Blitz Next Door (4 page)

The back door didn’t open when he tried it, so Pete hurried round to the front to try the bell. He was taking a shortcut through the bomb crater. It wasn’t just quicker, it was far more exciting, scrambling down. Pete had to watch his legs didn’t run away from themselves as he slithered over the uneven ground keeping tight hold of his banana.

So he gasped and nearly lost his balance as he skidded to a downhill stop when a figure stepped out in front of him.

Where did you come from?
Pete might have said if his mouth hadn’t been full. Because this old woman. Well, she’d sort of just…
appeared
. And there she was, standing above Pete, peering down into the crater as though he wasn’t even there.

“Hello,” Pete gulped, but the woman didn’t seem to hear, or if she did, ignored him. Her gaze lay beyond Pete, eyes darting here and there as if she was searching for something.

Or maybe she was lost. Out of a home. Gone a-wandering in more ways than one. There’d been a few characters in Pete’s old block back in London like that. A couple in the flat above who collected stray cats and were always being brought back home by the community police. Before Jenny, Mum kept a check on
the pair of them, knocking on their door with home baking. This woman leaning over the crater – too far over to be safe – was about the same age. Pretty ancient, and a bit frail-looking too, Pete decided; a tiny body hidden beneath the floaty bluebell blue layers she was wearing.

“Careful you don’t fall in! It’s slippy,” Pete called up to the woman. Now he was thinking she was deaf, because she carried on peering over his shoulder, bobbing her head to see round Pete. The tips of her feet were over the edge of the crater. She was sliding.

“Oi!” Pete’s warning bounced off the steep walls around him.

The woman stepped back, seemed to notice Pete for the first time. She didn’t say anything, though, just pointed down at his hand and nodded, a slow smile of delight lighting up her face.

“What is it?” Pete looked at his banana, half eaten.
Poor old lady, bananas herself
.

“D’you want a bite?” he asked, watching his footing as he started to clamber the side of the crater. “Don’t come down, I’ll come to you. It’s too steep,” he warned without looking up. This was definitely one of those situations when even Mum would have to admit having his own mobile phone would be handy. He’d text:

Help. Woman about 2 fall in2 crater

And Mum or Dad would be straight down to take over and make sure this poor old…

Except she’d gone. Disappeared in the seconds it took Pete to scramble to the top on the crater.

No way!

Pete swung right and left, squinting through the garden for the bluebell colour of her clothes.

A person doesn’t just vanish
. “That’s plain spooky.” The sound of Pete’s own whisper admitting this was enough to set him sprinting to the front of his house.

“MUM!”

Pete thumped the door as well as ringing the bell. “Open up! MUUU…”

Mum got an earful of “…UUM!” when she flung open the door. Beyond her, upstairs, Jenny was creating at the top of her lungs.

“Well done, Pete! Just got her off.” Mum’s voice cracked. There were tears in her eyes. “You never think, do you?”

Pete could feel his own eyes prickling. This wasn’t fair.

“Couldn’t get in the back door, and there’s this old woman hanging about outside and I didn’t know what to do…”

“What woman?” Mum stepped into the street. She followed Pete to the edge of the crater. She looked left and right. “What woman, Pete?” Mum was frowning now, anger turning to concern.

“I don’t see anyone, love.”

“Sorry, pet.”

Mum was squeezing Pete in one of the biggest hugs he’d had from her in a long time. She kept hugging even though Jenny sounded as if she was auditioning for the lead role in
Scream: The Baby From Hell
.

“You were doing the right thing, coming to tell me about the poor woman. She’ll have realised she wandered into the wrong garden when she saw you.” Mum let Pete go with a kiss and was tramping back upstairs. “Was trying to get Madam down before the furniture arrives,” she was sighing when a parping horn drowned her out.

That meant Pete ended up on Jenny duty while Mum directed the removal men and made them mugs of tea. He kept her upstairs, watching memories of his old life being carried into his new one from the front bedroom window. He jiggled Jenny, who arched and wrestled and shrieked in his arms until she conked out, exhausted at last. With great care Pete laid Jenny down in her cot and tiptoed out of the room and back downstairs.

“Don’t suppose I can go and play now? I was invited by this boy in the next garden.” Pete knew he shouldn’t have bothered asking, even though Jenny was in her cot. The hallway was already cluttered with furniture
from the old flat.

“Could really do with all hands on deck, son.” Dad passed Pete a couple of kitchen chairs.

Mum added, “And, anyway, I’d need to check it was OK with your friend…”

“Dunny.”

“…your friend Dunny’s mum.”

“And I’d like to check this
Dunny
fella out first too,” Dad chipped in, just as the bell rang.

“Excuse me?” piped a voice from the doorstep.

Even though the front door was wide open and Dunny, bobbing from one foot to another, could see Pete quite clearly, he asked, “Is Peter there and can he come out, please? My mum says he’s welcome.”

Dunny was talking in such a proper voice, Pete snorted with laughter as he pushed past Dad. “And you called
me
Nigel?”

“Sorry, son, Pete won’t be out for a bit, but
you
,” Dad squeezed Dunny’s skinny bicep, “are more than welcome to come in and lend a muscle or two so long as your mum won’t mind. There’ll be a fish supper in it.”

It was non-stop for the next few hours, Dunny more than happy to muck in, “And a lot stronger than you look, wee man,” as Dad kept telling him. By some miracle, Jenny stayed asleep. This was despite Dunny sneaking up to her cot every few minutes to stroke her tiny hand and pat her cheek to check if she was awake yet.

“Thought you didn’t like girls,” Pete had to keep reminding him.

“She’s a wee princess, but.”

It was Dunny who helped Pete carry his desk and his mattress upstairs. Then they fetched the crate marked ‘Pete’ from the sitting room.

“This is a blast. I’d like to go into the removal business, in and out of people’s houses, checking out all their mad stuff.”

“Just be a burglar then.” Pete was shoogling his desk against the window. It fitted exactly where he’d hoped it would.

“I can see the whole garden from here,” Pete said, “plus the den.”

“And my place. Look. There’s Wee Stookie. Hey!”

Dunny had the window flung open before Pete had even picked out the trampoline in the garden beyond his hedge. On it, a mini version of Dunny bounced, his arms windmilling in the air, whooping.

“Hey, Pee-the-bed. I see you. Lookie, Stookie.” Dunny leaned out the window and croaked. Pete watched as Wee Stookie bounced this way and that, trying to figure where the creepy voice was coming from.

“Over here! Lookie, Stookie!” Dunny waved and yelled in his own voice. “There’s Mum too, hanging out her big knickers.
Mu-um!
”

This time, when Dunny called, Wee Stookie spotted him and waved. So did a dark-haired woman, flapping the towel she was holding. Wee Stookie kept waving, bouncing higher and twisting himself around.

“Look at meeeeee!” Pete heard him cry, although that proved impossible because he never bounced up again. From Dunny’s garden a woman’s scream
pierced the air.

“Trouble!” Dunny was clattering downstairs before Pete even realised something was wrong. “My fault again,” Dunny shouted back.

From the window Pete watched his friend tripping and stumbling through the undergrowth – “I’m coming, Mark. You alright?”

Pete was just about to follow, when a girl’s voice spoke so clearly that he whirled round expecting to come face to face with the speaker.

“But, Mummy, I don’t
know
what clothes to take.”

Pete’s room was empty. Of course it was, apart from Pete. But through the wall he could hear someone moving about. The creak of a bedspring, the graze of wood on wood as a drawer slid open.

“Mummy, can you help me? I’ll wait,” the voice said again.
Her
voice. The girl who shouldn’t be next door. But she was there. Sighing. Tutting. And now she was playing a recorder; the notes of the ‘Skye Boat Song’ floating so close to Pete he could hear every breath the girl drew. Pete held his own breath, listening to the song his Scottish Granny Smeaton had taught him, the words running in his head, the music carrying him along –

Loud the winds howl, loud the waves roar, thunderclaps rend the air
…

– until the playing stopped mid-note. Footsteps were approaching, far too clicky or brisk to be Mum’s, although Pete did swing round, almost expecting to see her when he heard a door creak open. But not
his
bedroom door.

The woman who said, “Here’s a few things to stop
you feeling homesick, Beth,” was speaking on the other side of the wall.

Except she can’t be
, Pete was reminding himself when another voice caught his attention.

Dunny was yelling from way down the garden.

“Wee Stookie’s landed on his arm and it’s pure twisted round the wrong way. We need some help.”

“Up we come, soldier.”

Even though Dad lifted Wee Stookie with as much care as Pete remembered holding Jenny when she was newborn, the little boy groaned. His face was clammy. Green.

Dunny was greener.

“That arm’s totally broken, isn’t it?” he kept saying over and over as he and Pete followed Dad through the garden.

“Let’s leave that to the professionals,” Dad said. “You ready, Carol?” Dad had introduced himself to Dunny’s mum as they knelt over Wee Stookie. Now he was running them into hospital.

“We’ll take care of your big lad till you’re back. Least we can do, the help he’s been,” Dad said, easing Wee Stookie into his car. He patted Dunny on the shoulder. “You look like you’ve had as big a shock, but Mark’s going to be fine. Maybe you could just clip him into his seatbelt?”

Pete heard Dunny whispering, “Sorry, Mark, sorry,” while he bent over his brother. Dad was signalling with his eyebrows that Pete should give the brothers a moment to themselves.

“You like football figures, don’t you?” Pete called to Wee Stookie, but without waiting for his answer
he dashed down to the shelter.
I’ll shut my eyes and pick the first one, even if it’s Larsson
, Pete decided as he burst through the door and dropped down to where Dunny’s pitch was still set up.

And before he even opened his eyes he sensed it:
someone’s here
.

Pete gulped, peered through the dim afternoon light. There was a girl at the far end, with her back to Pete. She was scribbling on the wall. Fast. Until Pete’s entrance disturbed her.

She had been kneeling, but jumped to her feet. She turned, approaching Pete. Before he could react, she brushed past him, flicking a long thick plait over her shoulder. The weight of its tip caught Pete’s cheek. He rubbed the spot, the sting of her reproach the only proof this girl had actually been in the shelter. It was all over so fast.

Dazed, Pete stooped to collect a player for Wee Stookie –
Bobo Baldé, good enough
– and as he did so, a pencil fell from the bench and rolled along the floor. Pete grabbed it, and left.

“Mum’s going to be in some state. Never away from Sick Kids and Dad’s never here when she needs him.” Dunny shook his head as Pete’s dad drove away with Wee Stookie.

But all Pete could think about was the girl he’d seen, who didn’t appear to have seen him. Who was she? He decided to bite the bullet and mention her to his new friend.

“D’you have a sister, Dunny?”

Still waving after the car, Dunny pulled the kind
of disbelieving face Mum made when Pete or Dad farted then denied it. “One wee bambot brother’s bad enough. Why?”

“There was a girl.” Pete was pointing towards the den. “Writing on the wall in there. I thought she might be your…” He shrugged as Dunny shook his head. Pete held out the pencil he’d picked up. “She dropped this, whoever she is.”

Dunny took the pencil and turned it over in his hands.

“No girls round here. Only old folk and babies. And us.” Dunny held the pencil back out to Pete. “See this? There’s a name.” Dunny ran his finger under the gold lettering embossed in the black paint.

“
Elizabeth Winters
,” Pete read.

“Does she think we’re flippin’ sprinters or something?” Dunny panted.

Pete could barely grunt back. Trying to keep up with Mum’s pace, let alone hold a conversation, was tough enough. Even if he’d wanted to discuss the crying girl with Dunny (and he hadn’t quite made his mind up if he did or not), not to mention the disappearing old lady, plus the pencil from the past, there was no chance.

Having taken directions from Dunny on how to get to the shops without the car, Mum was haring ahead along the canal path that led more or less straight from Pete’s new house into the centre of Clydebank. The boys trailed behind. Well behind. Mum had gone overboard in the supermarket, buying extra shopping while she’d two extra pairs of hands. Now the boys were lugging any bags she hadn’t managed to hang on the handles of Jenny’s buggy. As they passed a dingy section of the walkway, where the canal was choked with upturned shopping trolleys and twisted bike frames, a huddle of boys who Pete had spotted up ahead as Mum belted past them, now spread themselves across the pathway.

“Oot helping yer mammy, ye saddos?” one of the boys snarled.

“Don’t look and don’t answer back,” Dunny
muttered out the corner of his mouth. “Nut jobs from my school.”

Dunny was walking as fast as he could without actually breaking into a sprint. Pete did the same, wincing as another of the boys lunged and yelled “Boo” right in his ear.

“Don’t cack it, Mary, only messin’,” the first boy brayed. Pete’s yelp of surprise cracked the boy’s mates up, but they let him pass. Sort of.

“Bye, Mary.” Pete heard the skitter of a stone behind him just before it caught his ankle.
Ouch!
A bigger one bounced off Dunny’s shoulder.

“It’s OK, don’t turn round,” he urged Pete. “I think they like us really.”

“I think Mum hired them to make us walk faster so her ice cream doesn’t melt.”

Pete could joke now he was back in the quiet cul-de-sac that ended with his house. Compared to the section of the canal where they’d come across the boys, it felt safe and peaceful. There weren’t even any cars parked; the only vehicle was Jenny’s empty buggy tipped back, wheels-up, under the weight of all Mum’s shopping. Jenny wasn’t in it, of course. Pete didn’t need to check. He could hear her giving Mum another earful somewhere beyond his open front door.

The boys staggered into the kitchen with their bags. Without being asked, Dunny started to unpack them and put the shopping away. In the fridge. In the cupboards. Pete could only stare. Where did anyone his age learn to do stuff like that?

“Will you get the rest in for me, Pete?” Mum was watching Dunny, looking more surprised than Pete.
Her eyes, he thought, were nearly as big as the mini pizzas Dunny took from her hands and stacked in the freezer. “I’ll need to deal with Madam. She’s ravenous.”

“Think if we scream like that we’ll get fed?” Pete grumbled on his way back outside to see what shopping was left with the buggy. He was thinking how much he fancied a giant sandwich.
An Elvis one, uh-huh
, he decided. He was taking a quick look through the first bag of shopping he picked up, hoping Mum had remembered peanut butter, when he sensed there was someone beside him.

The old lady again, in the floaty bluebell-blue clothes. She was so close to Pete this time he noticed her white hair was coiled into two fine pleated loops at each side of her head and that her eyes were the same bright colour as her outfit. These eyes were fixed on Pete, searching his face the same way Jenny’s did.
Jenny’s eyes never look so sad, though
, Pete was thinking, as the woman reached her arm out to touch him.

Old or sad, Pete was having none of that. Stranger danger. Rules were rules.

“
Mu-um!
” Pete reversed into the hall. “Can you come out please?”

The woman took a step forward onto Pete’s porch. Still reaching for him.

“MU-
UM
!” Pete’s call was urgent this time as he hurried into the house. “That lady’s back.”

“What lady? What does she want?” Pete could tell from the breathless way Mum spoke she was trying to struggle out of her deckchair.

But there was no need for her to rush.

“It’s OK,” Pete called back. “She’s gone.” He stepped out into the street. Looked up and down. Deserted.

“Was it a woman in funny clothes? All floaty?” Back in the kitchen Dunny put down the milk cartons he was finding space for in the fridge to whirl a finger around each ear. “Weird hairdo like…”

“Her out of
Star Wars
,” the boys said together.

Pete was nodding. “Princess Leia.”

“She was in your garden last week,” Dunny went on. “Busted Wee Stookie’s nose.” He added this second piece of information in the same tone he asked Mum, “You want the fruit juice in here, too? It’s long-life.”

“
What
?” spluttered Mum. “Shhh!” she told Jenny when she grizzled for attention. “This old lady attacked your brother?”

Dunny was signalling no with his finger because his mouth was full of the jam doughnut Pete had just offered him. “Not with her fist,” he sprayed. “It was her head’s fault.”

“She
nutted
him?” Pete spat doughnut in Dunny’s face.

“
Shhhh
, Missy.” Mum plonked Jenny down into her bouncy chair and moved over to the boys. It was the first time Pete could recall Jenny being ignored. Dunny was half laughing though.

“No, she just came through the hedge while we were both bouncing. Gave us a fright. Wee Stookie took a dive. Blood everywhere.” Dunny stared at the centre of his doughnut and squeezed it.

“What happened then?” Pete asked.

“Sick Kids Hospital.” Dunny put the doughnut down. “Stookie’s nose was broken.”

“That’s shocking.” Mum was still ignoring Jenny. “And the old lady?”

“Gone.” Dunny shrugged.

“Well, if either of you see her hanging about again…” Mum was giving Pete and Dunny her ‘I don’t need to spell it out’ look as she let her words hang in the air. Then she spelt out her warning anyway: “You don’t speak to her. You don’t go with her. You come and get me. Or Dad.
If
he’s here.”

“That’s exactly what my mum says:
If he’s here
.” Dunny said it with such a sting in his tone that Mum actually laughed.
For the first time in ages
. Pete wanted to laugh himself.

“Well the old lady’s no business to be trespassing. And –” Mum swiped Pete’s doughnut just as it reached his mouth, “– you’ve even less to be eating
that
before your Elvis sandwich.”