘And it was just a skull? No other bones?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘What? Didn’t you have a proper look?’
‘I dropped it and ran like mad the first time,’ I say. ‘Then I went back and … I don’t know … it wasn’t so bad but then Ronnie came and—’
‘Ronnie saw it! Is he all right?’
‘He’s fine now but it’s why he wet himself the other day.’
‘Oh,’ she says. ‘Poor Ronnie.’
An excited look comes over her face, like when she thought she was going to see a fox cub. ‘Show me.’ She’s on her feet, pulling at me.
‘All right! All right! Don’t drag my blooming arm off!’
‘And it’s not a trick? You won’t just get halfway there and leg it?’ She gives me that hard stare again. ‘Because you know I’ll catch you.’
I stare back. ‘I wouldn’t do that.’
/> Florence grins and her nose wrinkles, it’s got freckles on. I’ve never noticed them before, perhaps on account of them being under all that dirt.
She moves towards the gap and a cold wave runs right through me. ‘Florence, I … I don’t think I can.’ I scrape the coal dust with my heel. ‘I don’t like tight spaces.’
I wait for her to laugh at me but she just points to the wall with the railings on top. ‘There’s a playing field up there. That way might be better.’
I walk over to the wall to judge its height. ‘I could give you a bunk-up.’
‘All right.’
I make a cradle with my fingers for her foot. I hardly need to push; she weighs almost nothing. She pulls herself up easily and hangs from the railings with one hand and offers the other to me, and I suddenly get this feeling, like I know telling her was the right thing to do.
I grab her hand, grind one foot into a gap in the bricks and brace myself.
On the count of three, I push off the ground and Florence pulls. I reach for the railings and seize hold. It’s easy after that; we pull ourselves up and over the top.
‘Up the mountain then?’ I say.
‘Yes! Onwards, Private Travers!’ Florence calls, already running across the playing field. ‘Operation Bones under way.’
CHAPTER TWENTY
BONES
I follow her across the playing field and on to the Bryn, always looking for any sign of Jack and his gang, then it’s up, up, up. Florence is a lot faster than me; she can really shift. She waits at a corner, then we run along the street to the fence that leads to the sloping fields. We race up the mountain, stopping at the stream for a minute, catching our breath.
‘I love being so high,’ she says, looking out over the valley. ‘I’ve never seen anywhere as lovely as this.’ I try to see what she sees but it’s just great green lumps with bits of black from the mine. ‘Mind you, I’ve never been outside London before now.’
‘Not even on school trips?’
She narrows her eyes like she’s really concentrating on something in the distance. ‘Never went on one.’
I could kick myself. She’d watched us out of the classroom window as we’d trooped across the yard the day we went to the seaside. Some children waved to her and she’d poked out her tongue and made a rude sign with her fingers. When we were all talking about how much fun it was she said it was a stupid place and she hadn’t wanted to go anyway.
