by Meg Rosoff
Piper watched the whole thing without moving a muscle but the shock of it made me retch and I had to turn away over the side of the truck. Someone else was screaming and when I turned back the whole world seemed to have slowed down and grown quiet and from inside the silence I watched the guard go right back to chatting with his friend and saw Major McEvoy's head roll back for a moment and his eyes close and a look of despair crumple up his face and in that split second I wondered whether he was really that attached to the kid and then it was with horror that I looked down and saw that Joe was still alive, gurgling and trying to move the arm that wasn't caught under his body and when I looked back at Major M I realized he was doing what he felt was his duty as a member of the armed forces defending a British national and still in slow motion he was climbing out of the truck and his plan must have been to get Joe on his feet somehow and then to safety when I heard about a hundred shots from a machine gun and the momentum of the blasts hurled Major M backward across the road away from Joe with blood welling up in holes all over him and this time you could see Joe's condition was 100% dead with brains splattered everywhere and our driver didn't wait around to see what might happen next but just stepped on the gas and as we drove away I thought I felt tears on my face but when I put my hand up to wipe them it turned out to be blood and nobody made a single sound but just sat there shell-shocked and all I could think about was poor Major M lying there in the dust though I guess he was much too dead to notice.
There never were seven more silent human beings in the back of a truck, we were too stunned even to cry or speak. When we reached Reston Bridge our driver, who I knew was a close friend of the Major's, got out of the truck and stood there for a minute trying to get up the courage to go inside and tell Mrs. M what happened, but first he turned to us and said in a voice that sounded broken and full of rage, In case anyone needed reminding This is a War.
And the way he said those words made me feel like I was falling.
21
We had plenty of opportunity to notice that poor old Jane McEvoy seemed to have lost a good number of her marbles already over the past few weeks and it was obvious that this was going to be the last straw by a pretty substantial margin.
Piper and I tried to occupy Alby while she crashed around the house wailing with grief and army wives kept arriving to console her like such a thing was possible and Alby, who didn't get at all that his father was dead, kept playing his favorite game which consisted of Bashing Things and then Bashing More Things and then Bashing Anything That Was Left. After about six hours of Bashing he ran out of Things and started to grab on to his mother and howl which just made everything worse.
Major McEvoy's friend and driver Corporal Francis, who everyone called Frankie, went with a couple of other guys to try to retrieve the bodies but they couldn't get near the checkpoint due to warning shots being fired at anyone who approached. When he came to stay at the house that night I tried to talk to him about getting Mrs. M some sedatives but I never saw a person look tireder or more dispirited than him and I got the feeling he was already doing so much more than his best on so many fronts that digging up a prescription for Valium would be one job too many, and anyway he was the one who could've used a few hundred milligrams.
Piper and I scraped together something like an omelet with a few eggs and some of Alby's milk and we cooked some beans from the farm and cut up some plums and we gave most of it to Frankie who didn't eat much and Alby who did, and then we put Alby to bed and went to bed ourselves right afterwards leaving Frankie with Mrs. McEvoy and two of the army wives crying in the kitchen which by this time was almost totally dark.
That night was bad and Piper kept jerking awake wide-eyed and shaking and saying she kept seeing the face of the boy who got shot and then she started to sob and say she wanted her mother and I'd just get her calmed down and asleep and it would start all over again. When I thought about Joe I felt fairly bad that he got his head blown off but mostly furious that because of him being such a fool Major Mac had to die.
When I finally got to sleep I found Edmond and told him everything that happened, and he stayed with me for hours and whether I was dreaming or just borderline schizophrenic I didn't know and didn't care either.
At around 6 a.m. when everyone was still sleeping four soldiers came bursting into the house looking for Frankie and said we had to leave immediately, that a vigilante group had started up and they went in the night to ambush the checkpoint soldiers and now The Enemy was going house to house and killing anyone they didn't like the look of.
All hell broke loose.
Mrs. M stayed frozen in one position like she didn't understand English or even how to walk anymore but everyone else was shouting and running. I tried to talk her into getting Alby, but she didn't even look at me and then Frankie took over and told me to get dressed and I grabbed some clothes and two warm blankets and told Piper to take one of Major M's sweaters and save a place for me in the truck and then I stuffed a few useful things inside the blankets including a jar of olives from the pantry and a jar of strawberry jam which was just about all that was left in there and as I was looking around for anything else that might come in handy I saw a silver compass on a little plinth with Major McEvoy's name on it and an inscription, and feeling like a grave robber I smashed it on the floor to pull it loose and the compass came off and I stuck it in my pocket along with the little knife I had from fruit picking.
I assumed Jet would just follow us into the truck, but when it came time to leave there was no sign of him, maybe because of all the noise. Piper looked stricken and whistled and called with her voice getting higher and more hysterical and much as everyone wanted to see a little girl reunited with her dog there was no way they were going to risk everyone's lives waiting for it to happen so I pulled her in beside me and we drove off without him.
Piper didn't even cry, but just sat there looking completely blank which was worse.
We all sat dazed and speechless in the truck, Alby quiet for once and Mrs. M still frozen, and we drove south according to my compass and only stopped once to pick up some of the army guys I recognized from Meadow Brook and who could just cram into the back with us.
Other people tried to flag us down as we drove along, the sound of a truck these days was enough to get people running out of their houses to see what was going on, and some of them tried to get us to stop by standing in the middle of the road or jumping onto the side of the truck but Frankie just said in a low voice to keep our heads down and he kept driving and didn't even slow down.
Piper and I were hanging on to each other feeling stupefied with fear and loss and Mrs. McEvoy was holding on to Alby like a drowning person and Alby just sat there thrilled that he was going in a car and could see all the trees rushing past him and as the tears streamed down Mrs. McEvoy's face faster and faster I thought Her husband's dead and maybe her older son too and now she has to leave her house and all she's got left is one drooling kid without any idea what's going on and she didn't even think to bring him some milk.
We drove for ages until we got to a big barn with lots of army trucks parked around it and everyone got out and Frankie said We'll stay here for a while and we went inside and it was a huge hay barn filled with guns and sleeping bags and all the signs that the army was using it as a barracks and Piper and I found a corner of the loft that didn't have anyone else's stuff in it and put our things down and then sat down and waited to see what would happen.
Alby was having a fine old time running around looking at everything and the only thing we could do that was useful was to try to keep him away from the guns that were just lying around. I wasn't about to have him blow himself to smithereens on account of it would clearly be the end for his poor old deranged mom.
As the day went on the army guys kept coming and going and they all seemed to have some sort of plan like ants in an anthill going about their business in a nice orderly fashion until a foot comes along and stamps on the whole structure.
Piper and I slept a little and we found some magazines hanging around and borrowed whichever ones didn't feature extremely obscene pictures of naked women, which were few and far between. And eventually Piper said in an apologetic way that she was a little bit hungry and she went off to see what she could find and came back with half a loaf of bread which was about as easy to get hold of these days as a piece of the True Cross and she also had some cheesy stuff they called curd and it tasted pretty good.
Early in the evening the soldiers started coming back from patrolling The Locality in groups of three or four and some of them came over and told us what it was like out there which as far as we could tell wasn't very nice what with all those laid-back enemy troops suddenly getting aggressive and diving into action which generally seemed to involve killing people like us whenever possible.
I obviously didn't think this was a good thing, but it did coincide a whole lot more closely with my understanding of what a war was supposed to be.
Anyway, lots of them talked to us or recognized Piper from the farm and nobody said Where's Jet? or What happened to Major Mac? because we were all catching on to the fact that some questions were better not asked.
Piper and I were thinking more or less the same thing, namely, first we were five plus Jet, Gin and Ding and then we were three with Jet and now we were Just Two.
If you haven't been in a war and are wondering how long it takes to get used to losing everything you think you need or love, I can tell you the answer is No time at all.
22
It was strange sleeping in the barn with all those soldiers and it felt a lot less safe than you might have thought, given how many guns were around. It probably had something to do with realizing that the Bad Guys might want to find out where all the Good Guys were sleeping and then ambush them. But there wasn't a whole lot we could do about it.
Piper and I had a little corner with a kind of overhang that made us feel protected and we put down the two blankets and rolled up some clothes for a pillow and as a last thought I went to see if Mrs. McEvoy and Alby were OK and warm enough and yes, they were warm enough, but not OK. I sat and tried to talk to Mrs. M for a while but it didn't do much good because she seemed to have lost track of everything in the world and whatever words I could think of to say just came out sounding stupid.
I couldn't stay with her too long in case her desperation rubbed off so I made an awkward excuse and climbed back up into the loft.
Piper and I huddled together under the blankets and it was noisy and busy all around us as the soldiers made some food and cleaned up all their weapons and yelled jokes at each other across the barn most of which you couldn't repeat, and finally they turned down the hurricane lamps and in shifts they slept too, with a watch that changed every few hours. It wasn't the best night's sleep I've ever had but we were getting used to strange circumstances and it wasn't the worst either.
One of the army guys called Baz, who we knew from milking, came over to us in the morning with some oatmeal and milk and cups of tea and we were so grateful and he was so in love with Piper that he sat and stayed with us while we ate and told us As Much As He Knew.
He said that the murders of Major Mac and Joe had sparked off a nasty battle in that area and it was exactly what everyone had been trying to avoid. The Enemy apparently wasn't any more anxious than we were to start fighting and shooting, and they had proved it by letting our army get on with whatever they had to do for the better part of three months.
But no one was happy now, and there were a lot of stupid brave Country Folk armed with duck hunting rifles taking potshots at tanks and most of the time getting slaughtered for their trouble.
Baz was smart and trying to be funny to cheer us up and said we shouldn't worry and found some trashy paperbacks for us to read while we were hanging around all day. He said he'd come see us that night after he got back from patrol.
When he did come back Piper was off helping the cook and I took the chance to tell him about my plan to get back together with Piper's family though I swore him to secrecy, and he looked pretty worried at the thought of us setting out alone but didn't actually say the words Don't Be Crazy which was moderately encouraging.
I asked if he thought it was possible Isaac and Edmond and Osbert were all still living together and he shrugged and said Anything's possible, but there's a lot of trouble about. He looked at me for a minute like he was trying to size up what I was likely to do and finally said No place is really safe. You're better and worse off here with us—
He stopped for a second but then pretended he'd just been distracted by a noise and started talking again.
—but if you did set off alone and kept off the roads and away from obvious danger you might be OK. The trick is to avoid contact with anyone you can't positively identify because everyone's tired and up against the clock and most of The Enemy know they're never going home again and don't have a heck of a lot to live for.
He stopped again.
This time it was because he saw Piper coming back from the cooking area with some soup and she smiled her beautiful smile when she saw Baz and folded herself down into the straw, leaning up against him like a cat to eat her supper.
One thing you sure couldn't miss was how many strange alliances were forged in a war. You could see Baz was as happy as he'd ever been in his life just sitting next to Piper, war or no war, and not in a creepy way either. You could just tell that after months around nothing but big smelly burping farting men, the presence of Piper with her big eyes and pure soul made him feel like all he wanted was a chance to die to protect her. I didn't seem to have that effect on anyone but it would have been a waste for both of us to be saints.
That night Baz moved his sleeping bag from across the loft where he'd been all along and laid it across our corner. Hours after I fell asleep, I woke up to see him half sitting, awake and watchful. And the way he occasionally looked over to make sure we were safe reminded me exactly of Jet.
23
For almost a week we stayed like that, bunked up with various members of the Territorial Army. Piper seemed to go inside herself more than usual but for me it was just one more chapter of my increasingly surreal Normal Life and I had a calm feeling most of the time, like nothing could happen anymore that would surprise me.
Except for Mrs. McEvoy we were the only females in the barn with over a hundred men and they acted like we were the Queen and Princess of Sheba, bringing us food and coming over to talk and play cards and generally treating us like prize mascots or holy relics when in fact we were two grubby kids surrounded by soldiers in a dusty place without windows waiting for the war to catch up with us.
Most of the soldiers were so much more normal and friendly than you ever would have expected back in the olden days before everyone in your entire circle of friends and acquaintances had something to do with the army. I guess they were just regular people who probably never expected to get drafted when they signed up as part-timers. Most of the time you got the feeling they were lonely and fed up and wanted to go back home to their other lives as much as we did.
Since there wasn't much to talk about except the war, I kept asking them all questions about camping and surviving in The Wild and finding food and all those kinds of things and I doubt they gave a whole lot of thought as to why I was so curious about survival skills since most of them loved to talk about the subject at length anyway.
Piper and I weren't encouraged to go outside much so we read a little and helped in the mess and slept. It wasn't so different from being back at the McEvoy's except there were lots more people to talk to, and with all that time on my hands I couldn't help wondering why life in a windowless barn thousands of miles from America surrounded by soldiers felt more real than most of the real life I'd ever lived through.
We got used to sleeping with Baz guarding us, and being brought food, and having shy twenty-year-olds sidle up to us and start up awkward conversations just for something to do. Even the
noises of all those men around us, not all of which were exactly suitable for polite company, got to be reassuring in a certain way.
Baz seemed to get a special status from being Piper's minder and after that first day the two of them fell into a kind of brother and sister thing that I'm sure came from the fact that almost every relationship in Piper's life up till now had been with all those brothers. Baz was more normal than any of the ones she had at home, but he had something of that watchful stillness I associated with her gang. Birds of a feather find each other, I guess.
Well obviously all this Girl Scout Happy Families stuff wasn't going to last forever.
At about four in the morning a few nights later we woke up to the noise of a lot of scuffling and shouting and Baz saying Get all your stuff together and Stay Here and then him disappearing into the chaos and us not being able to see anything much because there were no lights but then there was gunfire and then he was back and leading us out through the stable door back where the latrines were and he took our stuff and told us to follow him and we ran and ran until I thought my sides were going to rip open from the pain and I kept tripping because there was no moon and it was blacker than black and finally we got to an open space and we just stood there panting and Baz said Look you can see the sky getting a little lighter over there, that's east, just keep walking in that direction and use your compass to find NNE, not NE, he said, or you'll overshoot.
I was glad to know this fact because being from New York City where everyone's born knowing uptown is north but not a whole lot else, I didn't know anything about NNE vs. NE and was glad someone had let us in on that secret.
By now Piper realized Baz was leaving us and was starting to cry and he picked her up in his arms like she weighed nothing more than a handful of hay and just held her as tight as he could and finally he kissed her cheek and said Daisy will take care of you and he winked at me behind her back like we were in cahoots which I guess we were.
