Free Where the Heart Is by Annie Groves

in the queue ahead of them had obviously overheard and turned round to give them each a reproving look. ‘It’s Air Marshal Harris to you, and we don’t make a fuss about Yanks here. This is an RAF base, remember?’
    Lou and Betty exchanged rueful grimaces, whilst Ruby, cheeky as always, pulled a face behind the other Waaf’s back.
    ‘I’m surprised she didn’t start reminding us that walls have ears,’ Betty grumbled, when they were sitting down with their breakfasts. ‘Anyway, everyone knows that the American military are here and thatthey’re going to be flying those enormous bombers of theirs out of all those airfields that are being built for them. I’ve got a cousin who’s based in London. She’s been out with one of them already–one of the Yanks, I mean. She says they really know how to treat a girl.’
    ‘A lot of people think it’s fearfully bad form to step out with one of them when our own boys are overseas fighting,’ was all Lou felt able to say, remembering how anti the Americans her own brother, Luke, had been when they had first arrived in Liverpool the previous year.
    ‘I’m really looking forward to Easter. It seems ages since I saw my family–or wore civvies,’ Betty complained. She heaved a heavy sigh. ‘I can’t wait to go to a dance wearing a dress and decent shoes. My ankles were black and blue the other Sunday, from being kicked accidentally by chaps in uniform, after we’d all been to that dance in the mess.’
    ‘Well, at least the RAF boys get to wear a pretty decent uniform,’ Ellen reminded them, coming to sit down with them just in time to catch what had been said. ‘Not like the poor army boys.’
    The table was full now and whilst the other girls embarked on an intense discussion about the merits and demerits of various service uniforms, Lou let her thoughts slip to their Easter weekend break.
    Easter was quite late this year, which meant that her dad would already have been busy in his allotment, and although there wouldn’t be any chocolate eggs because of rationing, Lou suspected that there would be wonderfully fresh eggs from the hensthe allotment keepers had clubbed together to keep. Her mother was a wonderful cook. Naafi food had been an eye-opener for Lou, but she had made herself get used to it; she didn’t want the others thinking she was a softie, after all.
    It would be heaven to sleep in her own bed again in the room she shared with Sasha. Her sister Grace had written to tell her that although she would be on duty at the hospital in Whitchurch, where she was now working, for most of the Easter holiday, she had got Easter Monday off, when she and Seb would be coming over to Liverpool to see everyone.
    There would be no Luke there, of course. He was fighting in the desert with the British Army, and there would be no Katie either, because she and Luke weren’t engaged any more.
    They were all upset about that, but especially her mother, Lou knew. She was never going to let herself get daft about a lad. It only led to problems and misery. She had made enough of a fool of herself over Kieran Mallory to know not to do the same thing ever again. Just look at the way it had changed Sasha. Lou just hoped that her twin would keep to her promise about just the two of them going out together on Easter Saturday, she really did.
    ‘Auntie Jean!’ Bella exclaimed with genuine delight when she stepped into the kitchen to find her aunt sitting there with her mother.
    Although Vi and Jean were identical twins, the way they had lived their lives now showed in their faces so that, in their mid-forties, Jean Campion’sexpression was one of warmth and happiness, whilst Vi Firth’s was one of dissatisfaction and irritation. Vi’s hair might be iron neat in the scalloped rigid permanent wave she favoured, her twinset cashmere and her skirt expensive Scottish tweed–like her twinset, dating from before the war–but it was her auntie Jean, with her slightly untidy soft