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Chapter One

‘DO THEY have movies in England?’

‘Sure they do!’ said the boy in the beige suit. He was sitting cross-legged on the cabin floor, attempting to draw a liner on a sketch-pad.

A small girl was curled up on the bottom bunk nearest him.

‘Films,’ she interrupted. ‘They call ’em films.’

On the third bunk above, a plump sixteen-year-old girl was lying on her back. She gave a deep sigh. ‘I wish we coulda come back a few months later,’ she murmured.

The small girl leaned out to look at her.

‘Aren’t you pleased to be going back to England?’

‘I guess,’ she said unconvincingly. ‘It’s just that Frank Sinatra’s going to be at the Paramount Theater in November and I won’t be there.’

Rusty, who was lying on one of the bunks opposite, glanced up in her direction.

Poor Susie, she thought. She had hardly said a word the entire crossing. Even when she had been sea-sick, she hadn’t whined or made a fuss but had just gazed vacantly into the distance.

After the previous night’s farewell concert, given by all the groups of children and teenagers to the crew and each other, Rusty had sat next to her. She had watched the others play party games and had felt herself growing more and more distant from them.

Just as we’ve made friends, she had thought, we have to say goodbye all over again. The sailors had given them ice-cream. All the kids had adopted their own special sailor. Rusty’s was from Brooklyn. ‘Irish’ they called him.

Rusty had stared through the crowd of children to where he was sitting. He had spotted her and given her a friendly wink. She had forced herself to smile back and had then turned to Susie. Alarmed at the despair in her eyes, she had put her arm round her.

‘Susie,’ she whispered. ‘It’ll be OK. You’ll see.’

But Susie hadn’t even looked at her.

‘I was going steady with a boy at my school,’ she said quietly. ‘I miss him so much.’ And she glanced hastily into the palm of her hands. ‘I may never see him again.’

Rusty rolled over on to her side and tried to catch her attention, but Susie’s face was now deep in the pillow. Below her, a small group of children continued to chat and play ‘jacks’ on the floor.

‘You’ll be able to hear him much better on a phonograph,’ said the boy in the beige suit. ‘If you went to his concert you wouldn’t hear anything for all the squealing.’

‘Gramophone,’ said the small girl. ‘They call ’em gramophones.’

‘It’s not the same as seeing him,’ Susie muttered.

Rusty glanced down at her open suitcase. A few weeks ago, she had been staying at the Omsks’ summer cottage right by the ocean. Now she was here, in a cabin that had thirty-six bunks squashed together in tiers of three.

As she gazed at the contents of her case she could hardly see them, so blurred were her eyes. She blinked her tears away and wiped her face hurriedly with a handkerchief.

‘Now, remember,’ Grandma Fitz had said, ‘you have to think yourself into being a pioneer. I came out to America, a scrap of a thing with all I owned in a carpetbag, and I didn’t know what the heck I’d find. You show ’em that a bit of that old American pioneer spirit has rubbed off on you.’

And Grandpa had added, ‘You don’t want ’em to think you’re an old misery-guts.’

Only a couple of weeks back, she had been standing on the New York docks saying goodbye to them all: Aunt Hannah, Uncle Bruno, her American sisters, Grandma Fitz and Gramps, Skeet and Janey, her best girlfriend. Janey hadn’t seemed to realize what was happening. She had looked as excited as if Rusty was just making some kind of a weekend trip. They had both vowed eternal friendship and had promised to be pen-pals for ever.

If only Skeet was with her, then she wouldn’t feel so lonely. She wondered what he was doing. Probably out in the rowing boat with the fishing tackle. For four years they had roomed together, and even in her fifth year their bedrooms had been next door to one another. She couldn’t imagine life without Skeet close by. This summer he had turned fourteen and his voice had started getting all croaky. Now she’d never get to hear him sounding grown-up. Heck, she was crying again.

She slammed the case shut and blew her nose. Uncle Bruno had been crying, too, when he had said goodbye, and he was a man, so it couldn’t be so bad that she was doing it. When he had given her a final hug, he had held her so tight that she had thought that perhaps he wasn’t going to let her go after all. But then one of the escorts had touched them and they had broken apart, and Rusty had felt herself being pushed towards the gangway. She had felt so dazed walking up it, as if she had been winded by a fast-flying baseball – only instead of the sick feeling going away, it stayed there, deep and heavy in the pit of her stomach.

Suddenly the cabin door was flung open and a freckled teenage girl rushed in.

‘Hey, you guys, come on up,’ she said excitedly. ‘Everyone else is up on deck. We can see the quayside!’

Rusty lay on her back and listened to the stampede of footsteps and the yells as the other children fled to join her. As soon as they had gone, she slipped out from her bunk, smoothed her flared green-and-white-check skirt out and pulled down her large lemon cardigan.

A small hand-mirror was propped against a book on one of the bunks. Rusty peered into it. It had taken her all morning to manoeuvre her dark-red hair into ringlets. Janey had taught her to do that before leaving, but the other girls on board had helped her along a bit. She straightened the green bows that held her hair back from a central parting. One of her ribbons looked crumpled through endless jiggering around with. She just couldn’t seem to get each side level with the other.

She glanced down at the white toes of her brown-and-white saddle-shoes and wiped them along the backs of her legs.

At least her bobby socks didn’t look so grubby, now that they were inside out and plumped out a bit. It had been so difficult keeping them clean on the ship.

She was about to join the others when she heard muffled sniffs from the far end of the cabin. She edged her way past the rows of bunks.

On a lower bunk in a corner sat a dark-haired girl in a plaid red-and-green dress. She was thirteen, a year older than Rusty. Like Rusty’s had been, her case was open. Half the contents were strewn across the floor.

She looked up, startled. ‘I was just checkin’ I had everything,’ she blurted out.

Rusty stared at all the bottles on her bed.

‘Vitamins,’ she explained anxiously. ‘My Aunt Joan says you can’t have too many.’

Wedged in among her clothes Rusty noticed Palmolive soap, nylons, linen and peanut butter.

‘Aunt Joanie,’ she said, ‘she knows all about English rationing. Do you think our luggage will be all right?’ she added, and a look of terror came into her eyes.

‘Sure it will,’ said Rusty.

The girl blew her nose.

‘I guess I must have a cold.’

‘Yeah,’ said Rusty. ‘Same as the one I got.’

They smiled guiltily at each other.

‘Can I go up on deck with you?’ asked the girl.

‘Sure you can,’ said Rusty.

The girl swept the bottles off her bunk into the suitcase and banged it shut.

Arm in arm, they squeezed their way down the narrow aisle between the bunks. At the doorway the girl hesitated.

‘I’ve always known I’d be coming back to England,’ she murmured. ‘I guess I really didn’t believe it.’

‘Me neither,’ confided Rusty.

The boy in the beige suit had saved them a place by the rail.

‘How does my hair look?’ asked Rusty. ‘My ribbons don’t look scrunched up, do they?’

He had a go at straightening the bows, but no sooner had he pushed one up higher than the other one looked too low.

‘Oh,’ he said, giving up, ‘you look swell.’

‘You really mean it?’

‘Sure I do.’ He looked puzzled for a moment. ‘Do you know you have your cardigan on back of front?’

‘Sure I do. It’s the fashion.’

He grinned.

‘Oh, you’re just teasin’.’

He stepped back. ‘How ’bout me? I brushed my hair.’

Rusty didn’t have the heart to tell him that the knees of his suit looked as if he had been scrubbing the decks with them, and anyway, his hair did look tidier than usual.

‘You look swell, too.’

Elbows on the rails, they gazed out at the approaching docks.

The ship moved heavily and slowly forward. It was a dull sort of a day, thought Rusty, especially for summer, and the buildings around the docks seemed so ugly. She knew that they were still at war with Japan but somehow she had imagined that, because the war in Europe was over, everything would look bright and cheery.

A small group of people were clustered around the docks. Rusty grew aware that all the other children had stopped speaking and were just staring quietly at the great smoking funnels in the distance and the tugs in the nearby harbour.

Someone began waving. Rusty and the dark-haired girl joined in and soon all the other children and the waiting crowd were raising their arms. As the ship drew closer to land they could see that most of the group was made up of women.

‘I guess those must be our mothers,’ whispered the boy.

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Which one is yours?’

Rusty didn’t recognize any of them. ‘Uh. I don’t think she’s arrived yet. I guess she’s waiting somewhere else.’

He nodded. ‘Guess mine must be, too.’

They both began waving again.

‘Do you think,’ began the dark-haired girl hesitantly. ‘Do you think they’ll recognize us?’

‘Sure they will,’ he said. ‘I know I’ve growed some, but my family, I mean,’ he added, ‘my American family, sent photographs of me.’

Mine too, thought Rusty, but not for nearly a year; and in the last ten months she had grown inches taller. She was big enough for some of Kathryn’s clothes now, and Aunt Hannah had even bought her some brassieres.

She started waving vigorously again, aware that she was smiling and feeling very shy. Unusual for her.

Suddenly there was a great jostling of people around her. One of the escorts was ushering a group of children past her towards the cabins to collect their luggage. Her two companions turned to follow them.

Rusty remained on her own by the railing. A flock of seagulls dipped and soared around the dark grey buildings that surrounded the docks. So this is it, she thought. England.

Chapter Two

RUSTY was standing in the crowd on the quayside, when suddenly she found herself being hugged tightly by a woman in her thirties, dressed in green. After a few seconds Rusty realized that the woman was her mother. She was smaller and thinner than she had remembered, and her hair was now cut short. Rusty couldn’t help staring at the woman’s face. It was the first time in five years that she had seen it. For a moment it seemed as if they had never parted.

‘Hi,’ she said.

‘Hello.’

Peggy Dickinson knew from last year’s photographs that Virginia had grown up. When she had been evacuated from England in 1940, she had been small and quiet, with spindly legs and milk-teeth, a far cry from the twelve-year-old girl who now stood in front of her, tall, robust and tanned, with thick long hair and intense green eyes.

Peggy let go of her hurriedly. ‘Did you have a good crossing?’ she asked awkwardly.

‘It was OK.’

‘Hey, Rusty!’ yelled a voice from behind.

A boy in the crowd who was being led away by his mother was waving. ‘So long,’ he yelled.

Rusty smiled and waved back.

‘Come on, Virginia,’ her mother said stiffly. ‘Let me take your suitcase.’

Rusty picked up her grip, duffel bag and coat, and followed.

She glanced aside at her. ‘I like your green hat,’ she said, looking up at the small-brimmed felt hat her mother was wearing.

‘Oh,’ said her mother. ‘Thank you.’

‘Did you choose the wine-coloured trimmings to match the sweater?’

‘Not exactly.’

Looking down at her mother’s lace-up shoes, she noticed that her legs were bare.

‘Hello there!’ said a woman’s voice.

By the entrance to the docks two women were serving tea and sandwiches from a mobile canteen. They waved. One of them was wearing green overalls with W.V.S. on it, the other an outfit identical to her mother’s.

A long queue was forming in front of the canteen.

‘I’d help if I could,’ called Peggy. ‘But I’ve just come to meet my daughter, and I’ve promised to pick up a furniture van at your headquarters.’

‘You stop there, Peggy,’ said the other woman. ‘We’re giving you a cup of tea before you start driving.’ She leaned over the counter and smiled at Rusty. ‘We have to watch your mother, you know. She’s a terror. Once, after an air-raid, she went to sleep on a door balanced on two milk churns in amongst all the rubble, using her coat as a blanket. When the milkman came to take them away at dawn, she stood there in the debris making stoves out of old bricks and a dustbin, and started making soup.’

‘Oh, go on with you,’ said Peggy, reddening. ‘We’re all trained to do that.’

‘Yes. But only a few are brave enough to stay out of their beds on a winter night.’

‘What do you mean, trained?’ said Rusty.

‘In the W.V.S.,’ said the woman.

‘That’s the Women’s Voluntary Service,’ added her mother. ‘This is our uniform.’

‘Oh, I get it,’ said Rusty. ‘The green outfit.’

Peggy Dickinson thrust a cup of hot liquid and a jam sandwich into Rusty’s hands. ‘Welcome back to England,’ she said.

Rusty sipped the weird brown liquid. It was no use. She was never going to get used to this stuff. It tasted awful.

‘If you don’t mind,’ said Rusty politely, putting the tea back on the counter, ‘I’m not too thirsty.’

‘I suppose you’re used to drinking coffee,’ said Peggy.

‘No. I drink milk, mostly.’

‘Oh, dear,’ said one of the women. ‘You’ll have to get used to our daily half-pint now.’

Rusty bit into the sandwich. The bread looked grey, as if someone had kicked it along the ground. It tasted grey, too.

‘Thanks for the tea,’ said Peggy, picking up Rusty’s case.

As they walked along the streets, Rusty couldn’t help being drawn to the empty spaces where buildings must have been. Old lamp posts, the kind she’d seen in Sherlock Holmes movies, were twisted violently into odd shapes. Gaping holes with broken wire fences surrounding them appeared at random amid all the brick and rubble. A large building with Odeon on it stood by itself in the crippled landscape.

Peggy Dickinson strode on. Usually people would yell after her to slow down, but when she checked to see if she was leaving her daughter behind, she discovered that Rusty was walking firmly beside her.

‘Why do they call you Rusty?’

‘On account of my hair. Uncle Bruno started it, and it sort of stuck. Say,’ she said suddenly, ‘look at that house there. It’s like a stage set.’

Peggy stopped to look.

It was a familiar sight. Half a house swept away, leaving the other half intact.

‘It reminds me of an Andrew Wyeth painting I’ve seen,’ whispered Rusty, stepping off the kerb and running across the road. ‘There’s this painting, see,’ she said, attempting to explain. ‘And it’s just a plate and a cup on a table, and out the back of the window you can see someone’s been sawing up wood. And it’s the wallpaper, see, it’s old and faded and peeling and the sun is shining through the window.’

Her mother looked puzzled.

‘I don’t see what there is to get excited about old faded wallpaper.’

‘Well, in the painting it’s a sort of parchment-yellow colour, and the sun makes it kind of alive and, oh, I don’t know.’ She swung around to look back at the building. One room on the upper floor, complete with floor, doorway, and a little staircase at the side, was suspended in mid-air. ‘It could be a terrific open-air theatre,’ she said. ‘And it’s raised, too. That means that the audience would be able to see what was going on. You could get chairs out here and …’

Virginia reminded Peggy so much of Harvey Lindon, it unnerved her. Suddenly she remembered him standing in Beatie’s garden, a broad grin on his face, his G.I. cap askew.

‘Impossible,’ she had said the first time he had suggested taking a picnic out in a boat. ‘You’ll never find one, and even if you did, it’d be full of holes.’

‘Difficult, yes; impossible, no,’ he had remarked. And within twenty-four hours, there they were drifting lazily up the river in a hired dinghy.

Peggy had insisted they turn back after an hour.

‘Your wish is my command,’ he had said, standing up and bowing, and the boat had immediately capsized. Luckily it had been near a wooded bank, but it had meant that Peggy was forced to relax in the sun until their clothes had dried.

Listening to her daughter’s voice brought it all back with disturbing clarity. Her accent sounded like a strange mixture of Katharine Hepburn and James Cagney. Peggy knew that Bruno Omsk was a New Yorker and that Hannah was a New Englander, but somehow she had not been prepared for her daughter to have picked up their accent.

‘We have to be going,’ she said abruptly.

‘But,’ said Rusty, running after her, ‘don’t you think it’d be a good idea?’

Her mother didn’t answer.

They stepped into an alleyway that lay alongside an old church.

‘Is that medieval?’ asked Rusty.

‘No.’

‘It looks so old.’

‘Don’t you remember anything about England?’

Rusty looked at her mother’s face. It was pale and taut.

‘Some.’

Next to the church a large Ford van was standing in the road. Two young women in green overalls were carrying old furniture out of a red-brick house. An elderly woman stepped out smartly from the front door.

‘So this is Virginia,’ she remarked, eyeing Rusty’s clothes. ‘Quite the young American.’

Peggy Dickinson smiled politely.

Rusty stood by the chicken-wire netting that served as a fence. No one spoke.

‘Nice day, isn’t it?’ she began.

It wasn’t a nice day at all. It was dull and clammy.

‘Yes. We’re lucky it isn’t raining,’ said the woman.

‘That would be too bad, with all the furniture and stuff. Can I help carry some?’

‘I’m afraid some of it’s rather dusty. You’d spoil your nice clothes.’

‘Dusty Rusty, that’s me!’

The woman looked blank. Her mother cleared her throat awkwardly.

‘Rusty is my daughter’s nickname.’

‘Oh, I see.’ She smiled. ‘No need for you to help, dear,’ she said. ‘That’s the last piece going in now.’

Her mother walked over to the van.

‘Wait a minute,’ said Rusty. ‘Are you gonna drive that?’

Her mother nodded.

‘But it’s so big.’

‘Your mother,’ said the woman, ‘can drive anything. She can also make a vehicle run on almost nothing but elastic bands. We’re going to miss her dreadfully.’

‘Well,’ said Peggy briskly, ‘let’s climb in.’

Rusty moved towards the door.

‘That’s the driver’s side.’

‘Oh, I forgot, you drive on the wrong side.’

Her mother flinched.

‘I mean,’ Rusty added hastily, ‘on a different side than we do.’

Rusty followed her around to the passenger side. Her mother made a cup with her hands.

‘For you to step into,’ she explained.

Rusty noticed how stubby and dirty her mother’s nails were.

‘I’m awfully heavy,’ she protested.

‘I’m used to it.’

‘OK. Here goes.’

She stepped on them gingerly and hauled herself up to the seat. Her mother ran to the other side and pulled herself effortlessly into the driver’s seat. Rusty watched as she swiftly lowered her hand towards the three gear-levers. The van gave a shudder and her mother released the hand brake.

Rusty looked at her mother. She hadn’t expected her to be so quiet. She thought she would have had a warmer welcome, that there would have been more people to greet her; but her mother was acting as if it was an ordinary day. She hadn’t even dressed up for her. She could at least have worn some stockings. After all, Rusty had tried to look nice, and her mother hadn’t even noticed.

She leaned back and hugged her L. L. Bean coat, her ‘Beanie’. It was like wrapping a piece of home around herself. The van rumbled and hummed around her, and her mother kept her eyes fixed intently on the road. Rusty stared miserably out of the window and thought of the Omsks. Her eyes filled again. She closed them quickly and sank back into the seat.

Peggy Dickinson glanced at her daughter. For years she had imagined how this reunion would be, how they’d chatter away and how her daughter would slip her hand into hers and look up at her with a sweet smile, like she used to do. It had hurt her deeply when Virginia had stopped calling her Mummy in her letters and called her Mother instead. It sounded so formal. Now here they were, together at last. No more endless sea between them. And yet she couldn’t seem to find anything to say. And Virginia looked far from happy to be home. It had never occurred to her that she would feel so tongue-tied.

She drove on in silence.

Several hours later, Peggy parked the van outside a large, drab hall.

‘This is Exeter, where we’re leaving the furniture,’ she said.

She cupped her hands again.

‘It’s OK. I can make it,’ said Rusty.

‘Hand me down your luggage first, then.’

After several more So this is Virginia’s from various other green-clad women, Rusty and her mother made their way to a railway station.

Rusty couldn’t help comparing the small shabby train that chugged into the station with the ones back in America. The English train had none of the grace and power of a Pullman. It was pathetic in comparison.

‘Why is there a First Class and a Third Class and no Second Class?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know,’ said her mother.

‘Weird,’ said Rusty.

They stepped into a compartment that consisted of two long seats and a door at either end.

‘Isn’t there an aisle?’ said Rusty.

‘No.’

‘What happens if you want to go to the bathroom?’

‘The bathroom? Oh, you mean the lavatory?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘You get out at a station and ask the station-master to make the train wait.’

Inside the compartment were several men and women in uniform. They glanced at Rusty’s ringlets and bright clothes.

The train drew out of Exeter station.

‘When do I get to see Charles?’ asked Rusty.

‘When we get home.’

Charles was the four-year-old brother she had never met. He had been born a year after she had left for America.

‘I thought maybe he’d be around to meet me.’

‘It’s a long journey for a little boy to make.’

‘I guess so.’

Her mother gazed out of the window.

‘And Father? When will he be back from the Far East?’

‘I don’t know. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for Christmas, but it depends how long this war with Japan goes on.’

The train had just drawn out of another station when suddenly the land on one side disappeared, and the train seemed to be running alongside water.

Rusty leapt to her feet and ran towards the door. ‘How do I open this window?’

‘I think it would be safer if you sat down.’

Rusty sat back down in her seat and stared at the soldiers in the carriage.

Eventually they drew into a small station called Totnes.

As Rusty hopped down on to the platform, she noticed another green-clad woman by the entrance. The woman, who was tall and lanky, visibly sighed with relief when she spotted her mother. Then she noticed Rusty, and her face fell.

Some welcome, thought Rusty.

‘Hello, Mrs Robins,’ said Peggy. ‘Anything the matter?’

‘Afraid so,’ said the woman, still eyeing Rusty. ‘The van’s broken down. I saw the Bomb outside, and I just hoped you’d be arriving soon. I’m supposed to be picking up half a dozen Dutch children and bringing them back here.’

‘I see.’

Peggy knew what a terrible state the children would be in. The W.V.S. had begun organizing holidays in Devon for war-torn children, in the hope that it would help them recuperate.

‘The Bomb!’ said Rusty, alarmed.

‘That’s your mother’s car,’ explained the woman.

‘Where’s the van?’ said her mother suddenly.

‘On this side of the bridge.’

‘I’ll pick up my tools and see what I can do.’

‘Oh, you’re an angel!’

Peggy moved swiftly out of the station and headed for her car, which was parked outside.

The Bomb was an old Morris, painted navy blue. ‘It looks like a gangsters’ car,’ whispered Rusty. It was large and L-shaped, with a running-board on either side. Through the windows Rusty could make out a rolled-up blind at the back and an armrest in the middle of the back seat. Several chains kept the old black-leather seats upright.

Her mother patted the car fondly and swung open the front door.

‘Put your things in the car, Virginia,’ she said. ‘If you like, you can wait here, but it’d be quite nice for you to see the town.’

As Rusty threw her belongings into the back, she noticed a grubby pair of overalls and a large toolbox. Her mother opened the car door opposite. For a moment they paused and looked at each other. Then her mother grabbed the overalls and toolbox and drew herself out.

This was about the meanest thing anyone could do, thought Rusty, just to go off and look at someone else’s van on her first day back.

Meanwhile Peggy strode hurriedly on, anxious to get the job over and done with so that she could be with her daughter. As she clutched her overalls and toolkit, it suddenly occurred to her that her daughter wouldn’t have seen this side of her. When Virginia had left for America, Peggy couldn’t even drive.

As the three of them half ran, half briskly walked through the town, Rusty felt as though she was travelling through a picture book, so quaint and tiny were the buildings. Green hills and trees sloped gently behind it. Even the small streets wound upwards.

Ahead, her mother and Mrs Robins stopped by a rickety old W.V.S. van, painted that interminable green. To Rusty’s amazement, her mother stepped deftly into the overalls, whisked a scarf from a pocket, and wound it into a turban around her head. Within seconds the engine was exposed to the clammy, overcast sky and her mother was bent over it, her fingers tracing the wires.

It had been like pulling teeth, trying to get her mother to talk to her. Now she was smiling and murmuring gently to the engine as if it was an invalid that needed comforting. ‘Your mother says that if talking to plants helps them grow, talking to engines makes them run better,’ Mrs Robins explained.

Oh, yeah, thought Rusty, angry tears welling up in her eyes. She can talk to a machine all right, but not to me.

Her mother glanced up at her.

‘Virginia, why don’t you go on up to the bridge?’ She wanted to add, ‘It’s lovely there. One of my favourite spots.’ But somehow the words felt too intimate, and they stuck in her throat.

Rusty, who thought she was merely being got rid of, nodded and ambled past them. She held her head up high, pretending she didn’t care.

Peggy returned hastily to the engine.

As Rusty approached the bridge, a cluster of grey-blue clouds drifted behind the grey spire of a church. Even the darned churches were grey, she thought. She leaned over the wall of the bridge. Two boats bobbed against the muddy slope of the river. She looked out to where it wound and curved past an old mill. She longed to be able to turn to Skeet and say, ‘Hey, let’s go take the rowboats and see what’s around that corner.’ Skeet would have yelled, ‘Sure thing. Let’s go.’

A cloud of cigarette smoke came wafting across the bridge. She turned to find her mother approaching, her hands covered with oil. Rusty glanced at the cigarette. She didn’t remember her mother smoking.

Peggy leaned on the wall beside her and gazed out at the river. She was about to ask her daughter what she thought of the town when she caught sight of the two dinghies. It reminded her of Harvey rowing her and some fishing tackle smoothly along the water. He loved the River Dart.

A sudden breeze shook the trees along the banks, and the sky grew darker.

‘We’d best be moving,’ she said hoarsely. ‘The others will be waiting.’

Rusty soon discovered why her mother’s car was called the Bomb. As it bumped, spluttered and banged its way along the narrow lanes with their high hedges, Rusty’s seat leapt at every bump and hole in the road. Behind them smoke poured from the exhaust.

Rusty had just gripped the sides of her seat when the car swung up a dirt road leading to a sheltered and untidy garden.

They stopped in front of a dilapidated and rambling house. Underneath an arched porch the front door was flung wide open. An old tyre was hanging from the lowest branch of a tall, leafy tree. Behind the upper branches sat a five-year-old girl.

‘Charlie!’ she yelled. ‘Hee, hee, hee. Can’t find me.’ And she hid quickly behind the leaves.

A freckled four-year-old boy, wearing nothing but grey flannel shorts held up by braces, came tumbling out of the doorway. His thick curly hair was a blonder version of Rusty’s. He stopped when he saw the car, ran up to it, and leapt deftly on to the running-board, his bare feet firmly gripping the frayed rubber.

‘Hello, darling,’ said Peggy.

She leaned back as Charlie hauled himself up to the open windows to peer inside.

‘Virginia,’ she said, turning to Rusty, ‘this is your brother.’

PUFFIN BOOKS

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two