Don't Know Where, Don't Know When (The Snipesville Chronicles Book 1) Page 5

“What’s a Victoria sponge?” asked Hannah.

  “None of your lip,” warned the waitress, huffing that she didn’t believe for a minute that Hannah wasn’t giving her trouble. “Fancy saying you don’t know what it is,” she grumbled. Hannah looked at her crossly, then ordered a scone as the only item she recognized by name.

  “Jam?” the waitress spat. Hannah nodded.

  “It’s thruppence extra.” Hannah guessed that she was being charged more for jam. “And you’ll want tea, I suppose?” the waitress groused, walking away without waiting for an answer.

  “Yeah, well, I’m guessing a Caramel Frappuccino ain’t happening…” Hannah said to her retreating back.

  The waitress soon returned with two metal tea pots, one tall and thin, the other short and squat.

  “What’s the second pot for?” asked Hannah.

  “Hot water, of course,” she snapped. “ ‘Aven’t you never ‘ad tea before, neither?”

  She bustled off again, returning this time with a tray laden with cups and saucers, and their food. Hannah’s small round scone was served with a knife, a pat of margarine, and a bright red splodge of jam alongside.

  Hannah started to pour the tea, only to watch in horror as tea leaves cascaded into the cup. It was then she realized the point of the tiny sieve lying on the table, and she balanced it over the lip of the cup before trying once more.

  Brandon and Alex looked glumly at the tiny plain sandwiches with which they had been served.

  “Alex, what exactly is Marmite?” Brandon asked.

  “I don’t know.” Alex said. “It just sounds good.”

  Hannah suggested, unhelpfully, “Isn’t it some kind of small furry animal?”

  Brandon gulped.

  “No,” Alex corrected his sister. “You mean a marmot. A marmot’s a groundhog.”

  Brandon picked up a sandwich, and carefully opened it. Peering inside at the thin dark brown smear of filling, he said, “Well, this stuff looks like it might be from a marmot’s butt.”

  All the same, he closed up the sandwich and took a large bite. He immediately pulled a horrified face, clutched his throat, and grasped around the table for a napkin, but the waitress hadn’t brought any. When he managed to gasp the word “napkin,” Hannah called out, “Hey, could we get some napkins over here?”

  The waitress looked more offended than ever. “Hoity-toity!” she spat. “In case you ‘aven’t heard, there is a war on, you know.”

  Hannah, thinking quickly, pushed a steaming cup of tea toward Brandon, who sipped from it gratefully. Even so, he grimaced after he drank it.“Yuck! No sugar, and this stuff is strong!”

  Hannah tasted hers, and had to agree. It was like drinking stewed weeds which, she thought, was basically what tea was. And where was the sugar, anyway?

  “Do you think there might be another place in town where we could get burgers and Cokes?” Hannah asked Brandon. Both boys gave her a skeptical look.

  The man reading his newspaper and smoking in the corner of the tea room suddenly stubbed out his cigarette, folded his newspaper in half, threw it on the table, and got to his feet. Approaching the waitress, he said, “Are these kids bothering you?” Without waiting for her answer, he walked up to Hannah, Brandon and Alex, and stood over them.

  “You evacuees?”

  Hannah sensed that “yes” would be the best answer, but she didn’t like his tone one bit. Instead, she said stonily, “No. We’re time travelers from the twenty-first century.”

  His eyes widened, and he stabbed a long finger at her. “I’ll have none of your cheek, my girl…”

  Brandon interrupted hurriedly, “Yes, we’re evacuees.”

  The man glowered briefly at Hannah before turning to Brandon.

  “Oh, you are, are you? Well, let me tell you who I am. My name is Mr. Smedley, and I’m with the Ministry of Health in London. Now you lot, I don’t know what the devil you think you’re playing at, but you finish up your tea right now, then I’m marching the three of you down the parish hall. We have enough on our plate today without you playing silly beggars.”

  With that, he turned on his heel, returned to his table, and opened his paper, giving it a good shake. He glanced at the kids before taking a big bite from a buttered scone.

  Chapter 4

  Evacuation

  Hannah whispered urgently to Brandon, “Evacuees? Say what?”

  “Yeah. I read about this,” Brandon said eagerly. “Most of the kids in the cities in England were sent to live out in the country when World War Two started in 1939, so they wouldn’t get killed when the Germans dropped bombs. They had the stuff we have, you know, like the cases and the gas masks and stuff? So whoever sent us here, sent us as evacuees.”

  “Whoever sent us?” said Hannah, alarmed.

  Alex interrupted, “Didn’t their parents go with them?”

  “Uh-uh,” Brandon said. “They went all by themselves.”

  Hannah pointed to the calendar on the wall behind Brandon, which clearly said September, 1940.

  At first, Brandon was puzzled by the date, but then he had an idea. “I bet this is when the Blitz started.” He turned to Alex. “That was when Hitler dropped bombs on London every night for months. Lots more kids left the cities then.”

  Alex nodded, interested, but Hannah said, in a voice laden with scorn, “Thanks for the history lesson…. Hey, look out. That guy’s coming back.”

  Smedley had returned, and was standing over them. “Come on, now, you lot, finish your tea like I told you. We can’t waste good food in a war, but I want you done in one minute flat. And no funny business, or else.”

  Hannah scowled at him and thought about asking “Or else, what?” but looking at Smedley’s hard face, she thought better of it.

  “And that’ll be two and six for your teas,” added the waitress, leaning round Smedley’s shoulder. Alex and Hannah looked blankly at her. Only Brandon realized she wanted to be paid.

  Rummaging in his pockets, Brandon quickly handed her the largest silver coin he could find, a half crown, which seemed to do the trick. “Thank you,” said the waitress primly, as he pressed the coin into her hand.

  “Don’t I get change?” asked Brandon.

  “And ‘ow exactly,” she asked, as if he was the most stupid person she’d ever served, “am I supposed to give you change out of two and six?”

  Smedley continued to stand next to the table, waiting impatiently for them to finish their snacks. Brandon looked apprehensively at the uneaten Marmite sandwich, appalled at the idea of putting in his mouth again. Alex was giving his sandwich a nervous exploratory sniff. Just as the situation seemed desperate, a woman in a dark green dress and beret suddenly popped her head out from behind Smedley, startling him.

  “May I be of assistance?” she asked with a bright smile. The woman wore wire-rimmed glasses with small round lenses. Propped on her carefully waved brown hair was a green beret, on the front of which was sewn a patch bearing the letters WVS. An identical patch was on the front pocket of her plain dark green dress.

  She smiled warmly at Smedley and extended a hand for him to shake. Hannah took full advantage of the moment, and reached out her hand to deftly sweep the boys’ sandwiches off the table. The food tumbled onto the floor next to the window.

  “Miss Tatchell, WVS,” the woman was saying to Smedley.

  “Oh, right.” Smedley said, nodding at her. “I’m Mr. Smedley, Ministry of Health. He jerked his head at the kids. “Do you know anything about these children?”

  “I don’t know them myself, but I should say they are evacuees, although what they’re doing here, I couldn’t say. I’m quite certain they’re meant to be with us.” She added, with authority, “I shall accompany them to the church hall.”

  Smedley gave a wan smile. “Well, then, Miss…Tatchell was it?... I should be much obliged to you. If it wouldn’t be too much trouble.”

  She assured him that it would not, and then looked at him expectantly, until he took the
hint, and scurried back to his table.

  “Now,” she said, turning to the children, “If you’re quite finished, we shall proceed.”

  Alex quietly asked Brandon, “Do you think we should go with her?”

  “Got any better ideas?” Brandon shot back.

  Miss Tatchell walked quickly, and the children hurried behind her, as a drizzling rain began to fall from the overcast skies. The kids struggled to keep up as they were drawn to pause and stare, fascinated by the shops and houses they passed. Dead rabbits, their furry ears dangling, hung alongside birds in full feather outside one shop, whose brightly painted, but grimy, sign identified it as Donald Askew, Family Butcher and High Class Provisions. In the window, strings of plump pale pink sausages lay on metal trays, together with a rather dried-up piece of roasting beef, garnished with a few small sprigs of parsley. Huge black flies buzzed around the meat, to Hannah’s disgust. Next door, at G.H. Foster, Greengrocer and Fruiterer, a man in a tie and buttoned-up long white coat, just like a doctor’s, was standing outside. He was carefully arranging apples in a shallow wooden box propped on a table in front of the window, next to another box that was filled with green cabbages.

  “Got no bananas, then?” asked Brandon with a quick grin as he passed.

  The shopkeeper turned and shook his fist at Brandon’s departing back, “Blinkin’ cheek you’ve got,” he yelled.

  Hannah asked, “What was that about?’

  Brandon chuckled. “The Brits couldn’t get bananas during World War Two. It was too hard to bring them from other countries because German submarines were sinking the ships, and I guess it’s too cold to grow ‘em here.”

  “Smartass,” Hannah said, but she smiled.

  Ahead of them was a church, although it certainly wasn’t what Hannah had in mind when she thought of English churches: Built from brick, it looked brand new. It had no steeple or stained glass windows, and only the high-pitched roof gave away that it was a church. If the roof had been blue, Hannah thought, she might have mistaken the church for a pancake house. A large rectangular painted wooden sign stuck on two poles in the small churchyard announced that this was St. Mark’s Parish Church, Balesworth. Vicar: Rev. T.E.S. Roberts, Curate: Rev. R.J.H. Pattinson.

  Attached to the church was the church hall, an even squatter brick building, with a doorway on the side. The entance door was propped open, and as the children crossed the road with Miss Tatchell to the front of the church, a red double-decker bus pulled up. Kids began to tumble out of the door at the front of the bus, and the open corner platform at its back. They all carried gas mask boxes and small cases, and they wore labels like those worn by Alex, Brandon, and Hannah, attached to their coats on pieces of string.

  A short man with a moustache and horn-rimmed glasses was stationed at the hall entrance. He was smoking a pipe and holding a pencil and clipboard, making a quick checkmark every time a child passed before him. Some kids were excited, laughing and poking at each other. Others looked weary and nervous. Hannah felt sad when she saw a small boy clutching a teddy bear tightly as he trailed forlornly after the crowd stampeding into the hall.

  By the time Alex, Brandon, Hannah, and Miss Tatchell arrived at the door, the last of the children had entered the building, followed by the official, and the bus was pulling away.

  Miss Tatchell turned and urged the kids to hurry. They passed into a tiny vestibule. Covering much of one wall was a notice board, lined with green felt, and tacked with small brightly colored posters. Hannah paused to read a flyer that urged mothers to leave their evacuated children in the countryside, while a drawing of a ghostly Hitler tried to persuade an anxious-looking woman to send them back to the bombed city in the distance.

  Passing into the hall itself, the kids were immediately hit by the smells of hot tea, wet wool, and wax polish, as well as a babble of noise from the children, who were chattering excitedly. The official with the moustache was now sitting at a table next to the vestibule, adding up numbers from his clipboard.

  Miss Tatchell coughed, and he looked up. “I’m Miss Tatchell, WVS. These children need to be found billets.”

  The man looked at his clipboard, and ran his finger down the list, then removed his pipe from between his teeth. “And which school are they with?”

  Hannah immediately felt nervous, but Miss Tatchell, to her surprise, had an answer for them. “They’re late arrivals from St. Sebastian’s in Cricklewood, so you won’t find them on your list. Their schoolmates have already been billeted near Hitchin, but we’re scrambling to find room there, so it was decided to send them here.”

  Before he could ask for more explanation, she added, “I’m afraid I must leave you to deal with them. I need to be at the station shortly, if I’m to catch my train back to London.” She turned to the kids and said quickly, “Goodbye, children, and good luck. I’m sure you’ll be well taken care of.”

  Hannah took a good look at Miss Tatchell for the first time, and felt a glimmer of recognition. “Have we met?” she asked.

  Miss Tatchell smiled. “Perhaps, my dear. And perhaps we’ll meet again. Goodbye, now.”

  The official was getting to his feet, saying, “Hang on a minute, Miss…” But she had already hurried from the hall.

  Hannah stared into the space Miss Tatchell had left behind, furiously trying to remember where she had seen her face before. And then it came to her. The hair and the accent were definitely different, the glasses and uniform fit perfectly in 1940, but the smile was a dead giveaway. Miss Tatchell was the Professor.

  Chapter Five

  Lost

  “What’s your name, then, sonny? Let me have a look.” The official leaned forward and flipped over the luggage label dangling from Alex’s coat. On it was printed CRICKLEWOOD, St. Sebastian’s C of E Primary School, and, in a handwritten scrawl… “Alexander Day,” the official read aloud, before putting his pipe back between his teeth.

  Alex corrected him. “Actually, my name’s Dias, not Day.” But the man ignored him and turned to Hannah. “And you will be?”

  “Hannah Day,” she said firmly, as Alex gawked at her.

  Brandon was looking thoughtfully at his nametag, and after only the slightest hesitation, announced that he was George Braithwaite. When Hannah looked questioningly at him, he raised his eyebrows, as if to say, “What else can I tell him when I’m wearing this?”

  A large cloud of pipe tobacco smoke wafted over the children, and Hannah waved at it with both hands. “Excuse me?” she said to the official, who was still writing down “George’s” name. “Would you mind not smoking in here?”

  The man looked astonished. “Cheeky girl, aren’t you?” He returned his attention to his papers, and waved the kids away. “Alright, the three of you cut along now and take a seat with the others.”

  As they traipsed over to three empty chairs, an exasperated Brandon said to Hannah, “I wish you wouldn’t keep drawing attention to us like that. When are you going to figure out that these people have no problem with smoking?”

  “Whatever,” Hannah said. “I have a problem with it. They must be totally ignorant if they don’t know that smoking kills people.”

  Brandon sighed, “Yes, they are. Nobody in the whole world has that figured out yet. And haven’t you ever heard about ‘when in Rome’?”

  “No,” said Hannah crossly, although of course she had.

  “Why has our name been changed to Day?” asked Alex, fiddling with his label.

  Hannah shrugged. “I guess because Dias would be too strange for these people….It’s Portuguese, they’re English.” Suddenly, remembering what she wanted to tell the boys, she sat up straight.

  “Guys, you know the lady who brought us here?”

  “Miss…Something,” said Brandon without interest, as he glanced around the bustling room.

  “It was her. That professor woman we met in the library.”

  Now both boys looked at her in amazement.

  “Maybe she’s a witch!” said Al
ex, excitedly.

  “Cool it, Harry,” Hannah said, but she was unnerved.

  Brandon said, “Well, at least now we know she’s got something to do with us being here.”

  Hannah gazed at him coolly. “You think?”

  But Brandon was really fed up with Hannah now. “Yeah, I do. And I think, maybe, she could help us get home….Anyway, why do you always throw an attitude every time you open your big mouth?”

  Hannah glared at him, but Brandon glared right back and got to his feet. “I’m going to find the restroom,” he said huffily.

  As he approached the back of the hall, he spotted the moustached official talking with an unpleasantly familiar figure, Mr. Smedley from the tea room. Brandon tried to dash past the two men, but Smedley spotted him, and summoned him over.

  “Now take this one,” Smedley said, pointing at an anxious Brandon. “You’ll have a hard time finding people round here willing to take this one, I’m telling you.” He stared thoughtfully at Brandon. “Look, tell you what, why don’t I take him with me? I’m going back to London this afternoon, and I can put him on a train to North Wales. That’s where we take a lot of the colored evacuees from Liverpool.”

  “I’m not leaving my friends,” Brandon protested.

  “Hold your tongue, boy,” Smedley growled. “There’s a war on, and we don’t always get to do what we want. And after seeing what you three get up to together, I think it’s high time you went your separate ways. Troublemakers, that’s what you are.”