Catching Falling Stars (9 page)

“Have you settled in, children?” the vicar asks kindly.

Reverend Ashton ruffles Rich’s hair as he talks.

Rich says nothing, just shyly shuffles into my side, blinking his black eye.

“Yes, thank you,” I fib in a voice not much louder than a whisper.

Little does the vicar know that all I want to do is take my little brother’s hand and run away, run away.

“Super! Well, why don’t you have an explore while I chat to Miss Saunders?” Reverend Ashton suggests, pointing to the graveyard surrounding the old church.

I glance around and see gravestones leaning this way and that, like rotten teeth. Gnarly trees overhang them and ivy twirls up them, as if the foliage is working together to hide the dead villagers from the living ones that are streaming out of the Sunday-morning service.

The graveyard gives me the collywobbles to be honest, but I’d rather lose myself in the greenery and the ghosts than spend a minute longer being stared at by the entire congregation. At one point during the service I felt like rushing out of the pew and up into pulpit, just so I could shout, “Yes, we’re strangers here! Yes, we look ugly and bruised and scarred because we were BOMBED. All right?!”

But instead I kept my head down, staring but not seeing the words in the hymn book, while Rich sang loudly and only slightly out of tune as Miss Montague, the primary school teacher, pumped out the hymn “All Creatures Great And Small”
on the organ.

“Here, Gloria, Richard,” says Miss Saunders, standing ramrod straight in her grey wool coat and rifling around in the handbag that’s hanging on the crook of her arm. She pulls out two neatly folded brown paper bags. “Instead of loitering around here, you can make yourselves useful and gather some damsons for me on the common.”

“The common?” I say. I don’t know anything about Thorntree, apart from the village green that all the buildings huddle around. And I didn’t know we were here to be Miss Saunders’ servants and “make ourselves useful”…

“It’s behind the church,” says Miss Saunders. “Climb over the stile in the wall and you’re there. And if you follow the path across the common it will bring you to the lane at the side of the cottage. I’ll meet you back there shortly.”

Miss Saunders might look like a great, grey owl, but now she’s sounding like the witch from “Hansel and Gretel”.

“Thank you,” I say, still thinking of Mum and minding my manners as I take the bags from her. “Come on, Rich…”

I grab my brother’s hand and manouevre as quickly as my tender foot allows me through the gawping throng milling around the church.

“Look, Glory – there’s my friend!” says Rich, pointing. “And she’s with
them
!”

His friend? “Them”? What is Rich talking about?

I glance at the faceless crowd, and my tummy does a flip as I suddenly recognize three people: the two sniggering, awful boys from Mr Wills’ farm and the scrawny, cheeky girl from the pub. They stare and whisper behind their hands, as if me and Rich are animals in the zoo. I saw them in church too, turning to inspect us, their eyes boring uncomfortably into me and my brother.

“She’s not your friend, Rich, and just ignore those boys,” I tell him, pulling him away sharply.

As soon as we round the corner of the church I relax. We have the place to ourselves. And beyond more secretive, ivy-covered gravestones I can see the wall and the stile and the bright, pretty, tree-dotted common.

I just hope I can work out what damsons are; I’ve never seen one.

“Aargh!” roars Rich, letting go of my hand and bounding off into the undergrowth. “I’m a tiger in the jungle!”

“Wait, Mr Tiger,” I call after him, limping my more careful way through the tangle of leaves and crunching branches underfoot. “I need to talk to you!”

But my big-cat brother has spotted the stile and scampered over it already.

“Rich!” I call out, hurrying as fast as I can, but my school shoe is a little tight because of the bandage and it’s making my foot quite sore.

As I cautiously step over the stile I worry that Rich has bounded off out of my sight – but as soon as I’m on the other side I spot him hunkered down, staring intently at something in the grass.

“Look, Glory! Mushrooms!” he says, grinning at me over his shoulder. “We could gather them for Miss Saunders!”

“Stop! Don’t touch anything – they might be poisonous,” I warn him, hopping over at high speed.

Once I’m by his side, I peer at his find, a cluster of red-capped mushrooms dotted with white.

“They look like the ones Alice ate in her adventures in Wonderland, don’t they?” Rich says enthusiastically.

“Yes, and that didn’t go well for her, did it?” I say, trying to let him down gently.

And while we’re here, I need to let him down gently about something
else
.

I don’t want to say this after realizing how settled and relieved Rich felt last night. But I can’t have him thinking everything is all right, because I don’t think it is.

Not after this morning, when I spotted the expression on Miss Saunders’ face as she looked at him.

“Yes, Glory, but they’re very pretty and I think Miss Saunders might like—”

“Listen, Rich, I need to say something important,” I begin.

Here goes.

Except I’m not sure how to put it.

How do I explain that I’m positive that Miss Saunders is telling Reverend Ashton right now that she’s made a mistake; that we have to be sent back? (What
else
can they be talking about? Why would she be so keen to get us out of earshot?)

Rich blinks up at me like a sweet, sad puppy. This isn’t going to be easy.

“The thing is, Rich…”

“
Whoooo…
”

We both freeze at the sound. An eerie sound like wind whipping through treetops. Only there isn’t the faintest hint of a breeze today.

“Glory, Glory, Glory?” Rich whispers.

“It’s nothing,” I tell him, though I’m not sure if that’s true.

“
Whooo…
”

All right, so it’s
something
.

And it’s coming from over the wall, from the graveyard.

“Is it a ghost?” asks Rich, clearly terrified.

“Shh, don’t be silly. It’s probably just—”

“
Whooo-OOOOOOO-ooo…
”

“Is it Mrs Mann, Glory? It’s Mrs Mann, isn’t it!”

“No, Rich, of course it’s n—”

“
Whoo-aaaaaAAAHHHHH!
”

With the quickest glance at each other, me and Rich read each other’s minds and know exactly what to do.

Run away, run away.

“Hurry, Glory!” yelps Rich, as he scrambles off along the path between the trees. Plum-type fruit hangs from the branches above him, but I’m not exactly in the mood to work out if they’re damsons or not.

Instead I’m doing my best, ignoring my painful toe, hobbling at fast as I can after him.

And then I hear a different noise.

Definitely
not
the sort a ghost makes.

I slow down and hop-hop-hop to a stop. Up ahead, Rich turns and does the same.

“Oh, VERY funny!” I shout out angrily to whoever’s giggling and laughing behind the wall. “You got what you wanted, so you can stop laughing now!”

But the people tricking us don’t stop laughing.

They carry on, and then scramble to their feet and laugh some more.

And of course it’s the boys from Mr Wills’ farm and that girl from The Swan. Who else would it be?

“Let’s go,” I say to my brother, pushing him ahead of me along the path through the common, walking with my head held high and with as much dignity as I can manage.

“Do they want to play, do you think, Gloria?” Rich asks, turning to look back at the lone girl and her horrid boy pals.

“No, they just want to make fun of us,” I tell him, desperate to put as much distance as I can between those mocking people and me and my brother.

Even once we’re out of earshot, it’s as if I can still hear the sniggering.

I hear it all the way along the path through the common, following us down the lane at the side of Miss Saunders’ cottage and even up the garden path.

Tappitty-tap, tap.

This might be the last time I use this brass door knocker – it’s of a fox’s head, I notice. I don’t suppose there’s a bus leaving today, being Sunday, but if Mum or Dad can get some time off work tomorrow I reckon they’ll come for us then. Reverend Ashton will have a phone – he’s probably calling our local vicar or some evacuation officer back in our part of London right now, trying to get a message to our parents…

And how will poor Rich take it? Mind you, after the stupid prank the Wills’ lads and the scrawny girl just pulled on us, he might not want to stay here anyway. My poor, nervy little brother…

The front door opens – and Miss Saunders, still wearing her Sunday best coat and hat, frowns at us.

“What are you doing?” she asks.

“I’m s-sorry?” I stammer.

What; had she expected us to leave already, without any of our things?

“For goodness’ sake, you don’t have to knock if you live here,” she says, unbuttoning her coat. “From now on just come around to the back door and let yourself in.”

Oh.

So we … we actually live here?
I think to myself in surprise.
We’re not being sent away?

“No damsons?” Miss Saunders asks as we come in, close the door and follow her towards the kitchen.

I think of the paper bags we must’ve accidentally dropped when we ran and feel guilty.

“Uh, no. We didn’t see any,” I tell her.

“We heard a noise so we ran!” Rich explains. “It was like a
wh
—”

“It was nothing. We just heard some children playing a game,” I say quickly, stopping Rich before he tries to make the noise and starts sounding crazy.

I don’t want Miss Saunders to have an even worse impression of him than she already does.

Miss Saunders frowns at the two of us as she hangs her coat and hat up on a peg by the back door. She motions us to hang our jackets there too.

“Now then,” she says briskly. “I had a chat with Reverend Ashton, and he said … well, a few things. But most importantly, he suggests you need to start school straight away, tomorrow, so you can settle into the community. Biscuit?”

Rich dives straight into the tin she’s holding out. I shake my head, still shocked to find out we’re staying. What happened? This morning she was looking at Rich with disgust written all over her face, and now she’s giving him biscuits, telling us to use the back door as if we’re family. Did Reverend Ashton persuade her to give us a second chance?

“I have to say, Richard,” Miss Saunders carries on, as she puts the biscuit tin down and starts rummaging around in a tall cupboard by the back door. “I
still
think it’s silly that a grown-up boy of seven is scared to go to the lavatory in the night, and scared of gentle creatures such as spiders. But I really can’t tolerate a situation like this morning again. So here; if it helps, you can have this.”

She takes an old-fashioned silver torch from a shelf and hands it to Rich. His mouth goes in an “o” shape.

“It belonged to my father,” says Miss Saunders. “You may borrow it while you’re here, to light your way to the lavatory in the dark. But no wasting the battery, now!”

“I won’t, I promise,” Rich says, turning the torch around in his hands and examining it in wonder, as if he’s been given a bar of pure gold.

“And here’s something else. Perhaps you could take these up to your room, Gloria?” Miss Saunders takes out two items and hands them to me. The one on the bottom is a heavy rubber sheet, cold and clammy to the touch. The one on the top is a very pretty, ornately decorated potty that looks like it might be Victorian.

She’s given me these to help combat any middle-of-the-night accidental wees, which is kind of embarrassing … yet I’m strangely touched. It
must
mean she accepts that Rich is a shy little boy who might have trouble settling in. And it means she’s happy – or at least resigned – to having us here.

Of course, if we’re staying, I’ll
have
to work up the courage to talk to her about what I like to be called.

And don’t they say there’s no time like the present?

“Thank you,” I tell Miss Saunders; then, before I lose my nerve, I add something. “By the way, my name is just Glory. If you could call me that, I’d appreciate it.”

There. Pleasantly put, and polite with it. Mum would be proud.

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” Miss Saunders says bluntly. “I don’t hold with pet names, Gloria.”