Blitz Next Door (3 page)

Pete stood in the kitchen listening to the voices upstairs: Mum’s, Dad’s, Jenny’s. All raised at each other, trying to make themselves heard. Pete knew he wouldn’t be missed. At least for a while. Checking his prized footy figures were still in the rucksack he’d brought up in the car from London, he grabbed a banana and a can of cola, since Mum wasn’t about. On the way out the back door he spotted Dad’s torch so he grabbed that too, along with a cloth from the sink. The shelter had looked a bit too cobwebby for his liking.

But – oh boy! – was Pete keen to go back and check out his new den properly. Sort it out.

Thrashing through the garden, he almost felt happy. It was sunny. He liked the house. The space. The smell of the air outside: far fresher than London. And Dad had work. Best of all: Dad had work. Even better than best, Dad had let slip that Pete wouldn’t need to start whatever new school he’d be starting till after Easter.

Pete was free – for nearly three weeks – to settle, explore.
If only Simon and Alfie
… he wished as he reached the doorway of the shelter again. The pair of them jostling at his shoulder:
Whoa. Check this place out!

Pete was so busy imagining his London mates were with him, he was less surprised than he should have
been when something came hurtling at him through the gloom of the shelter. Or someone.

“Oi. Trespassing, pal,” a boy growled, right up in Pete’s face. “Beat it.”

He spoke like Dad: Scottish accent, but with added un-pally-ness. In a different place Pete might have been worried, but not here in his own garden, where this boy was trespassing.
Oi yourself: my new den
. And anyway, this boy wasn’t any taller than Pete. Skinny.

“Nah, mate. I live ’ere, don’t I?”

Pete didn’t know where
that
voice came from. Watching snatches of
Eastenders
before Mum turned it off, maybe. Not anything like how he normally spoke. He let the words dangle on his lower lip, fists clenched and swinging like those lads from his old school. Those lads he and Simon and Alfie tended to bodyswerve. Hide from sometimes. Inside he was praying he didn’t sound posh.

“I live here too.”

The boy wasn’t backing off. His tone, though, had lost its threat.

“See, that’s my back garden,” the boy said, moving outside the shelter and pulling aside a chunk of hedge to reveal a smooth green lawn bordered with neat flower beds. “And the den belongs to it.”

The boy was dodging back into the doorway of the shelter as he said all this, as if to stake his claim on it. He needn’t have been so worried; Pete was too busy making a mental note of one of those giant trampolines Dad just kept saying, “Sorry, pal, not when you live in a flat with no garden,” about. Pete couldn’t take his eyes off it, even when the boy told
him, “You talk funny. Where you from then?”

“London. Just moved in last night.”

“
Lan
don,” the boy repeated. When Pete glared, he grinned. “Don’t sound like you’re from
Lan
don. You sure?”

Pete was secretly chuffed. “Born there, but my dad’s Scotch. From Glasgow.”

“So you’re Scottish really.” The boy gave Pete two thumbs up but then he swiped them in front of Pete’s face like windscreen wipers. “Not Scotch. Only whisky’s Scotch. I’d remember that.” He clicked his tongue before swaggering to the back of the shelter as if their meeting was over.

Not for Pete.

“Excuse me, this
is
my den now.” He was trying to sound more definite than he felt. “My dad said it was shared by the two halves of our house. It’s the old air—”

“—raid shelter. Yeah, he’s right. But our house shared it too,” the boy interrupted. “
And
the houses next door, and I’ve lived here since I was two so it’s been my den for nine years. Beat that.” The boy’s chin was cocked at Pete.
Trying to look hard
, Pete decided, but something about his expression was too kind. In fact – despite his coppery red hair and pale skin, crocheted in freckles – he reminded Pete of Simon. Jamaican Simon.

“We’re the same age then,” Pete heard himself say. “Well, when I’m eleven next week.”

The boy looked at Pete and said nothing.

Pete shrugged. “Could we… maybe… share the shelter?”

The boy narrowed his eyes, looked Pete up and down, then down and up. “You play footy?”

“Come on,” Pete snorted, the question not even worth answering, though he did add, “Support Scotland?”

The boy nodded. “You like music?”

Pete took a step further into the den. He couldn’t help himself. “More than footy. I play it. Guitar. Dad teaches me. I’m into The Beatles. Elvis… He was The King…”

“Old stuff.” The boy wrinkled his nose. “You look like you play music. I only like big drums…” He beat his hands in the air –
Pow! Wak! Baow!
– until he was out of breath.

“Sweet,” Pete said. “Where d’you play?”

“Just down here.”

“On a drum kit? I could bring my guitar,” Pete said, but the boy was shaking his head.

“Keep asking for one but they ignore me, so I just…” The boy beat the air again. For a long time. “Crazy, eh?” he panted at last. “Still want to share the den?” The boy’s fist was outstretched for a bump before he had finished asking the question.

“Jimmy Dunn,” he said, “but everyone calls me Dunny.”

“
Dunny
?
”

“That’s my name, don’t wear it out. And what’s so funny?”

“It means toilet in Australia.” Pete knew as soon as he’d sniggered that he shouldn’t have bothered.

“Except we’re not
in
Australia,” Dunny took a step closer Pete, “we’re in
Scot
-land, alright?”

“It’s just that my dad worked there once and—”

“
My
dad lives here and he’s Dunny and so are my uncles and my cousins. Everyone in our family’s a Dunny, alright? So it’s not funny.”

“Alright.” Pete’s voice must have come out even smaller than he felt, and he was just about to add, “Sorry,” when Dunny dropped down into a squat. He blew a long raspberry fart, and flushed an imaginary handle.

“Actually quite funny. Us Dunny Dunns all being toilets.” He grinned. “Except Wee Stookie.”

“Who?” Pete was glad the conversation was moving on.

“Stookie. That’s what you’d call a pl
aaa
ster in Engerland.” Dunny’s attempt at a Cockney accent was so pathetic Pete nearly laughed at him again.

“A
what
?”

“Plaster cast. Like you get when you break something? Arms, legs… He’s always doin’ that, is Wee Stookie.” Dunny made another stab at his tragic Cockney. “My little
bwuvver
to you, mate. Only four he is.”

“Wow, I’ve only ever bitten through my lip sliding down a hill in a box. Never broken any bones.”

“Same,” Dunny said in his normal voice.

“Quite like to,” Pete admitted.

“Same. Maybe this arm.” Dunny held his left arm up to his chest as if it was in a sling. “So I couldn’t write my sums, but I could still run and…” Dunny booted an imaginary ball. “Yeah.”

Dunny was shifting his arm about like it was already broken and he was trying to make it comfortable. Pete
was lifting his right one to see how an imaginary sling felt on
his
chest, when Dunny swung his arm out and jabbed him.

“What about your name then,
Lan
don boy? Something pure posh, is it? Cecil… or… or… Boris…” Dunny was snapping his fingers, trying to pluck more high-class names out of the air. “Or, I know:
Ni
-gel.”

“How d’you guess? Nigel Fauntleroy the Third. Jolly delighted to meet you,” Pete hoity-toitied. He bowed, one hand on his tummy, the other against the small of his back.

“Aye right,” Dunny snorted. “What’s it really?”

“Peter Smeaton.”

“Peter Smeaton?” Dunny pursed his lips as if he was deciding whether or not he approved of the name. “Anyone call you Pete? Cos I’m going to.”

“Everyone except Jenny. She doesn’t talk yet.”

“Sister?” Dunny clucked at Pete with pity.

“It’s OK. Baby.”

“You just wait till she starts.” Dunny shook his head. “She’ll never shut her trap. Girls in my class, man? Yak, yak, yak.” Dunny sighed. “Easter holidays. Peace and quiet. Two more days. Bring it on.”

“I don’t go to any school now,” Pete said.

“Why carry your school bag about like a swotto then?”

When Dunny tugged at the backpack, Pete wished he hadn’t bothered bringing it down to the den. What would Dunny say about his football-figure collection? Would he laugh? Think he was daft coming down to play with them alone?

Would his new Scottish pal be his ex-pal?

Pete shouldn’t have worried.

“Oh man! Classics: Henrik Larsson, Roy Keane, Pelé…
man
!”

As soon as Peter tipped out the first few figures from his bag, Dunny delved into the furthest corner of the shelter and dragged out a box.

Best, Messi, Dalglish, Charlton… Pete couldn’t believe it. Dunny had a whole team of moulded plastic football stars. This was fate.

“Let’s have a first-round play-off.” Dunny was already unrolling a felt football pitch. “My pals only want to play Nintendo Wii FIFA. Indoors.” He was pinning the felt’s corners down with stones he scooped from another box. “Pity it’s so dark.”

“Not any more.”

Pete flicked on Dad’s torch under Dunny’s chin. With the floor of the den lit up clearly for the first time, Pete could see that much of the space under the benches stored boxes, all full of plastic football players.

“These yours too?” asked Pete.

Dunny nodded without looking up. “Stash them here so Wee Stookie doesn’t muddle them up. Doesn’t come down here on his own. Too spooky for him,
whooooo
.”

Dunny placed a tiny football in the centre of his
pitch.

“Must sneak down sometimes, though,” he said, “cos my teams keep getting messed about. Dead annoying, so it is.”

“Maybe someone else is playing with them,” Pete said. “
I
’d sneak in if I knew all this was down here: Man U, Barcelona…”

“…Brazil 2014. That’s going to be a collector’s item. And that one…” Dunny was pointing at a tub tucked almost out of sight.

Pete reached in to drag it out and then yelped. Leapt back. A net of cobwebs was spun across the heads of the Celtic Seville Team 2003, and when he yanked his hand away, sticky web was left clinging to his fingers. Pete had to force himself not to panic as he scrabbled in his rucksack.

“Cobwebs.” Pete shuddered, cleaning his fingers with the cloth he’d brought. Dunny was gawping at him, mouth open. Pete didn’t care. “Creep me out.” His heart was racing.

“
Ni
-gel. Canny hurt you,” Dunny said, but not in an unkind way. “Hang on.”

One by one Dunny picked up each Seville player and screwed his plastic head clean against the front of his top. “All gone,” he said, checking over the figures as he lined them up. “Hey, but see if you hate cobwebs that bad?” He puffed a tiny fly from Paul Lambert’s shoulder. “Man, no way you want to touch the notebook I found. Pure covered in them. Dead beasties squished between the pages. I just picked it up…” Dunny was pinching his nose with one arm and holding the other away from him the same way Dad
carried Jenny’s really dirty nappies to the bin.

“I’d’ve chucked it,” Pete said, hoping Dunny had. “Why didn’t you?”

Dunny rearranged his back line before he answered. “Well, it was written in here,” he said.

“So what?” shrugged Pete.

“That’s what Mum said. Should’ve seen her face when I brought it into the house. ‘Throw that out, it’s filthy!’ You’d’ve thought it was a dead rat or something. Right let’s go: kick-off.” Dunny slid Henrik Larsson up to the ball and flicked him.

“Straight in the net. One–nil. That’s what I’m talkin’ about!” Dunny jumped to his feet and side-skipped a whooping lap of honour round the den.

Pete felt robbed. “Could at least have blown a whistle.”

“Sorry.” Dunny was reaching under the bench again.

For a whistle; good
, Pete was thinking.

Instead Dunny held up one of the freezer bags people cram their toiletries into at airport security.

“Didn’t throw the notebook out because it was written in here.” Dunny let the bag swing in the torchlight. “During the Second World War.”

Pete didn’t know why, but a shiver ran through him. “How d’you know?”

“Cos I’ve read it.” Dunny unzipped the bag and let the book inside slide to the floor. “And she’s written her address – the girl who wrote this.”

Dunny was opening the notebook with the tip of his little finger. It had a cardboard cover, its original colour difficult to guess in the weak yellow torchlight.
A funny smell rose from the pages. Old book smell. Damp. Sour. Mysterious.

“There.” Dunny set the torch on the edge of the bench so its beam hit the inside cover. The rest of the den, Pete realised, seemed to have grown very dark and shadowy even though it was full daylight outside.

“
14 Cairns Road, Clydebank
.” Dunny’s finger traced a single line of handwriting. And as he spoke, Pete’s scalp prickled.

“I’m number 12,” Pete whisp ered.
There is no number 14 any more
. “So whoever wrote this was my neighbour.”

“Not after the Clydebank Blitz she wasn’t,” Dunny said matter-of-factly. He didn’t seem nearly as spooked as Pete was beginning to feel; crouched in near-dark, in an old bomb shelter, looking at the notebook of a girl who… a girl who…

The memory of that sobbing Pete had heard through his bedroom wall was replaying in his head.

That
girl?

Was
it?

Should he tell Dunny?

Dunny who he’d just met and who probably already thought he was soft because of the cobwebs?

Dunny who was busy picking through Pete’s football figures, turning them over in the torchlight, checking their condition, muttering, “You were mince in that Cup Final by the way, Keano. And Beckham, don’t be an old diva if I bring you on in the second half.”

Maybe not yet
.

Instead, Pete took a closer look at the notebook. He flicked a few pages; mostly blank, all of them stained with watermarks the colour of weak tea. When the
book fell open on the last page with writing on it, the paper was so spotted with damp he could hardly read the words:

Horrible in here tonig
—

The rest of the word was missing.

It sounds like the end of the world —tside. Explosion after expl
—

“Tricky, innit?” Dunny said, lifting the notebook closer to the torch beam, tilting it this way and that. “And wild. Writing in the middle of an air raid. You’ll read it better outside. Later though maybe?”

When Dunny returned the notebook to the bag, Pete was almost glad. It
would
be easier to read in daylight. Nothing to do with the handwriting.

He’d had enough of the shelter for now. He’d even lost interest in the football match, and was thinking of saying he was offski and he’d better bring Dad’s torch back when Dunny picked it up.

“Come see what else she wrote.” Dunny was pointing the light at the far wall of the shelter.

A verse was written there in thick black pen. There were drawings all around the words, a border of funny little characters: gnomes, animals, chubby fairies with open wings and wizards with wands, dolls, boys with cheeky faces that reminded Pete of the cover of the
Just William
books Mum used to read him… He whistled. “Wish I could draw like that.”

“Too right,” said Dunny. “There’s more in here.” He tapped the notebook. “That’s how I know she did them.”

Pete hunkered down to take a closer look at the drawings. They really were good.
Really
good. The eyes
staring out at him shone with life and personality.

“Poem’s alright too,” Dunny said, as if he could read Pete’s mind. Then he cleared his throat, and chimed:

While Dunny was reading, Pete followed the words. He noticed a line leading away from the ‘A’ of ‘Adolf’. It ended in an arrow pointing to a simple cartoon face of Hitler himself. A thick black cross had been scored through it over and over by an angry hand, and underneath it all was written:

by Beth Winters. Age 11. 13
^th
March 1941.

“Is that…?” When Pete looked at the notebook, Dunny nodded.

“And that,” Dunny ran his nail under the date on the wall, “was the night of the Clydebank Blitz. Nearly a thousand people killed. And you,” Dunny swung the light into Pete’s face and held it there, “won’t even have heard of it, even though today’s the anniversary.”

“Is it? Only heard of the London Blitz.” Pete tried to see the drawings again through the floaters the torch beam had set dancing before his eyes.

“Don’t worry, Nigel. You’ll learn all about
our
Blitz in school here. Everybody does. Too right.”

“Will I learn about her?” Pete traced the name on the wall. Beth Winters. “Was she one of the…?”

“Well, she wasn’t in the house when she wrote
this
.” Dunny stared at the notebook. “So maybe she…”

The boys looked at each other. Pete shivered. He
ran his own finger under the date on the wall.

“Hey,” Dunny tucked the notebook back under the bench, “fancy a bounce?”

Pete didn’t need to be asked twice, though he decided he
did
need to check in with Mum first, and definitely eat his banana for energy.