by Nikki Young
“Jess, Jess! We’re back, look!”
With Tomma’s voice in her ear and a gentle nudging as he moved the shoulder she was resting on, Jess sat up and cracked open her eyes to see Kirkshaw station just coming into view.
“Oh, how I love that dirty, fallen-down old shack,” Jess said, standing up and adjusting her crutches under her armpits.
She reached for her bag but it was impossible to bend down to pick it up when you had two wooden sticks under each arm. Ash laughed at the scene but picked it up for her.
They stepped off the train and onto the platform and Ash got down on his knees and kissed the ground, much to the confusion of the other passengers around them. The girls giggled.
“Home at last,” Ash declared. “Now to find out if we’re grounded for the rest of our lives. Just in case, I want to say that it’s been great knowing you.”
Jess hugged Nadia, said goodbye to Ash and was about to do the same to Tomma.
“I’m going to walk Jess home,” Tomma said to the others. “I’ll catch you later.”
Jess looked at him in surprise but feeling grateful at the same time. She wasn’t sure she would have been able to manage to hobble home on her own whilst carrying a huge rucksack. Although Mrs Stenchion had bandaged up her knee and ankle, both were sore and painful when she walked. She was also dreading going home in case her mother was freaking out about them skipping school.
“What? You didn’t think I was going to leave you to get home by yourself in that state, did you?” he said, looking down at her wounds.
Nadia winked at Jess and turned to leave with Ash.
By the time they got to Jess’s house, her mum was just pulling into the drive. Jess took a deep breath and steadied herself against the crutches. She gave Tomma a nervous sideways glance as Mrs Chadwick got out of the car.
Mrs Chadwick looked her up and down, and spotting the bandages and crutches straight away, came rushing over, a worried look on her face.
“Oh my goodness, what did you do?” she said, about to grab on to Jess’s arm, but at the last minute, changing her mind. She opened the door, gesturing for Jess and Tomma to go inside. They walked ahead of her, in towards the kitchen.
Jess looked at Tomma who nodded reassuringly.
“Jess had a bit of an accident,” Tomma said. His face coloured in embarrassment, which Jess had never seen before.
“What sort of an accident and why didn’t the school ring me?” Mrs Chadwick asked.
Jess hobbled towards the table and Tomma helped her sit down, propping her leg up on another chair.
“She fell,” he said. “We were all playing outside and it got a bit messy.”
“But I told them I was fine and they didn’t need to worry you about it,” Jess said.
“Oh Jess, how did you manage to get yourself in this state though? Does it hurt much?”
“A bit,” Jess said. “Only when I stand and try to walk. It’s better when I can sit.”
“Do I take it the sleepover was a success then, judging by the state of the both of you?” Mrs Chadwick asked as she got up and went over to the sink to fill the kettle. “Would either of you like a cuppa?”
Jess and Tomma looked at each other and smiled.
So far, so good, Jess thought.
They’d arrived home at the usual time and her mother hadn’t missed her at all. The school couldn’t have reported them absent from the sleepover, otherwise, she would have been called about it.
“Do you know what, Mum, I’m a bit fed up of tea. Do we have anything more. . . modern?”
“Well, we have some Diet Coke in the fridge, will that do?”
Chapter 24
Connecting With The Past
The next day, Jess was at the station early again, after getting a lift from her mum. The novelty of walking around on crutches had long worn off. It was hard work and she couldn’t wait for her ankle to heal so she could walk on it properly again. She sat on a bench out the front of the station, waiting for the others to arrive.
“Shall we even look to see if there’s an old carriage at the end?” Nadia asked.
“You can look, I suppose,” Jess said. “But there’s no way we’re getting on it! Anyway, we didn’t have a power cut or anything this morning, did we? There’s nothing strange about the day.”
“Yeah, but I’m gonna look anyway,” Nadia said.
When the train arrived, it was packed with commuters from end to end. There was no old-fashioned carriage at the back and it was standing room only. It wasn’t as if that should have surprised them. They hadn’t summoned the steam train before. It was as though the train had chosen to appear so they could get on it and travel back in time.
“There’s your answer, then,” Tomma said, as he helped Jess on to the train.
Jess had never been so glad to be on an over-crowded train, even if it did mean getting squashed. She was relieved when someone offered up their seat. Standing on one leg was tiring, even if she did have crutches to lean on.
When the train arrived at Hickley station, a swarm of schoolchildren and commuters got off, dispersing in different directions. The children let the rush die down, not able to go too fast anyway because of Jess. They made their way outside to the road, which was busy with the morning rush-hour traffic.
“We’re back baby,” Ash said, turning full circle with his arms spread out. He whooped loudly, causing others to turn and stare at him. Not that Ash cared. He wasn’t particularly bothered about what other people thought of him.
The noise of the cars and buses and the thrum of people in the streets was almost too much for Jess. She missed the calm of 1918, even though it smelled of horses and factory pollution. She struggled up the hill to school on her crutches, Tomma and Nadia by her side.
Hickley School was a familiar mix of old and new buildings. The children looked at each other and grinned.
“Seems weird to see it like this again,” said Tomma.
“Just think, though, heating, hot food at lunchtime, and we can all be in the same class again,” Ash said.
“And no more disgusting uniforms,” Nadia shuddered. She’d put the uniform safely away in her wardrobe. It was the only physical thing left to remind her of what they had experienced, but she wasn’t about to put it on again any time soon.
At registration, they greeted their classmates as though they hadn’t seen them in months.
“It’s so good to see you,” Jess said to her form teacher, Mr Ward, much to his surprise.
*
Their first lesson was history. All four of them were back in the same class once more.
“Right everyone,” Mrs Kennedy said, once they were settled with their books in front of them. “We’ve covered the Victorian era from 1898 when our school first opened. Now we’re moving on to the First World War, 1914 to 1918. How was Hickley affected?”
Tomma and Ash, who were sitting in front of Jess and Nadia, turned around to face them. Both raised their eyebrows and Ash mouthed, “What?” with a shocked expression on his face.
“This may surprise you to know, but Britain was subjected to bombing raids in World War I, but none that affected this area. Hull was bombed though and the east coast, near Great Yarmouth, but it was mainly London and Kent that took the hits. Even so, all the towns across the country felt the effects of war, as most of its young men volunteered their services and many died protecting their country. I would like you to do an assignment about some aspect of life during this time. I would like you to find out about any members of your family who were involved in the war,” the teacher said.
“You’ll be going back as far as your great-grandparents, so if you have grandparents, it would be a good idea to ask them what they can remember.”
Jess and Nadia looked at each other in amazement. Was that why the train had taken them back to 1918? Was it to help them understand a major historical event they were now going to study in school? Jess thought how lucky they were to have seen a small p
art of it for themselves.
*
“Mum, do you know if we have any relatives who fought in the First World War?” Jess asked at dinner that night.
“Oh, I’m not sure, to be honest. I think my grandma, your great-grandmother, had a brother who fought in it. You’d have to ask your nanna. Why’s that?”
“We’re doing a project at school and they asked us to find out. Do you know his name, this brother?” Jess said.
“No, I don’t, sorry. I only know the surname, as it was Grandma’s maiden name,” Mrs Chadwick said.
“And that was…?” Jess said, beginning to feel frustrated at her mum’s vagueness.
“Stenchion. Funny name, isn’t it?” her mum said.
“Stenchion?”
“Yep.”
“Mum, what was my great-grandmother’s first name?” Jess said, begin to feel her heart speed up.
Her mum looked as though she was conjuring up an image in her head. She smiled.
“Theresa,” she said. “She was so lovely. Such a cuddly nan. She used to look after us when we were little kids. I miss her.”
Jess felt all the blood rush out of her face as her mother chatted. Stenchion was Martha’s surname too and Theresa was Martha’s little sister. The same little sister whose life they had saved.
Now Jess knew the real reason they had gone back in time to 1918. It was because of her. Theresa was her great grandmother and Jess had helped save her life. If Theresa had died, Jess wouldn’t have existed at all.
Chapter 25
We Will Remember Them
Jess wrote her project about the lives of the people on the home front. She wrote about how women of all ages took over the jobs of the men, embracing their roles and doing as good a job, if not better. She wrote about how the mills of the area, famous for producing cloth and woollen goods, kept the soldiers in uniform throughout the war.
She wrote about the suffering of the people as they struggled to survive on rations, living with the stress of not knowing if their loved ones would survive. The Hickley Old Boys who represented not only the school, but the town itself, and lost their lives in the process. Jess wanted people to know their names, so she researched each of them, including some of their biographies in her project, along with a reminder of how important it was to remember these were real people, not just names on a board.
She also included some history of the school during the wartime and how the Head had been proud of the Old Boys, dedicating the memorial in their name and giving it pride of place in the school hall.
She put her heart and soul into her essay, feeling her connection with Martha and Theresa with every word she wrote. The words flowed easily as if it were a story that wanted to be told and she was the person chosen to tell it.
*
A few weeks later when Jess and Nadia were walking through the main hall, Jess smiled to herself as they stopped in front of the war memorial.
“I’m so pleased they decided to move this back to its rightful place,” she said to Nadia.
“Yes, I know, and it’s thanks to you and that history essay of yours, Jess.”
“We owed it to them though, didn’t we?” Jess said, modestly playing down the praise.
The girls stared in silence at the memorial, eyes moving over the names, lost in their thoughts. Jess thought about Theresa and how if they hadn’t gone back in time and saved her, she perhaps wouldn’t have been standing there at that moment. It was a strange thought; one that made her shiver and the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.
She turned, feeling as though someone was watching her, and her eyes scanned the room. It was crowded with pupils making their way through the hall to and from lunch, but Jess’s eyes fixed on a familiar face staring back at her.
“Thank you,” the girl mouthed, before turning and disappearing into the crowd.
Jess stood on tiptoes and strained her neck to see her, but she had gone.
About the Author
Nikki Young is a freelance writer, copywriter and author. She lives in Kent with her husband, three children, a crazy Boston Terrier dog called Barnie and a rescue cat named Oscar. She is the author of ‘The Mystery of the Disappearing Underpants’ an adventure story aimed at 7 to 9 year-olds and reluctant readers.
As well as writing middle grade and young adult fiction, Nikki runs Storymakers, a creative writing club for children which provides weekly courses and holiday workshops for children aged seven and above.
