Catching Falling Stars

by Karen McCombie

  Should I say something? But all I can think of are questions that might sound cheeky, like how she can manage without working. Maybe Miss Saunders’ father died too and she’s been left money? I can’t be that rude. Still, Mum would say it’s also rude to stay silent when you’re being spoken to.

  “Did – did you teach here, in Thorntree?” I finally ask, as Miss Saunders pulls a small bandage out of the pocket of her pinny, quickly wrapping and fastening it around my foot.

  “At the primary school, yes. A Mr Harris took over after me for a few years. Since he retired it’s been young Miss Montague. You’ll see her today; she plays the organ at church…”

  Miss Saunders’ thin lips go ever thinner, even more of a tight line, and I can see she doesn’t think very much of the school’s current teacher or her musical skills.

  “Right, you’re done,” she announces suddenly, setting my bandaged foot down on the ground. “Oh, look at the time! With all this palaver, we’re going to be late for church if we don’t get a move on. Can you go and get yourself dressed and decent, please, Gloria?”

  “But Rich—”

  “Upstairs, please,” Miss Saunders says again in her best stern schoolteacher voice. “I’ll see to your brother. There’s a towel warming for him by the range.”

  She holds a hand out to help me up, then points me in the direction of the stairs.

  As I hobble over, I pause to watch as she bends and scoops up the washing in the passage. But in the second she straightens up, a look crosses her face that I don’t much care for.

  She’s staring into the kitchen, presumably at my brother in the tin bath.

  The look on her face; it’s one of disgust.

  My brother and his odd ways; this boy who wet the bed in her beloved mother’s room, he disgusts her.

  Oh, yes of course; I mustn’t forget that me and Rich, we’re completely unwanted guests.

  To Miss Saunders, we’re only a couple of scruffy, dirty evacuees who’ve been dumped on her…

  “Have you settled in, children?” the vicar asks kindly.

  Reverend Ashton ruffles Rich’s hair as he talks.

  Rich says nothing, just shyly shuffles into my side, blinking his black eye.

  “Yes, thank you,” I fib in a voice not much louder than a whisper.

  Little does the vicar know that all I want to do is take my little brother’s hand and run away, run away.

  “Super! Well, why don’t you have an explore while I chat to Miss Saunders?” Reverend Ashton suggests, pointing to the graveyard surrounding the old church.

  I glance around and see gravestones leaning this way and that, like rotten teeth. Gnarly trees overhang them and ivy twirls up them, as if the foliage is working together to hide the dead villagers from the living ones that are streaming out of the Sunday-morning service.

  The graveyard gives me the collywobbles to be honest, but I’d rather lose myself in the greenery and the ghosts than spend a minute longer being stared at by the entire congregation. At one point during the service I felt like rushing out of the pew and up into pulpit, just so I could shout, “Yes, we’re strangers here! Yes, we look ugly and bruised and scarred because we were BOMBED. All right?!”

  But instead I kept my head down, staring but not seeing the words in the hymn book, while Rich sang loudly and only slightly out of tune as Miss Montague, the primary school teacher, pumped out the hymn “All Creatures Great And Small” on the organ.

  “Here, Gloria, Richard,” says Miss Saunders, standing ramrod straight in her grey wool coat and rifling around in the handbag that’s hanging on the crook of her arm. She pulls out two neatly folded brown paper bags. “Instead of loitering around here, you can make yourselves useful and gather some damsons for me on the common.”

  “The common?” I say. I don’t know anything about Thorntree, apart from the village green that all the buildings huddle around. And I didn’t know we were here to be Miss Saunders’ servants and “make ourselves useful”…

  “It’s behind the church,” says Miss Saunders. “Climb over the stile in the wall and you’re there. And if you follow the path across the common it will bring you to the lane at the side of the cottage. I’ll meet you back there shortly.”

  Miss Saunders might look like a great, grey owl, but now she’s sounding like the witch from “Hansel and Gretel”.

  “Thank you,” I say, still thinking of Mum and minding my manners as I take the bags from her. “Come on, Rich…”

  I grab my brother’s hand and manouevre as quickly as my tender foot allows me through the gawping throng milling around the church.

  “Look, Glory – there’s my friend!” says Rich, pointing. “And she’s with them!”

  His friend? “Them”? What is Rich talking about?

  I glance at the faceless crowd, and my tummy does a flip as I suddenly recognize three people: the two sniggering, awful boys from Mr Wills’ farm and the scrawny, cheeky girl from the pub. They stare and whisper behind their hands, as if me and Rich are animals in the zoo. I saw them in church too, turning to inspect us, their eyes boring uncomfortably into me and my brother.

  “She’s not your friend, Rich, and just ignore those boys,” I tell him, pulling him away sharply.

  As soon as we round the corner of the church I relax. We have the place to ourselves. And beyond more secretive, ivy-covered gravestones I can see the wall and the stile and the bright, pretty, tree-dotted common.

  I just hope I can work out what damsons are; I’ve never seen one.

  “Aargh!” roars Rich, letting go of my hand and bounding off into the undergrowth. “I’m a tiger in the jungle!”

  “Wait, Mr Tiger,” I call after him, limping my more careful way through the tangle of leaves and crunching branches underfoot. “I need to talk to you!”

  But my big-cat brother has spotted the stile and scampered over it already.

  “Rich!” I call out, hurrying as fast as I can, but my school shoe is a little tight because of the bandage and it’s making my foot quite sore.

  As I cautiously step over the stile I worry that Rich has bounded off out of my sight – but as soon as I’m on the other side I spot him hunkered down, staring intently at something in the grass.

  “Look, Glory! Mushrooms!” he says, grinning at me over his shoulder. “We could gather them for Miss Saunders!”

  “Stop! Don’t touch anything – they might be poisonous,” I warn him, hopping over at high speed.

  Once I’m by his side, I peer at his find, a cluster of red-capped mushrooms dotted with white.

  “They look like the ones Alice ate in her adventures in Wonderland, don’t they?” Rich says enthusiastically.

  “Yes, and that didn’t go well for her, did it?” I say, trying to let him down gently.

  And while we’re here, I need to let him down gently about something else.

  I don’t want to say this after realizing how settled and relieved Rich felt last night. But I can’t have him thinking everything is all right, because I don’t think it is.

  Not after this morning, when I spotted the expression on Miss Saunders’ face as she looked at him.

  “Yes, Glory, but they’re very pretty and I think Miss Saunders might like—”

  “Listen, Rich, I need to say something important,” I begin.

  Here goes.

  Except I’m not sure how to put it.

  How do I explain that I’m positive that Miss Saunders is telling Reverend Ashton right now that she’s made a mistake; that we have to be sent back? (What else can they be talking about? Why would she be so keen to get us out of earshot?)

  Rich blinks up at me like a sweet, sad puppy. This isn’t going to be easy.

  “The thing is, Rich…”

  “Whoooo…”

  We both freeze at the sound. An eerie
sound like wind whipping through treetops. Only there isn’t the faintest hint of a breeze today.

  “Glory, Glory, Glory?” Rich whispers.

  “It’s nothing,” I tell him, though I’m not sure if that’s true.

  “Whooo…”

  All right, so it’s something.

  And it’s coming from over the wall, from the graveyard.

  “Is it a ghost?” asks Rich, clearly terrified.

  “Shh, don’t be silly. It’s probably just—”

  “Whooo-OOOOOOO-ooo…”

  “Is it Mrs Mann, Glory? It’s Mrs Mann, isn’t it!”

  “No, Rich, of course it’s n—”

  “Whoo-aaaaaAAAHHHHH!”

  With the quickest glance at each other, me and Rich read each other’s minds and know exactly what to do.

  Run away, run away.

  “Hurry, Glory!” yelps Rich, as he scrambles off along the path between the trees. Plum-type fruit hangs from the branches above him, but I’m not exactly in the mood to work out if they’re damsons or not.

  Instead I’m doing my best, ignoring my painful toe, hobbling at fast as I can after him.

  And then I hear a different noise.

  Definitely not the sort a ghost makes.

  I slow down and hop-hop-hop to a stop. Up ahead, Rich turns and does the same.

  “Oh, VERY funny!” I shout out angrily to whoever’s giggling and laughing behind the wall. “You got what you wanted, so you can stop laughing now!”

  But the people tricking us don’t stop laughing.

  They carry on, and then scramble to their feet and laugh some more.

  And of course it’s the boys from Mr Wills’ farm and that girl from The Swan. Who else would it be?

  “Let’s go,” I say to my brother, pushing him ahead of me along the path through the common, walking with my head held high and with as much dignity as I can manage.

  “Do they want to play, do you think, Gloria?” Rich asks, turning to look back at the lone girl and her horrid boy pals.

  “No, they just want to make fun of us,” I tell him, desperate to put as much distance as I can between those mocking people and me and my brother.

  Even once we’re out of earshot, it’s as if I can still hear the sniggering.

  I hear it all the way along the path through the common, following us down the lane at the side of Miss Saunders’ cottage and even up the garden path.

  Tappitty-tap, tap.

  This might be the last time I use this brass door knocker – it’s of a fox’s head, I notice. I don’t suppose there’s a bus leaving today, being Sunday, but if Mum or Dad can get some time off work tomorrow I reckon they’ll come for us then. Reverend Ashton will have a phone – he’s probably calling our local vicar or some evacuation officer back in our part of London right now, trying to get a message to our parents…

  And how will poor Rich take it? Mind you, after the stupid prank the Wills’ lads and the scrawny girl just pulled on us, he might not want to stay here anyway. My poor, nervy little brother…

  The front door opens – and Miss Saunders, still wearing her Sunday best coat and hat, frowns at us.

  “What are you doing?” she asks.

  “I’m s-sorry?” I stammer.

  What; had she expected us to leave already, without any of our things?

  “For goodness’ sake, you don’t have to knock if you live here,” she says, unbuttoning her coat. “From now on just come around to the back door and let yourself in.”

  Oh.

  So we … we actually live here? I think to myself in surprise. We’re not being sent away?

  “No damsons?” Miss Saunders asks as we come in, close the door and follow her towards the kitchen.

  I think of the paper bags we must’ve accidentally dropped when we ran and feel guilty.

  “Uh, no. We didn’t see any,” I tell her.

  “We heard a noise so we ran!” Rich explains. “It was like a wh—”

  “It was nothing. We just heard some children playing a game,” I say quickly, stopping Rich before he tries to make the noise and starts sounding crazy.

  I don’t want Miss Saunders to have an even worse impression of him than she already does.

  Miss Saunders frowns at the two of us as she hangs her coat and hat up on a peg by the back door. She motions us to hang our jackets there too.

  “Now then,” she says briskly. “I had a chat with Reverend Ashton, and he said … well, a few things. But most importantly, he suggests you need to start school straight away, tomorrow, so you can settle into the community. Biscuit?”

  Rich dives straight into the tin she’s holding out. I shake my head, still shocked to find out we’re staying. What happened? This morning she was looking at Rich with disgust written all over her face, and now she’s giving him biscuits, telling us to use the back door as if we’re family. Did Reverend Ashton persuade her to give us a second chance?

  “I have to say, Richard,” Miss Saunders carries on, as she puts the biscuit tin down and starts rummaging around in a tall cupboard by the back door. “I still think it’s silly that a grown-up boy of seven is scared to go to the lavatory in the night, and scared of gentle creatures such as spiders. But I really can’t tolerate a situation like this morning again. So here; if it helps, you can have this.”

  She takes an old-fashioned silver torch from a shelf and hands it to Rich. His mouth goes in an “o” shape.

  “It belonged to my father,” says Miss Saunders. “You may borrow it while you’re here, to light your way to the lavatory in the dark. But no wasting the battery, now!”

  “I won’t, I promise,” Rich says, turning the torch around in his hands and examining it in wonder, as if he’s been given a bar of pure gold.

  “And here’s something else. Perhaps you could take these up to your room, Gloria?” Miss Saunders takes out two items and hands them to me. The one on the bottom is a heavy rubber sheet, cold and clammy to the touch. The one on the top is a very pretty, ornately decorated potty that looks like it might be Victorian.

  She’s given me these to help combat any middle-of-the-night accidental wees, which is kind of embarrassing … yet I’m strangely touched. It must mean she accepts that Rich is a shy little boy who might have trouble settling in. And it means she’s happy – or at least resigned – to having us here.

  Of course, if we’re staying, I’ll have to work up the courage to talk to her about what I like to be called.

  And don’t they say there’s no time like the present?

  “Thank you,” I tell Miss Saunders; then, before I lose my nerve, I add something. “By the way, my name is just Glory. If you could call me that, I’d appreciate it.”

  There. Pleasantly put, and polite with it. Mum would be proud.

  “Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” Miss Saunders says bluntly. “I don’t hold with pet names, Gloria.”

  I feel my face flush, and an argument is bursting to escape from my lips. But why bother? I’m sure Miss Saunders is as likely to listen to my request as those horrible children back at the church are to become my best friends.

  And so I bite my lip and I head through the passage to the sitting room, where the steep staircase hides behind the door in the wall.

  “Oh, by the way, Gloria…”

  Miss Saunders has followed me, and her voice has dipped low, presumably because she’s about to say something she doesn’t want Rich to hear.

  Perhaps she’s going to reprimand me for being so forward.

  Or perhaps she’s got an ultimatum for me. One last chance and then – if Rich has another accident, or we damage her property – we’re out.

  “I asked Reverend Ashton if he’d heard anything of last night’s air raid on London,” says Miss Saunders. “Apparently the docks were hit. Your family do
esn’t live in that part of the city, do they?”

  “No!” I reply, my heart flipping with happiness. “Thanks … thank you, Miss Saunders.

  She gives me the briefest nod in reply, and disappears back into the passage.

  “Right, now I have a chore for you, Richard,” I hear her call out, as I blink back tears of relief and begin to clamber up the narrow stairs.

  Walking into our room, I see that everything except the upended, still airing mattress has been tidied away. The hatbox is back on its shelf. Clean bedding is neatly stacked on the little cane chair. The spot on the rug where my foot bled is clean and damp from scrubbing.

  And most surprising of all, I notice something else: Miss Saunders must have found Rich’s spare pyjamas in one of the drawers (I had to push old Mrs Saunders’ things to one side to make way for ours).

  The stripy pyjamas are laid out on top of the chest of drawers, and on top of them is a tiny toy mouse.

  Placing the sheet and the potty on the dressing table, I reach down for the mouse. It’s hand-knitted and old-fashioned. A toy from Miss Saunders’ own childhood, maybe? But what’s it doing here?

  As I hold the soft toy, I hear voices downstairs in the garden, and go over to the open window.

  Miss Saunders and my brother; they’re both inside the chicken run, somewhere we’re forbidden to go.

  And Miss Saunders is doing something unexpected; she’s pouring chicken feed into Rich’s hand, and encouraging him to crouch down and let the hens eat from his palm.

  “It tickles!” I hear Rich giggle, as a black hen peck-pecks. He’s not scared or nervous or jumpy. Instead he’s reaching out a finger to gently stroke the shiny feathers of its neck.

  Miss Saunders watches, and doesn’t try to stop him.

  Has she just let him break one of her rules?

  Whatever next? Will she be ordering us to run around the house in muddy shoes?

  I don’t understand what’s happening, but something has changed.

  And if it keeps Rich safe and happy, I’m pleased.

  Even if I’m counting off every second we stay in this stupid village…

  “Bye, bye, Mr Mousey – be good till I get home from school.”