The Sky is Falling (7 page)

The bus ride was short and soon they were unloaded at an old stone building the adults called Hart House. It was like a church inside, with dark ceiling beams and high windows of coloured glass.

Gavin rushed up from a group of boys. “You went away,” he sniffed. His nose was running disgustingly.

Norah tried to mop it with the corner of her dress; she had lost her handkerchief long ago.

A jovial man led Gavin back to his group. “Come along, youngster, you're eating with the big fellows!” Norah lost sight of him as they were taken into a vast dining room called the Great Hall. It had large golden letters painted around its walls.

Supper was boiled chicken and mushy cauliflower. By the time dessert arrived, some of the children had begun to revive. They called to one another down the long tables and bolted their ice cream. But Norah wasn't hungry.

Immediately after supper the girls were taken into a gymnasium where they had to stand in their vests and knickers while women doctors checked their throats, ears and chests. “We need to put some flesh on you,” the doctor told Norah. She felt insulted—hadn't she eaten a lot on the ship? She'd always been small for her age, but no one had ever made a fuss about it before.

While she got dressed again, she heard the doctor tell the little girl behind her that she had a cold and would have to go straight to the infirmary. “But I want to stay with my sister,” the child wailed.

A nurse opened the door and hurried across the room. “Is Norah Stoakes here?”

Norah waved her arm. “Can you come and stop your brother from crying?” the nurse asked her. “He's having hysterics because we took off his hat, poor little tyke.”

Gavin's screams filled the corridor. He was outside the other gymnasium, thrashing and kicking on the floor. “I want my s-sister!” he blubbered.

Norah wasn't at all sure she wanted
him
. His cheeks were smeared with dirt and mucus and his fair hair looked dark where the balaclava had covered it. What would Mum do? She was suddenly furious that her mother wasn't there to cope.

“Shut
up,
Gavin!” She shook him so hard that his head wobbled.

The nurse looked shocked and reached out to stop her. “Don't be so rough, Norah! That's no way to treat your little brother!”

As Gavin's cries turned into hiccups, Norah whirled around and faced the woman. “You
asked
me to stop him, and I did! It's your fault he was crying, anyway—you shouldn't have taken his hat off! Didn't you realize that would upset him?”

The nurse looked indignant. “We had to take it off—it was filthy! We've thrown it away and now he'll have to have his hair washed thoroughly. You look as if you could do with a bath too, Miss—come with me. And I think you're forgetting your manners. In Canada, children don't speak like that to their elders.”

She led them outside and across the grass to another building, where there was a row of bathtubs. Norah lay dazed in the soothing hot water, listening to Gavin having his hair shampooed in the next cubicle. He had turned silent again.

“Do I have to bathe you as well?” grumbled the nurse, coming in to check on her. “Imagine, a girl of your age who can't wash herself!” She did Norah's hair and scrubbed her all over with a rough flannel. Then she handed her a kind of gown to put on.

“Now say good-night to your brother,” she ordered. “I'll take him to his room and come back for you. Yours is in a different building.”

A stubborn voice forced itself up through Norah's exhaustion. “No.”

“What did you say?”

“He has to stay with me.”

“Don't be difficult, Norah. You can see him all you want during the day, but the boys and the girls are sleeping in separate residences.”

“No,” said Norah again. Part of her wondered why she was being so insistent; she didn't really want the care of Gavin. But he looked so pathetic with his wet hair skinned back and dark circles under his eyes. She tried to forget about how her hands had made his thin neck bend like the stem of a flower.

The nurse stared at her for a few seconds, then gave up. “Stay here,” she sighed. “I'll see what I can do. But you're upsetting our system.”

In ten minutes Norah got her way. The nurse returned and took them both to a building called Falconer House, to a room with four beds in it. Norah's luggage was already there and a boy arrived with Gavin's just as they did. The beds were labelled and Norah noticed that the
others belonged to Goosey and Loosey.

“I have to go, but someone will check on you in a few minutes,” said the nurse. Her voice was kinder now, but Norah was too tired to answer her.

“Get into bed,” she told Gavin after the nurse had left. He obeyed mutely, curling into a tight ball. Norah tucked the blanket around him. She felt the mattress and was relieved to find a rubber sheet.

She buried herself in her own stiff, clean sheets. She was so worn out, she scarcely heard the Smiths when they came in a few minutes later.

T
HEY STAYED
at the university for a week. Everyone was very kind and welcoming, but Norah began to feel she was in prison. The campus grounds were spacious and she longed to run on her own under the large trees or cross the busy street, where the cars drove on the wrong side. The bustling city surrounding the university seemed as big and exciting as London. But Boy Scouts stood on guard all day outside Hart House, where the children ate and played. “They're to keep away curious strangers,” the adults said, but Norah thought they were to keep them in.

The only time the children left the campus was for a visit to a hospital, where each of them was examined in much more detail than in either Hart House or Liverpool. Norah had to take off all her clothes while a doctor checked every inch of her body, from her hair to her toes, including the embarrassing parts in the middle. She was X-rayed, her knees were hammered and a blood sample
was taken from her finger. Then she was given several injections and pushed and prodded until her body didn't seem to belong to her any more. Canadians seemed to think that British children carried some dreadful disease.

Another doctor asked her questions: what her parents were like, who her friends were at home, and what she liked to do best. It was so painful to talk about home that Norah answered him in short, clipped sentences. When he asked her in his kind voice how she felt about being evacuated, she just mumbled “Fine” to keep from crying. “I guess you're a shy one,” said the doctor. “You'll soon feel more talkative in your new family.”

Once more, Gavin was taken off her hands. Now he trailed after Miss Carmichael, who looked after their dormitory and, as well, was in charge of all the children under nine. She was a softer, prettier version of Miss Montague-Scott; not as hearty, but just as school-teacherish.

“What a well-behaved child Gavin is!” said Miss Carmichael. “And such an attractive little boy, with those huge eyes and delicate features.” She kept the younger children constantly occupied. Gavin came back to the room each evening with paint on his clothes and grass-stained knees. He seemed calmer, but he kept wetting his bed every night and he was strangely still, as if a light had gone out inside him.

The woman in charge of the older children kept encouraging Norah to participate in the organized activities. Part of Norah wanted to forget her troubles and run relay races and swim in the pool with the rest. But a kind
of stubbornness had set in her, a mood that had always exasperated her mother—she called it her “black cloud” mood. When Norah felt like this she almost took pleasure in not enjoying or being grateful for what the grown-ups offered.

“You should join in more,” Margery told her. “You'd like it here better if you did.”

Norah knew she would, just as she knew she should be paying more attention to Gavin. But the black cloud engulfed her and she couldn't escape it.

The first day she squatted sullenly on the grass and watched a new game called baseball. There were new games, much more food and different accents. Still, it was difficult to believe she was really in Canada. Being here was much like being in the hostel in Liverpool: a tedious interlude of waiting for the next thing to happen.

The baseball bounced to a stop beside her. Norah threw it back and was suddenly gripped by a memory of bowling a cricket ball to her father—the sharp smell of newly cut grass and her father's encouraging, patient voice.

“Are you sure you don't want to play, Norah?” a woman asked kindly. Norah shook the memory out of her head as she refused.

After that she escaped from the daily activities by spending as much time as possible in the large room that had been stocked with children's books and set aside as a library. Norah had never been much of a reader. At school she was better at arithmetic than English, and at home there was too much to do outside to waste it on reading.
But now she curled up with a book every day in one of the comfortable leather armchairs. Derek was always in there as well, along with several others. No one spoke; they were isolated like islands all over the room, each sheltering in a story.

The first book Norah picked out was called
Swallows and Amazons
. It was about a group of children who camped all by themselves on an island. They reminded her of the Skywatchers. The book was good and thick and lasted for three days. After she'd finished it, she found an even thicker one,
Swallowdale,
about the same children. She became so lost in their adventures that whenever the meal gong sounded she looked around, startled, as if she'd been a long way away.

One afternoon Miss Carmichael found her and shooed her outside. “It's too nice a day to be cooped up with a book. Come out to the grass. We're having a lovely time blowing bubbles and there are some journalists here who want to meet you all.”

Reluctantly Norah put aside her book and followed Miss Carmichael to the lawn. She was handed a piece of bent wire and invited to dip it into a pail of sudsy water. Iridescent bubbles floated around her in the warm air. The weather was hot for September; the heat pressed on her skin like a wet sponge. Blinking, she watched her bubble rise, feeling like a mole who had emerged from under the ground.

Beside her, Lucy was being interviewed. “Now tell me what you think of Hitler,” a journalist asked her.

“Hitler ith a nathty, nathty man,” said Lucy coyly. Her lisp was newly acquired.

A family of five was being lined up for a picture. The star of the group was Johnnie, who posed in the middle of his older brothers and sisters. “We've come to Canada to help win the war,” he declared proudly.

“Why do you say that?” a journalist prompted.

“'Cause children are a
nuisance
at home. If we're out of the way then the grown-ups can fight better!”

The journalists leaned forward eagerly. “Tell the nice people what you said on your first night when I asked how you were feeling,” coaxed Miss Carmichael.

Johnnie looked confused until Miss Carmichael whispered to him. “I said—I said I was eager and brave!” he shouted. “I'm so brave I'll—I'll”—but his eldest sister dragged him away, her hand over his mouth.

Two women carrying cameras had been listening on the edge of the group. “Excuse me,” one said to Miss Carmichael. “We're visiting Toronto from the United States and we couldn't help overhearing this adorable little boy. He's just too precious to be true! These children are evacuees, aren't they? How can we get one?”

“We don't call them evacuees,” Miss Carmichael corrected. “That sounds as if they have no homes to return to. They are Canada's war guests. We're hosting them for the duration. If you want to sponsor a child you'll have to ask your own government.”

The next day Miss Carmichael brought them the evening paper. Lucy's and Johnnie's pictures were
included, among many others, over a story headed “Young British War Guests Blowing Peaceful Bubbles at Hart House.”

“We'll have to send this home!” cried Dulcie. “Do you see how they put in your words, Lucy?”

Norah couldn't find herself or Gavin in the photographs. It made her feel more than ever that she wasn't really here.

9

Alenoushka

T
owards the end of the week the “nominated” children left to go to their friends and relatives. “Goodbye, Norah,” said Dulcie hesitantly, as Miss Carmichael helped her carry her luggage to the door of Falconer House. “Do you think we'll see each other again?” She ran her tongue over her raw lips; her rash was worse.

“I'm sure you will,” said Miss Carmichael. “The Milnes can find out from us where Norah is living, and there's going to be a party for all of you at Christmas.”

Norah walked with Dulcie as far as the door and waved, surprised at feeling sad. Goosey and Loosey were a trial, but they were faces from home.

“When will Gavin and I go?” she asked Miss Carmichael that night. “Do you know who we'll be living with?”

“Not yet, but we'll match you up with someone as soon as possible. We need your beds for the next batch of children and school has already started. But don't worry, the response has been tremendous.”

That was on Thursday. On Saturday, Norah heard her
name mentioned as she came down the corridor to their room. Miss Carmichael was helping Mrs. Ellis change the sheets.

“They've decided on a place for Norah and Gavin,” Miss Carmichael was saying.

Norah froze and listened intently. She knew it was wrong to eavesdrop, but this was important. She couldn't catch the name Miss Carmichael gave in answer to Mrs. Ellis's question.

“The family only wanted a boy,” Miss Carmichael continued, “but they've persuaded them to take Norah as well. I do hope she'll settle in. Gavin is so sweet, but Norah can be difficult. She's such a loner, it isn't natural.”