The Sky is Falling (10 page)

On the way down, she paused on the landing outside Aunt Florence's bedroom. Despite her impatience to be out, she couldn't help stopping to listen when she heard a voice. She was doing a lot of eavesdropping these days, but it seemed the only way to get information.

Aunt Florence couldn't be talking to herself. She must have a telephone in there. Norah had never heard of anyone having a telephone in her bedroom. In Ringden, the only people who had one at all were the doctor, the policeman and Mrs. Chandler; the rest of them used the call box on the main street.

“The girl?” said the throaty voice. “Well, she's cheeky, but we'll work on that. Girls are so sly—I had to be much stricter with Mary than I was with Hugh. But wait until you see Gavin! He's such a character, with an adorable accent. And such rosy cheeks! The girl is thin and pale—you'd never guess they were brother and sister. And their clothes … well, you can see they're not well off. I'm going to take Gavin shopping tomorrow. With his fair colouring, he'd look so fetching in a navy-blue
sailor suit. Would they still carry them at Holt's, do you think? It's been so long since I've bought children's clothes. I'm telling you, Audrey, this is all making me feel young again.”

Aunt Florence wouldn't be able to take Gavin shopping when she found out he'd be in school tomorrow, Norah thought as she continued down the stairs.

As soon as she stepped outside, she forgot her resentment. A delicious sensation of freedom swept through her. It was the first time since the day she'd left England that she could go where she pleased. And it was the first time since the war began that she'd gone out with nothing to carry—no gas mask, identity card or lifebelt.

She left her hat on the steps and walked along the sidewalk slowly, savouring the sun on her bare arms and legs. It was going to be a scorcher, Hanny had told them, but the morning air was still fresh. The winding street divided around islands of flowers. Ranged along it were houses as grand and impassive as the Ogilvies', some of brick and some of stone. Norah wondered why none of them had names. In one she saw a curtain twitch, as if someone had peeked out at her.

The twisting streets were like a maze. Norah noted each turn carefully so she wouldn't get lost. She was proud of herself when she found her way back to the Ogilvies'. Then she went around again the other way. At one house a small, wiry dog rushed up to her from behind a wrought iron fence. When she crouched down it licked her fingers, pushing its nose through the railings.

After she'd completed the circle again, it didn't seem like an hour yet, and she didn't feel like leaving the bright outdoors for the Ogilvies' dim house. Their garden was tiny; it seemed odd to have such a large house on such a small property. But there was something much better than a garden behind the house: a thick patch of trees that spilled down the bank into a valley.

Norah plunged into the trees, thrusting through bushes and pushing aside branches, until she reached a clearing at the bottom. High above her stretched a bridge; she could hear the rumble of cars driving over it. Someone had written rude words on one of the concrete supports.

You could make a good fort here; but it would be lonely to build a fort all by herself and she felt too lazy to start. She sat on a log and scraped the ground with a twig. When she thought of school tomorrow her chest felt heavy, but she breathed deeply and scratched pictures in the dirt of all the aeroplanes she knew.

When she had been there for a long while Norah suddenly remembered the time. She scrambled up the bank and rushed into the Ogilvies' house. For a second she almost thought she was at home, for from the den came a familiar voice: “This is the BBC news coming to you directly from London.” She paused outside the door; would Aunt Florence be angry?

The Ogilvies were sitting around a large wireless. Aunt Florence switched it off quickly as soon as she saw Norah—as if she didn't want her to hear. “Where have you
been,
young lady? We were just about to call the police!”

“Out for a walk,” Norah mumbled. She raised her head and tossed back her hair defiantly. “Aunt Mary said I could.”

“She said you had gone around the block, but you've been away for hours! And just look at you—you're covered in leaves and dirt. Where have you been? You've scared us half to death. If I had been consulted, you wouldn't have been allowed out alone at all!”

“I went into the woods behind the garden and I forgot about the time.” Aunt Mary looked so stricken that Norah added, “I'm sorry.”

“You went into the
ravine
?” said Aunt Florence crisply. “This won't do, my girl! The ravine attracts rough boys and it's muddy and dangerous. You are never to go there again, do you understand? Get yourself cleaned up for lunch.”

As Norah shook out her twig-covered dress and changed her dusty socks, she resolved to go back to her secret place in the ravine as soon as she could. She would just have to be careful not to get caught.

T
HE REST OF MONDAY
crept by so slowly, that Norah thought she would burst with boredom. Aunt Mary suggested a drive, but her mother said it was too hot. All afternoon they sat listlessly on a screened verandah at the back of the house, sipping lemonade. Norah lay on the floor beside Gavin, helping him construct houses out of cards. She thought longingly of
Swallowdale,
which she'd had to leave unfinished at Hart House. Then she remembered
Aunt Mary pointing out a bookcase in their room. Could she just leave and go up there by herself—as if she were at home?

“Excuse me,” she mumbled. “I'm going to my room.”

“Of course, Norah.” Aunt Mary smiled at her. Aunt Florence didn't even look up from her needlepoint. She had been sulking ever since Mary had told her that Gavin would have to go to school.

Norah decided to explore the house first. No one had offered to show her around, but she could see it for herself while the Ogilvies were safely on the verandah and Hanny was off.

She wondered why two people needed so many rooms. On the main floor, behind the den, she found another room, with a photograph of a sober-faced, whiskered gentleman on the desk: Mr. Ogilvie, she decided. Upstairs were five bedrooms, connected by spacious halls covered in slippery rugs. The rooms were crammed with dark furniture. They smelled stale and their heavy curtains were pulled tight against the sun. Aunt Florence's and Aunt Mary's doors were firmly closed.

She found a set of back stairs leading up from the kitchen. When she put her head around a curtain at the top, she gasped. Edith was stretched out on a cot with her stockings off, fanning herself with a folded paper. She sat up and shouted at Norah, “What do you think you're doing, poking your nose up here! Get away!”

Norah scuttled down the stairs, through the kitchen and hall, and up the other staircase to the tower. She
collapsed on her bed, her heart hammering. She knew that Hanny came in to work every day; she hadn't realized that Edith lived right in the house. From the brief glance she'd had at her room, it looked smaller and barer than any of the unused ones.

The tower was hot, but Norah decided it was the best room in the house. When she'd caught her breath she examined the books. Most of them were old schoolbooks; there was nothing by the man who wrote
Swallowdale
. The only story she found was called
Elsie Dinsmore
. Its spongy pages were spotted with mildew; “Mary Ogilvie” was written on the flyleaf in careful round handwriting. It was a strange book, about a repulsively good little girl who was very religious. Norah struggled along with it until dinner.

T
HAT EVENING
Norah had a telephone call. “For me?” she asked with disbelief. Who knew her in Canada?

“Hello, Norah, this is Dulcie!” said the high, nervous voice.

“Hello, Dulcie,” said Norah without enthusiasm. Still, it cheered her up to hear someone familiar.

“Isn't it super that we live in the same neighbourhood? The Milnes are ever so nice. We've had a holiday since we arrived. What I was wondering was … do you think we could try to sit next to each other at school tomorrow? It's quite a large school, Aunt Dorothy says …”

What she was really asking was if they could stick together as if they were friends. The Smiths had only
come to Ringden two years ago. Norah remembered how scared Dulcie had looked on her first day of school and how the other children had taken advantage of this to tease her.

Norah had never been a new girl. She had always been one of the most popular people in her class—surely that would carry on. It was flattering that Dulcie recognized her superior position.

“I'll see what I can do,” she said grandly.

“Oh, thank you, Norah!” said Dulcie. “See you tomorrow!”

Aunt Florence came into the hall. “Off to bed with you, now,” she said briskly. “You and Gavin have a big day tomorrow. I don't know how that delicate little boy is going to bear it.”

12

“Now in School and Liking It”

A
s if Aunt Florence had willed it, Gavin woke up the next morning too sick to go to school. His nose streamed, he had a croaky cough and his forehead was hot.

Aunt Florence moved him downstairs into the bedroom opposite hers and settled him against lofty pillows under a mountain of blankets. When Norah left with Aunt Mary she could hear the rich voice coaxing, “Would you like me to read
Winnie-the-Pooh
to you? I once knew a little boy who loved that story.”

The walk to Prince Edward School was not long; they reached the two-storey red brick building much sooner than Norah wished. She tried not to flinch from the curious stares of the children standing around in noisy groups. Aunt Mary took her inside to look for the head-master; she called him the “principal”.

The principal's secretary told them to wait in the outer office. They sat on a hard bench and listened to a
deep voice talking on the telephone from behind a frosted glass door. Soon Dulcie and Lucy bounced up, accompanied by a complacent-looking, smiling woman.

“Good morning, Miss Ogilvie,” she said. “This must be Norah. I'm so pleased that Dulcie and Lucy will have friends from home. But where's your little brother?”

Aunt Mary explained about Gavin. Mrs. Milne introduced her to the Smiths and said that Derek was going to high school. “He's such a clever boy, they've put him ahead a year. Isn't it a privilege to have the care of these children, Miss Ogilvie? The Reverend and I didn't realize how empty our lives were until they came. Already I feel as if they are part of the family.” She plumped the bow in Lucy's hair and kissed her fondly.

“Mr. Evans would like to talk to the ladies first,” interrupted the secretary. She led Aunt Mary and Mrs. Milne behind the glass door and then left the office. “You wait here quietly,” she told the children. “He'll see you in a few minutes.”

“Miss Ogilvie seems very nice,” said Dulcie. Her rash, like Lucy's lisp, had disappeared. “What's
Mrs.
Ogilvie like? Uncle Cedric says she's a dragon, but a pillar of support for the church.”

Norah shrugged. She couldn't think of any words to describe Aunt Florence, although “dragon” and “pillar” certainly seemed right.

“Aunt Dorothy and Uncle Cedric aren't at all strict,” said Lucy, trying to balance on one leg. “They let us do
whatever we want and they've taken us to all sorts of interesting places. Have you been on a streetcar, yet, Norah? Have you seen the Toronto Islands and Casa Loma?
We
have.”

“Isn't it odd how they shop for food here?” Dulcie giggled. “Everything in one store! Does your house have a refrigerator? Ours does, and we can have as much water as we like in the bath. Do stop that, Lucy, we're supposed to be sitting quietly.”

Goosey and Loosey babbled on and Norah only half-listened; she kept her eyes on the glass door. At home the headmaster—
principal,
she corrected herself—was also her teacher. He didn't have an office or a secretary, or a mysterious glass door.

“It's an enormous school, isn't it?” said Dulcie. “Aunt Dorothy says it goes up to age fourteen!”

In the village school their age group had been the oldest. As Norah contemplated this, the glass door opened a crack. “Come in, girls,” called Mrs. Milne.

They stood in a row in front of the principal's desk. He leaned across it and shook their hands. “Welcome to Canada,” he said vaguely. He was a sleepy-looking man who seemed preoccupied, as if none of them were really in the room with him.

“Yes, um, war guests—there are already twenty-four in the school and they're settling in well. We're glad that Canada has been able to help you at this difficult time. Now, about your grade levels.” He told them that Lucy would be in grade two, and Norah and Dulcie in grade
five. “Say goodbye to your guardians now and I'll take you to your classrooms.”

“I'll meet you at the front door at 12:30,” whispered Aunt Mary.

The three girls followed Mr. Evans's back down the hall. The wooden floor made their footsteps echo loudly. Everyone else was already in class. Norah and Dulcie waited outside while the principal took Lucy by the hand into a room labelled Two B—Mrs. Newbery. Then he continued to a door that said Five A—Miss Liers.

He knocked before poking in his head. “Miss Liers, your war guests—Dulcie Smith and Norah Stoakes.” They stepped through the doorway and he closed them in.

Miss Liers was a thin, bitter-looking woman with dark hair scraped back so tightly in a bun that it pulled on her skin. Although her words were kind, her tone was sarcastic, as if they had done something wrong. “How do you do, Dulcie and Norah? We've been expecting you. I've given you desks next to each other over there. Five A is proud to have some war guests. We felt deprived without any, didn't we, class?”