Shrapnel by Robert Swindells Page B

Mind you, he couldn’t know I’d be the one to read it, could he, out of a schoolful of kids?
Maybe he’s a wizard
, I thought.
Knows everything
.
    Which didn’t help at all.
    â€˜That you, Biggles?’ growled a nearby, sullen voice. I nearly jumped out of my skin. The watchman was a blob six feet away, on the other side of the fence. ‘Y . . . yes,’ I stammered, ‘only it isn’t Biggles, it’s . . .’
    â€˜Whoa!’ he bellowed like somebody stopping a runaway horse. ‘Don’t tell me your bleat’n name, you fathead. Fly the plane.’
    I flew it. It vanished into the muck. The watchman vanished as well. I stuck my hands in my pockets and stood, screwing up my eyes into the fug.
Like standing in Linton Barker’s lungs
, I thought.
    It was a neat simile, but I hadn’t long to enjoy it. As the blob reappeared, holding the plane aloft, somebody shouted and more blobs materialized, bobbing towards the watchman. He started to run, crying out as the phantom shapes merged with him. I heard a tearing, splintering noise, and knew that this time the Skymaster would fail to return.
    I fled, thankful now for the fog.

FORTY-NINE
It Wasn’t Exactly a Lie
    I PLUNGED THROUGH the noxious vapour, gibbering like an idiot. It took for ever to find the bike. The wet saddle soaked my pants, felt as though I needed my nappy changed. The only good thing was, whoever had pinched my plane wouldn’t find me, let alone take pot shots.
    I wobbled homeward. Or what I
hoped
was homeward.
Who were those fellows?
murmured a little voice in my head.
Germans? Traitors? Should I have stayed, helped the watchman? Sexton Blake would have. Yes, but
how,
with the fence between?
    Mum was washing spuds. She didn’t peel ’em nowadays – it was a waste of good grub. There was a cartoon in the paper – a spud with arms and legs, wearing a jacket.
Good taste demands I keep my jacket on
, said the speech bubble. Old Hinkley reckons peeling spuds is as bad as signalling to enemy planes.
Mein Fuehrer, our agents in England are persuading housewives to peel potatoes: victory cannot be far away
.
    I’d made up a story about the Skymaster. It wasn’t exactly a lie. ‘I lost the plane, Mum. It went over Manley’s fence. I couldn’t see because of the fog. Had to leave it.’
    She sighed, shook her head. ‘Never mind, love – perhaps they’ll let you have it back if Dad telephones to them on Monday, explains it was an accident.’
    â€˜No!’ I spoke more sharply than I’d meant to. Mum looked startled. ‘I . . . don’t think we should bother them, Mum. Kids lose planes at Manley’s all the time, they’re probably fed up to the back teeth with it.’ Truth was, I doubted what me and the watchman had been up to at Manley’s was strictly official. To alert the company might betray our secret.
    Mum started grating a potato, she was making something called potato ring. ‘Your brother gave you that aeroplane,’ she murmured. ‘It was his last gift to you. I’d have thought you’d want to have it back, if only as a keepsake.’ Her voice wavered. ‘Yes, that’s it . . . a keepsake.’ She dropped the grater and the potato and burst into tears. Feeling rotten for having snapped at her, I went to give her a hug like a Robinson probably would, and we were like that when Dad walked in.

FIFTY
Balls of Fragrant Smoke
    â€˜ WHAT’S UP – HAS something happened?’ Dad nudged me aside, gripped Mum’s shoulders. ‘Tell me, Ethel.’
    Mum shook her head. ‘It’s nothing, Frank. I’m being daft, that’s all.’ She pulled a hanky out of her pinny, dabbed her eyes. ‘Gordon’s lost the aeroplane Raymond gave him. It felt like another link broken – a link to him, I mean. Daft.’ She blew her