The Bike Escape

by Terry Deary

  ‘No!’ she moaned. ‘Oh, Harry, you told me the logs were from waste ground.’

  ‘They are.’

  Constable Grey puffed out his chest and spoke like a vicar. ‘The land in question is enclosed by a fence. It is enclosed by a fence to show it is private land. The tree is private property.’

  ‘The fence was broken,’ I argued.

  The policeman leaned forward and snarled, ‘Your front door could be broken but that does not mean anyone can walk in and help themselves to your property.’

  ‘It was a miserable little branch,’ I cried.

  ‘A branch that the owner of the tree could have cut up and burned. Now you are coming back to school with me and Miss Sparling will deal with you.’

  The strap didn’t hurt that much. But the laughter of my ‘friends’ from London did. And they refused to let me join their football at break time. ‘Watch out. Burdess might steal the ball,’ they sniggered.

  ‘Fasten your belt tight or Burdess might steal your trousers.’ Giggle.

  When no teacher was around they took it in turns to kick me and run away. It was a miserable day.

  I told all this to the Land Girl, Ellen. ‘So what will you do if I lend you the bike? You can’t run away from the bullies.’

  ‘I can,’ I said. ‘I know a place to go.’

  ‘It’s not my bike,’ she said. ‘I can’t lend it. But if you ride off on it I can’t stop you, can I?’ She gave me a wink. I grinned. I stood up in the pedals and pushed off down the road. I had Mr Denton’s map book tucked into my belt. I was heading south down London Road.

  Constable Grey stepped off the pavement when I reached the crossroads and held up a hand for me to stop. I went faster. ‘Where are you going?’ he roared.

  ‘None of your business, fat-face,’ I laughed, and the wind carried me and my words along the road to freedom.

  Chapter 8

  Lights and lorry

  It soon grew dark but the road was wide and the starlight bright enough to guide me. I began to feel the cold. My short trousers and school jacket didn’t keep out the cold and I pulled down the sleeves of my jumper to wrap around my hands like gloves. It meant I couldn’t grip the brakes quickly but I didn’t care.

  I knew Mum would have the cooking range nice and hot. If I kept going I’d be home for breakfast.

  There were only a few cars on the road because the petrol was on ration. The headlamps showed a little light through slits in the masks over their headlights.

  A few street lights spilled a glow from their masks. I stopped for breath underneath one to look at my map. I was in the small town of Towcester. I reckoned I’d done around ten miles in my first hour and was about to turn onto the A5.

  As I slipped the map book back into my belt a voice said, ‘And where are you off to, young man?’

  An ancient policeman was smiling down at me. Too old for the army, I thought, but good enough to hobble round the town and keep an eye out for trouble. ‘Stony Stratford,’ I said because that was the next place on my map. That was a mistake.

  ‘You have no lights,’ he reminded me.

  ‘There’s a blackout,’ I said quickly. ‘And I can see where I’m going.’

  ‘That’s not the point. Can a driver see you? There are army lorries that use the A5. They’ll flatten you and not feel the bump. You’ll be like strawberry jam on the road.’

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ I said and shuffled from one cold foot to another.

  At that moment I heard the rattle of a bell and a blue light flashed on a police box behind the old constable. ‘Hang on a minute, son,’ he said and crossed to the box. He opened the door and picked up a telephone. I put my foot softly on the pedal as I heard him speaking. Luckily he was a bit deaf and spoke too loud. ‘Boy on a bike…headed for London…why, as it happens, yes…dangerous…thief…yes… Grey jacket and trousers? It’s a bit dark to see but that sounds like him…black bike… yes…hold him till the Northampton police arrive?’

  He put the phone down and crossed towards me. ‘Now then, Harry, come along to the police station and I’ll make you a nice hot cup of tea,’ he said in a voice like a creaking parrot.

  I pushed the pedal and glided away from the kerb as smooth as Captain Zoom. I made a large circle in the road. ‘Come back here, lad,’ he croaked. That was a daft thing to say. He hobbled across to me as I built up speed. ‘Come here and I’ll arrest you for having no lights on that cycle.’ That was an even dafter thing to say.

  I straightened the wheel and set off at speed down the main road to London. The excitement had me pedalling with legs like a windmill in a gale. But as I left the houses behind and headed into the blackness I began to tire.

  The next hour was weary. My eyeballs were frozen and my legs getting weak. The heavy bike was wandering towards the white line in the middle of the road and I was riding while half asleep. What woke me was the roar of a lorry coming around the bend in the road behind me.

  I looked over my shoulder to see the narrow slits of light racing towards me. Enough light for me to see the lorry but not enough for the driver to see me. I swerved to the left and my bike bounced on the grass verge. Before I could stop it I was sliding into a muddy ditch and the rattling lorry was thundering past.

  And that’s what saved me from being caught.

  Chapter 9

  Maps and mud

  I heard the lorry brakes screech and the tyres scream on the road as it shuddered to a halt. There was a bellow of angry voices. The soldiers in the back had been thrown off their seats and the policemen in the middle of the road were telling the driver he’d been going too fast.

  In the midst of the shouting I heard the words, ‘Boy on a bike’ and ‘Road block’.

  I crawled out of the ditch and wheeled the bike towards the crossroads. A police car was blocking the way. It was a trap and I was the one who was supposed to ride into it.

  As the soldiers and the police raged at one another I found a gate into the field beside the road and headed south across the muddy, ploughed earth. Sometimes the mud was up to my ankles and sometimes the wheels of the heavy bike were stuck. But the coppers at the crossroads couldn’t see me because of the hedge. It took me half an hour to walk a few hundred yards past the road block.

  When I was sure the police lookouts were well behind me I joined the A5 again and pedalled south. I checked with the map to look for crossroads ahead – I thought that was where they’d try to catch me. I guessed right. There were police waiting at Bletchley and Dunstable but I was able to ride through the side streets to get around them.

  The sun was rising as I reached a road sign that said ‘London 5 miles’ and I knew where I was. My weary legs found new strength and I raced for home. The shops were starting to open and there were cars and buses shuffling along.

  PC Wright would be at the crossroads on traffic duty. I’d ride past him and thumb my nose. I was nearly home and Mum would be so pleased to see me she’d smother me in hugs and fill me full of hot, sweet tea.

  But PC Wright wasn’t on traffic duty. A big surprise. Never mind, I climbed stiffly out of the saddle and wheeled my bike the last few yards down the road. Our front door was open. A bigger surprise.

  From the parlour I heard Mum talking and a man’s deep voice replied. Was Dad out of prison?

  I threw the parlour door open and three pale faces looked at me. Serious faces. Cross faces. Faces I knew.

  Mum was standing by the table with a pot of tea and in the two armchairs sat my dear teacher, Mr Denton, and my favourite policeman, PC Wright.

  Mum was the first to speak – well, shout. ‘What have you done this time, our Harry?’

  ‘I’ve come home to see you, Mum.’

  ‘You’ve only gone and stolen a bike,’ she ranted. ‘Stealing chalk is one thing but a bike will get you locked away for sure.’

  ‘I only borrowed it,’ I sighed.

  ‘Then you can only take it back,’ she snapped.

  ‘Take it
back? I can’t ride sixty miles. I can hardly walk sixty yards,’ I argued.

  ‘You will return on the ten o’clock train tomorrow morning,’ Mr Denton said with a sneering smile. ‘You will take the bike with you and return it to the Land Girl you stole it from.’

  PC Wright added, ‘And if you ever try to run away again you will be charged with the theft.’

  ‘The boy who steals chalk today steals bicycles tomorrow. He grows up to steal from houses and then he robs banks. And where does he end up?’ Mr Denton crowed.

  ‘Mum?’ I wailed.

  ‘Nothing I can do about it, Harry. Now get out of those muddy clothes. You’re trampling dirt into my nice clean carpet,’ she said.

  ‘What clean carpet?’ I asked. And that got me a slap around the ear.

  Chapter 10

  Mates and Myra

  I cleaned myself up and at lunchtime went out to meet some of the friends I’d left in Highbury School. They all had stories to tell about our mates who’d been evacuees. Some had gone to great homes but others had far worse than mine with Miss Pimm. ‘Go back, Harry,’ one lad said. ‘Old Dentures Denton will make it Hell for you if you stay.’

  He was right of course. Even Myra Dodds was nodding. Last week she was sorry to see me go. Now she was telling me to go. Funny things, girls.

  I slept badly that night. I was aching and stiff all over and my old bed seemed lumpy and foul after Miss Pimm’s soft mattress.

  My suitcase was still up in Wootton so I just had a few dripping sandwiches and a bottle of cold tea in a paper carrier-bag as I wheeled the bike down to the station next morning. Mum didn’t bother to come with me this time. She just stood at the door to our house and waved. ‘And you won’t come back till the war’s over, will you?’

  ‘Suppose.’ Thanks, Mum.

  The station platform was quiet today with just a handful of soldiers and workmen. I was hoping to get a seat in a carriage this time.

  I handed the bike to the guard to put in the van. He grumbled about the mud on the wheels as if his van was fit to invite King George in to tea.

  ‘Carriage three, compartment seven,’ he said.

  ‘What? Can’t I just sit where I want?’ I asked.

  ‘Don’t argue. Just go to carriage three, compartment seven.’

  I trudged along, counting the carriages. I felt as low as a worm’s belly. Not even Myra was there to wave me goodbye. Nobody cared about Harry Burdess.

  I wiped my nose on my sleeve and felt my eyes start to water like they had last time I was on this platform. Must have been the smoke from the engine.

  I reached carriage three and counted along to compartment seven. It was almost empty. In the far corner there was a girl with her hair in two bunches. She carried a gas mask in a box around her neck and her suitcase was up on the luggage rack.

  She turned to face me as I slid the door open. ‘Hello, Harry,’ she said with a shy smile.

  ‘Hello, Myra. You being evacuated?’

  She nodded. ‘It was boring staying home,’ she said. ‘And you never wrote a letter like you promised.’

  ‘I never had a chance. I was only away a week.’

  ‘Well this time I’m coming with you to Wootton. They said there’s a nice lady called Miss Pimm will put me up. So, you see, you don’t have to write me letters.’

  ‘That’s good,’ I said.

  ‘Are you pleased?’ she asked.

  I shrugged. ‘Suppose,’ I said.

  Epilogue

  The Bike Escape is based on a true story. Harry lived in Highbury, North London, and was evacuated to a village near Northampton. Local boys bullied him and even his efforts to help his hosts were punished – he sawed up some fallen branches for firewood but was accused of stealing the wood. He was punished at school for the offence and that was the last straw. He borrowed a Land Girl’s bike and cycled the 65 miles home to London. It did him no good. His mother sent him straight back!

  The bombs didn’t arrive for another year and many evacuees returned home long before the end of the war. Their parents missed them and brought them home. Some like Harry ran away.

  Thousands returned home after the war and never managed to find their parents again. They were among the saddest victims of World War II.

  Copyright

  This book is for the real Harry Burdess

  First published 2015 by

  A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

  50 Bedford Square

  London WC1B 3DP

  www.bloomsbury.com

  Bloomsbury is a registered trademark of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

  Text copyright © 2015 Terry Deary

  Illustrations copyright © 2015 James de la Rue

  The rights of Terry Deary and James de la Rue to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work have been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  eISBN 978-1-4729-1625-9

  A CIP catalogue for this book is available from the British Library.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means – graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or information storage and retrieval systems – without the prior permission in writing of the publishers.

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