“I’m not embarrassed.” I skirted the mash around my plate, picking at it as the thought of eating it suddenly twisted in my stomach. “I just don’t want any of you to think there is something going on. We walked home with everyone. He didn’t just walk me home.”
Robert sat in silence at the table. His eyes shifted around to the three of us while he ate and occasionally sipped at his glass of water. I envied him, wishing I could just sit and enjoy my meal without having to answer questions or ward off any assumptions about a certain young man whom I didn’t wish to think about anymore tonight.
“May we please change the subject?” I asked.
Although Eleanor appeared as though she didn’t want to agree, she shrugged and nodded. “Very well.”
TWELVE
Amelia - September 1940
Although William never broached the subject of a boyfriend again, we had continued to walk home every day after school. Our conversations drifted from the war to current politics to our studies, and to his brothers, recounting memories and stories of the shenanigans they often found themselves in and how his parents used to, fortunately, forgive them for their troubles. Hearing about another family always made me think of my own, and yet, I couldn’t help but feel comforted with the thoughts instead of overwhelmed with sorrow. Listening to his stories made me wish to tell him my own, and they made me excited to, once again, one day, make more of them. I don’t know why, but it gave me hope.
Our friendship, along with my friendship with Claire and Isabella grew in the last couple of weeks, and while I knew Derbyshire wasn’t home, it didn’t feel like a stranger anymore either—sentiments I often shared in letters to my parents, even if I couldn’t send them, and sentiments I hoped my parents would find some comfort in. Surely, they had to be as worried about me as I was about them, and I hoped that when I finally saw them again, it would ease their burden to know a nice couple had cared for me and I, for the most part, felt content in the situation—however hard it might have been.
At least, such was my hope.
“Rissole and mash again?” Isabella dropped her fork down upon the top of the table, growling under her breath as the dinner lady set down her school dinner. “Wouldn’t it, just for a day, be nice to not live with rations?”
Ignoring the complaint, the dinner lady shook her head, serving the rest of us sitting at the table before making her way back across the canteen to grab more plates for other children.
“We have to do our part, help where we can,” Claire said, digging into her cabbage with light, water-like gravy.
“By eating nothing but rissole and mash?”
Claire shrugged, chewing her bite.
While I didn’t want to admit it, I actually agreed with Isabella. Rissole—a sausage-like hunk of oatmeal, dried egg powder, water, and the scraps of minced meat—was less than appetizing on a good day, even if they coated it in breadcrumbs and fried in lard. We never could tell what meat was in it, some would say pork, some would say chicken, and others would swear it was beef. In the end, it never really mattered, I suppose, it all tasted the same—which was never short of horrible.
“Perhaps dessert will be sponge pudding with runny jam,” Claire said.
“One can only hope.” Isabella rolled her eyes and picked the fork back up.
“Don’t worry, Isabella.” Thomas nudged her in the shoulder, giving her a wink. “William and I will do our part and yours when we can finally enlist.”
She scowled at him, then rolled her eyes as she took a bite of her food.
“Can we talk of nothing but this bloody war?” Claire asked.
“And what should we talk of? The literature test next week?” I asked, picking through my own bites of rissole. After a few attempts to find an appealing-looking bite, I abandoned the sausage and scooped up a fork full of mashed potatoes.
William smiled, sitting across the table; he happily munched on his own lunch along with everyone else. “Only you would be happy about the literature test.”
“So, are you saying that Shakespeare doesn’t excite you?”
“Hardly.” He rolled his eyes and smiled again. “I never can tell what the bloody man is even saying half the time. Like today the witches speaks to Macbeth. Be bloody, bold, and resolute. Laugh to scorn. The power of man, for none of woman born. Shall harm Macbeth. I’m failing to understand what that even means.”
“When you get to the end, you understand. When he is fighting Macduff.”
“And how is that?”
“For none of woman born. Shall harm Macbeth.”
“Yeah.” William shrugged.
“Macduff was not woman born. Only during that scene do we learn the meaning of the prophecy.”
“All humans are born of a woman.”
“Yes, but Macduff was born by Caesarean section, and not born in the usual sense of the word.”
William shook his head, laughing as he held up his hands to surrender to me. “I will still never get Shakespeare. No matter what you say or how you explain it.”
“I’m with you, William,” Thomas said. “I don’t get it either. It must be something for only women to understand.”
“Not exactly,” Claire said. “I’m sorry to admit it, but I don’t understand it either, and I don’t understand how reading it will help me get a job.”
“But it enriches our lives as readers. They challenge us to study them and to dive deep within the meaning.” By the time I finished my sentence, all of them had frozen, staring at me while they held their forks in midair with their mouths opened.
“Only you, Amelia.” William shook his head again, laughing. “Only you.”
“My sister loves books, too. She has plans to open a bookshop even.”
“I guess it must run in the family.”
“Anyway,” Claire shot me a sideways glance. “I don’t mean we should talk about school either.” She cleared her throat. “I meant we could talk about maybe having a picnic down by Grover’s pond. It’s been ages since we’ve done that.”
“A picnic of what? Rations?” Isabella took another bite, scowling as she chewed.
“No, not rations.” She leaned in, dropping her voice to a whisper. “My grandmamma came by the other day with a bushel of apples, and she brought over a ham a neighbor had given her.”
“Where did he get it?” William asked.
Claire shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Perhaps he stole it,” Thomas said.
“He didn’t steal it.”
“Well, then he got it from somewhere or he raised it and butchered it without registering it, which is illegal.”
“Ham is ham,” William said to Thomas. “Illegal or not, who cares where he got it, we just need to eat it.”
Everyone at the table laughed, drawing the attention of the dinner lady who shot us a glare and told us to hush until we finished and went outside for our break.
With our stomachs not much fuller than before our school dinner, we all made our way outside for our break, hoping for the pleasure of the sun and fresh air. A hope the afternoon gave us as we all sat at the table, while the small children ran to the play yard to expel their energy.
“So, are we going to Grover’s pond Saturday or Sunday?” Isabella asked, sliding into the seat at the table under one of the trees. While the three of us ladies sat, the two young lads stood.
“My vote is Saturday,” Thomas held up his hand. “But I have to work for my grandfather in the morning.”
“Do you know how for how long?”
“A couple of hours. He said I should be done before mid-day.”
“Anyone else have any objections?” She glanced around at everyone who all shook his or her heads.
“I just need to know where it is,” I said.
“Don’t worry. I’ll come to pick you up.”
“Do you think the Davenports will let you go?” Claire asked.
“I don’t see why they wouldn’t. They’ve been nothing but
wonderful to me, and to Elijah.”
“I’ve heard they are pleasant people. I’ve never actually met them, but my parents know them. The rumor is they couldn’t have children of their own and had been looking to adopt before the war started.”
“Well, they didn’t adopt us,” I snorted a laugh. “But I’m grateful they offered to care for us.”
“Have you spoken to anyone from Guernsey? Any of your friends or classmates?”
“No. Not since we left the Burdain House.” I paused with the sudden realization of how closed off Elijah and I had been. While there were reasons I hadn’t heard from my parents, I hadn’t thought of why I hadn’t heard from Mrs. Pembroke or any of the other teachers. It had been at least a month, perhaps even five weeks since I arrived in Derbyshire.
“Amelia! Amelia!” Elijah rushed over to the table, holding up two things, one in each hand, which both glinted in the sunlight. “Look! Shelly has a coin, too. She told me she had a coin, but I didn’t believe her. I thought it foolish and unlikely that we both would have a coin from America. But she has one.”
“I see that. Isn’t that special?” I rubbed my hand on his back while his eyes, wide with excitement, seemed to smile along with his lips. I had never seen either so big, or so full of happiness.
He leaned in to whisper. “But don’t tell my teacher, Miss Levine or Mr. Johnson, the headmaster. She’s not supposed to even touch it and her dad doesn’t know she brought it to school with her.”
“I won’t say a word.”
He smiled again, and spun, trotting back to Shelly who stood with an almost terrified look to her until he handed her back her father’s precious coin.
“I told you not to tell anyone.” She growled and stomped one of her feet.
“I just told Amelia. She won’t tell anyone.”
The two of them continued to argue as they wandered back toward the tree in the corner of the schoolyard—a place I often found him sitting, either reading a book or sharing stories with Shelly. The two had become almost inseparable.
“I still can’t believe he’s not your brother,” Claire said to me. “You two even look alike.”
“I know his parents, though, not entirely too well, although, I wished to get to know his father more. He’s the editor of the newspaper in Guernsey.”
“Ah, yes, the dream employer for our budding journalist, Amelia Ashton.” William nudged my shoulder.
“Perhaps when you return to Guernsey, you can get to know him better since you’ve been with Elijah,” Claire said, ignoring my distraction for a moment.
“I hope so, too. Although, I don’t take care of him only for the sake of getting into his father’s good graces.”
“We know. Trust me, I don’t see you as the type. Besides, we can see how much you care for the boy. Or at least I can.”
“I suppose he is like a brother.” I glanced toward Elijah, watching him sitting in the grass with Shelly. The two of them with their heads together as they flipped over their coins, then exchanged them to inspect the others in more detail. “He knows what I’ve been through and I know what he has. If that is not a bond, I don’t know what is.”
A high-pitched alarm rang through the air, like a siren or a horn that wouldn’t stop.
“What’s that?” I asked.
Everyone at the table looked at each other, and William and Thomas motioned for us to get up from the table before running off toward the playground.
“Everyone!Get to the door!” William shouted.
A few of the younger children listened and ran to the front doors while others gawked around them in the same confusion I felt.
“What’s going on?” I asked Claire.
“It’s the air-raid siren.”
“Air raid?”
“German bombers.”
“Bombers?”
As if they knew we had announced their presence, the sound of several planes rumbled through the air. I lifted my hand to my eyes, shielding the sun as I glanced up at the sky. Three planes emerged from the clouds, circling high around us like huge grey, steel vultures moving around a dying body.
“I see them! I see three of them.” My blood ran cold through my veins.
“They’re after the Rolls Royce Factory.” Thomas grabbed Claire and Isabella, shoving them toward the school.
Mr. Johnson ran out from the building, standing on the steps. “Get inside, everyone. Now!” He continued to call everyone inside while waving his hands. William rushed back to me, grabbing my arm.
“Stick with me.”
We all rushed through the doors inside the school and down one of the long hallways.
“Head to the basement!” one teacher shouted.
An explosion rocked the building, shaking through the walls and sending dust from the ceiling down upon us. The young children screamed, and we all dropped to our knees, covering our heads with our arms. William leaned over the top of me.
“Come on, let’s go.” He grabbed my arm, lifting me to my feet as we all continued to dash down the hallways toward the basement door. One of the other teachers ran ahead to unlock it. Her hands trembled as she fumbled through the keys for a moment before finding the right one and unlocking the door.
Another bomb went off, shaking the building again.
The children shoved each other through the door and down the stairs, William and I stood at the top, watching them to make sure no one fell or was trampled.
“Where is Elijah?” I asked, searching through the faces running past me.
“I haven’t seen him.”
“Where is Shelly?”
Before William answered me, I trotted down the stairs, weaving through the children. “Elijah? Shelly? Elijah!”
A hand reached out and grabbed my sleeve. I spun. “Elijah went back for his coin,” Shelly said.
“What do you mean he went back for his coin?”
“He dropped it near the tree and told me he had to go back for it.” Her eyes brimmed with tears for a moment before they cascaded down her cheeks. “I told him not to go, but he doesn’t want to lose his papa’s coin.”
I sprinted up the stairs and past William. He charged after me, grabbing my arm and spinning me around to face him. “Where are you going?”
A third bomb struck, blowing out several of the windows in the hallway. William lunged for me, wrapping his arms around me to shield me from the flying glass.
I wiggled from his grip. “I’ve got to find Elijah.”
“Where is he?”
“He dropped his coin by the tree. He went to go get it.”
“You can’t go back outside.”
“I’ve got to. We can’t leave him out there alone.”
William opened his mouth to protest again, but I fled the hallway before he could say a word. He called after me several times, but I didn’t listen as I rounded the hallway and headed toward the front door of the school.
While I expected the sunlight to blind me as I shove the door open, I hadn’t expected the smoke and dust. It clouded my vision and burned in my lungs. I called out for Elijah, coughing through my screams as I made my way down the stairs and across the schoolyard to the tree.
Another bomb went off down and across the lane. The ground shook under my feet and I grabbed the tree for balance.
“Elijah!” I called out again.
No one answered.
I searched around the tree, but the thick haze of smoke made it hard to see, and the heat from the explosions warmed against my skin. Fires erupted from several buildings, and dark black smoke billowed into the air.
“Amelia?” a voice called out. Deep in tone, though, it wasn’t Elijah, but William.
“I’m over here.” I coughed through my words.
A pair of arms wrapped around me. “We can’t stay out here.”
“But I’ve got to find him.”
“If he’s not here, he’s probably made it into the school already.”
William grabbed my hand, dra
gging me from the tree. We made it only a couple of feet across the play yard when another bomb exploded in front of us, hitting the side of the school. Chunks of brick and stone flew, and William spun, shoving me backwards for the tree. My back slammed into the trunk as debris pelted us.
William dropped to his knees, yanking me down with him. I tucked my legs up to my chest and ducked my head, covering it with my arms and hands. Just as he had in the hallway, he laid over me. Several more bombs went off, each one rattled the tree above us, sending leaves spraying across the yard. Another one hit the school and even more bricks rained down upon us. One hit my arm. Pain shot up into my shoulder, and William grabbed me tighter as though he was trying to make my body smaller and his bigger so he could shield me more than he already was.
With every shutter of the ground, I screamed. The sound echoed in my ears and yet the explosions drowned them out. The bombings seemed to go on for hours and hours, and as suddenly as they arrived, the stealths in the air, determined to kill and destroy as much as they could, left, leaving a town burning and quiet amongst the smoky haze.
William’s grip around me loosened as he began looking all around us. “I think . . . I think they are gone.”
“Won’t they come back?”
“I don’t know, but I don’t hear the bombers anymore.” He jumped to his feet, brushing the dust from his pants even though the attempt was pointless. “Are you all right?”
“I . . . I think so.”
He helped me stand, catching me in his arms as my knees buckled. Instead of letting me go, he held on—an embrace I clung to just as much as he did. Unable to hold my tears back, my fear consumed me. I sobbed against his chest.
“Shhh,” he whispered. “It’s all right. We’re all right.”
“I don’t . . . I don’t know what just happened.”
“The Germans went after the Rolls Royce Factory.”
“Why?”
“To destroy it.”
“But they hit the school.”
“Casualties of war.” He rubbed his hands up and down my back as I continued to sob for a moment before pulling away from him. “I’ll get them for this. I promise you.”
Yours: An Emotional and Gripping WWII Family Saga (The Promises Between Us Trilogy Book 1) Page 12
