by Chloe Mayer
‘Oh.’
‘Wouldn’t you agree, Mrs Patterson? Here you are.’ He walked forward to hand her his clipboard, and she looked through the list of signatures already there.
‘Well, I … I don’t know. They’re supervised by their employers, aren’t they? And a colonel?’
‘Him! He’s so old he’s half-demented. Even a woman like you could probably do a better job. Just sign there.’ A chunky finger pointed at the bottom of the list.
Annabel hesitated. ‘Well … I’d like to think about it first, if that’s all right?’
‘I beg your pardon? What’s there to think about?’
‘Well—’
‘Do you think German prisoners should be welcomed with open arms, Mrs Patterson? Do you want them swanning around free as they like?’
‘No, of course not, I—’
‘Because it sounds like it. It sounds like you think—’
‘No, I don’t. I understand what you mean now. You’re quite right. Here!’ She scrawled her name on his list.
22
… the thorns held fast together, as if they had hands, and the young men were caught in them and died miserable deaths.
From Briar-Rose (Sleeping Beauty)
Of course, my time scouting for shelter and hatching plans in the woods took me away from Hansel a bit. But I knew he understood; I was very busy.
Sometimes, when I did go to the forest to watch them secretly in the wood cabin, I still heard him trying to get Mother to agree to leave with him. But she kept saying she needed more time.
She didn’t tell him about the petition, the one I saw her sign from my open bedroom window. I’d ignored Mr Higgins ringing the doorbell because I’d been too busy looking at my maps upstairs.
I really was a very good spy. I knew all sorts of things now.
But hearing Hansel trying to get Mother to help him escape just made me more determined to help him by myself.
In a way, not visiting him as often made it even more exciting when I did see him – there was always so much to talk about. I’d tell him all about the plans I’d been making.
In the beginning, he didn’t say much, he’d just smile and nod along when I talked of how I could help him. But then he started asking me questions and I knew he was taking me seriously. He’d ask me what people in the village were saying about the PoWs, and what I heard on the wireless about the war, and how I thought the escape would work. So I was glad it was me who told him about the petition, not Mother, although I didn’t say she had signed it. I made him promise not to tell her how he knew about it. And then I think he started to realise that, actually, I could do the things I promised I would. And I was his best chance after all.
One day, as I sat cross-legged on the ground a little way away from him as he chopped the wood, he said: ‘Tell me again. How exactly will we get to Densford Station?’
‘Oh, it’s just through the woods,’ I said, vaguely waving with my hand when he glanced over at me.
The truth was I’d never actually managed to find my way there, but I felt sure it’d all work out once I had Hansel with me. Surely he would be able to read maps better than me. In any case, once we were in the forest together, I would explain my plan of how Hansel could set up a secret hideout and I could come and visit him so he wouldn’t be lonely. I was sure he’d agree to it.
‘And what will we take?’
I began to reel off my list. I’d gradually been packing supplies – food and maps and the few coins I’d scavenged – into a dusty old haversack I’d pulled out from the cupboard under the stairs. I kept the bag under my bed, next to the Troll poison and my knife.
‘You haven’t spoken to anyone about this? Not even your mother?’
‘Of course not! It’s our secret.’
He sighed and rested the blade of the axe on the ground and sat on the stump. He didn’t say anything for quite a long time.
‘All right,’ he said, eventually. ‘All right, Daniel. We’ll do it.’
Once Hansel agreed that I was going to be the one to save him, he suddenly wanted to run away as soon as possible. And a couple of days later he told me he was ready, and that we’d leave the very next day.
The night before the escape mission, I took down my blackout blind and let the moonlight into my room. I didn’t bother watching for the Troll because I had more important things to think about. I lay in bed, staring out at the moon, which shone through the branches of the magnolia tree.
My arm dangled over the side of my bed and my fingers trailed across the beige canvas and leather buckles of Daddy’s old pack, now lumpy with tinned foods pilfered from the larder and dusty glass bottles of Daddy’s ginger beer that I knew Mother wouldn’t miss. My fingers traced the landscape of the hills and valleys of the bag.
Nearly time.
But it wasn’t; the sky stayed the deepest, darkest black and the moon seemed fixed in place. Only the tick-tocking of the clock on the bedside table assured me that the seconds were counting down, and dawn was coming after all.
I left before she woke up.
She’d just think I’d gone to play out as usual. The knapsack slung over my shoulders bumped hard against my back as I jogged to the orchard. It was a nice day, a bit chilly I suppose, but then it was still early. It was September now, the beginning of autumn, and it was just starting to feel like it. Already, some of the trees were starting to shed their leaves onto the forest floor.
I was there before Hansel arrived for work. I stayed out of sight in the woods in case Farmer Dawson was with him.
Even as I saw him enter the glen alone, perhaps at a slightly faster pace than usual, and glance about him, I held back. I watched him head into his cabin and come out with his axe and a small bag.
I’d always enjoyed watching him secretly, but today would be the last time. I felt a sort of tearing inside me as two different wishes fought against each other – one to help him escape, and the other to make him stay here for ever.
But then I thought of Mother turning to me when he was gone. I would be her only Darling then.
It was clear to me that Hansel was rushing. Usually, he would chop down a tree, which didn’t take long because the trunks of the apple trees were not large, and then chop that trunk into large chunks, ready to be chopped on the block into smaller logs for the fire.
‘I like to do it one tree at a time,’ he’d told me once, ‘because it breaks my boredom. When I get bored of one task, it is soon time to do another one. And I like a job to be finished altogether. One tree finished is one tree finished. Then I can start again.’
But this morning, not long after dawn, and earlier than usual – he must have run from the camp – he was hacking at the trees with the axe. He made several fall, and let them lie where they fell.
He was almost frenzied, and my gentle happy-sad thoughts of losing my wonderful woodchopper-prince began to turn into something hard to describe. Something that felt a bit like fear.
‘Help me,’ he said, as I finally approached.
I was a bit taken aback. I was the rescuer, clearly there to help him escape, so where was the smile, the friendly man-to-man greeting?
‘There’s a pile of wood in the shed from yesterday – carry it out here and put it next to the block.’
I hesitated, then put down the knapsack where I stood.
‘No! Take it with you, in case someone comes.’
He was probably just nervous. I was sure he didn’t mean to snap at me.
I went into the cabin and hid the bag behind some kind of farm machinery. I couldn’t find the wood he was talking about, but I didn’t want to go back out to ask what he meant. I didn’t understand what he was doing.
Why was he working so hard when he knew he was going to be leaving today? Perhaps it was like he’d told me once; he enjoyed seeing a job finished. Did he want to finish clearing the orchard before he left? There’d never be time!
But then I saw he’d emptied some old boxes, and f
illed them with firewood he’d made.
I understood then what he’d done, and was glad I hadn’t asked.
It was a good idea; something I hadn’t thought of in all my careful planning. It shocked me a bit, that he’d obviously been thinking about this too. I don’t know why it shocked me, but it did. I thought I’d been in control, but he’d been making plans too.
He was making the glen look like he’d been working there all day. If someone arrived and found him gone, they’d see evidence of his hard work. Trees lying ready to be chopped, and a pile of firewood he’d already made.
I dumped some wood on the ground and he whacked the axe into the block and came to help me, throwing armfuls carelessly onto the pile I was building there.
At the end of each day, Hansel had to take the wood he’d chopped to a storage shed on the farm in wheelbarrows to keep it dry. So this wood here was more than he could have put by yesterday. He must have been keeping back firewood for several days, at least.
He looked around with his eyes narrowed.
Then he took a newspaper-wrapped sandwich from his small bag. I didn’t know what else was in there. It was only half a sandwich and there was a bite mark in it. I could tell from the way he was holding it that the bread was hard. It must’ve been part of his lunch from yesterday or even the day before.
He laid it on the ground next to the chopping block, along with a flask of water. I had another flask for him in my bag, because he’d asked me to bring him one for his journey.
Now it was my turn to look at the glen around us. It would look like he’d stopped for lunch, or a snack, and would return any minute. Maybe he’d gone back to the farm for something or had just popped into the woods to pee.
Something twisted in my belly, but he seemed to catch sight of me for the first time then. He cuffed my head playfully. He winked.
It was all I needed.
My fear was gone, and it was Hansel and I working together again as part of our daring escape mission. I tried not to smile too much, because this was a serious business, but actually I almost wanted to giggle.
‘All right,’ he said, with a final glance around. ‘Let’s go.’
So we did.
I had to run to keep up with him. He was probably not running at full speed – because I never would’ve been able to keep up with that – but he was definitely moving at a quick jog.
I wondered if now was the right time to share my plan about the hideout. But he kept asking questions about Densford Station, and checking I’d packed the maps, and it was obvious he wanted to get as far away from Bambury as quickly as possible.
I felt a little bit hurt. Was it so easy to leave me – and my mother – behind?
I supposed it made sense now I really thought about it, though. Of course he needed to put as much distance as possible between himself and the people who would catch him. My plans for a new, secret wood cabin suddenly felt silly; a bit childish.
‘Which way do we go? This way?’ he said, as we hurried along. ‘At the train station, I will stand outside, and you can buy my ticket so I don’t have to speak to anyone.’ He stopped and thought for a moment. ‘I better put the clothes on now.’
I watched as Hansel pulled my father’s old things from the bag I’d packed, which he was now carrying. He started to undo the shirt of his PoW uniform, with its tell-tale grey patch. But then he hesitated.
‘No, better to wait,’ he said. ‘We might see someone who knows me while we’re still near Bambury. Better I look the same as always.’
He’d given me his smaller pack, which was stuffed with a pair of boots he said had belonged to his friend Erik and a couple of packets of cigarettes. To make my load lighter, he now put the boots in his bag, and gave me Daddy’s clothes to carry instead. The bag was smaller than his backpack, but it was still too big for me. It hit the backs of my legs as I ran.
I tripped and fell, and the twigs and dry ground of the forest scraped my knees and the palms of my hands. My eyes welled up with a sharp sting at the shock and sudden stab of unexpected pain. Bits of dirt and gravel were ground deep into the cuts and I tried to brush them out.
He ran back a few steps to pull me up.
‘All is good? Come on!’
And he was off again. I tried to catch up, but he was starting to get too far ahead. I felt the panic of the lame boy being left behind by the Pied Piper. But my knees hurt and I didn’t want to run any more. My palms pulsed with pain. They were badly grazed and little strips of skin were ruched up where I’d slid along the ground as I fell. Despite trying to wipe them clean, bits of earth were still packed into the cuts along the edges.
‘Hansel! Wait!’ I called.
He spun around and slapped his finger to his lips. He looked impatient and a little bit angry. He gestured for me to catch up.
So I stumbled on.
23
‘I wonder if you are worth going to the end of the world for?’
From The Snow Queen
Annabel woke late. It was slightly chillier than it had been and she chose a cream dress with long sleeves and a lattice detail across the chest.
She rarely bothered with breakfast. It was her habit to sleep in, but she’d slept for longer than usual and it was already long past midday. The boy had busied himself being useful for a change the evening before; she had a new bottle of gin and he had refilled her glass of gin several times, which had made her rather tipsy. But she only had a slight headache, which was already dissipating.
Normally, she headed out to see Hans straight away so she could spend as much time at the orchard as possible. But today she planned to pop into the village first to buy some treats for him.
The larder and cupboards were bare. She must admonish the boy for eating so much. Didn’t he understand there were food shortages? She would go shopping. She’d buy Hans some fruit perhaps – they always both laughed now when she arrived with a gift of an apple. She idly wondered whether she had enough ingredients to have a go at making something sweet for them both to share. Stewed apple, perhaps? Or a rudimentary crumble, using sweetened breadcrumbs maybe, in the absence of flour and butter?
As she ambled down the lane towards the village, enjoying the sunshine, she allowed her mind to drift away from her with thoughts of kisses on lips dusted with sugar and spices. Her mouth watered at the thought of all the sweet things to come.
24
Gretel began to cry and said: ‘How are we to get out of the forest now?’ But Hansel comforted her and said: ‘Just wait a little, until the moon has risen, and then we will soon find the way.’
From Hansel and Gretel
‘You have to run fast, yes?’ He almost hissed the words. ‘This isn’t a game now. This is dangerous.’
His eyes were hard.
‘I know!’ I was panting.
He had a couple of scratches on his face. A low branch must have swiped at him as he ran. I wondered if I had similar cuts on my own face, but it was hard to feel anything apart from the heat in my burning palms and scraped knees.
‘I have to go to the toilet,’ I said.
He clenched his lips together into a tight little line. ‘Quickly. But we must run faster after that.’
I walked off into the woods. I just wanted to stand still and rest. I scrabbled with the buttons on my trousers and watched my pee make a pond which turned into a muddy river, pushing little bits of leaves and twigs out of its way as it rolled on away from the trunk.
I had a quick, sneaky drink of water from the flask I’d brought him. I shouldn’t have really; it was meant for him, but … well. I didn’t drink all of it, and I could refill it when we came to the river. With that thought, I splashed some of it onto my palms and knees and winced as I washed away the worst of the earth packed into my grazed skin.
I took my time heading back to him. I thought he could’ve been a bit more sympathetic about my injuries. I didn’t have to help him.
‘We must go now,’ he said. His eyes
seemed to be stretched wide in his face.
‘That way.’ I pointed in front of us. ‘The path is over there, behind us, but we can stay away from it. I know the direction we need to go.’
He took off again, jogging away before I’d even finished speaking, and the wind whistled past my ears as I ran after him. I started to feel a pain in my side, bending me double as I tried to run, as though a piece of twine was pulling me inwards by stitching my guts together.
Shouldn’t have drunk that water.
‘Can’t … can’t …’ I panted.
Hansel ran back to me and grabbed my arm, then pulled me along behind him for a few paces. I heard the arm of my shirtsleeve rip before he let me go.
‘We have to keep going!’ His voice was like a bark. ‘Hurry up! I need you to show me where to go! You have to run fast!’
‘Stitch!’ I cried. But he didn’t seem to understand. Despite the cramp in my side, I tried to keep my legs pumping because I was frightened of falling again.
Hansel pushed past a low branch and I knew what would happen a second before it struck me. Long enough to expect the impact, but not long enough to do anything about it.
The branch snapped back and caught me square in the face, although I’d already started to turn my head and bring my arm up to ward off the blow.
‘Oh! Oh!’
There was blood. Lots of it. I could feel its warmth flooding down through my nostrils and then, a moment later, the taste of tin in my mouth. Hot metallic sharpness on my tongue and in my throat. I nearly gagged.
My eyes began to stream from the blow. Through blurred tears I could see he looked horrified. He muttered something in German. He put out his hands to touch my face.
‘Don’t!’ I screamed, crying, with my hands curled in front of my face to make a cage to protect it. ‘Don’t touch! It hurts!’
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Ah, God, God. Your nose!’
‘Is it broken?’
