Free The Explosionist by Jenny Davidson Page A

much fun by myself,” she said, chucking a pebble at one of the pigeons. The birds flew up and away in a flurry of cries and feathers.
    “I could come with you, if you’d like,” Sophie said, choosing her words carefully so as not to put Jean under any obligation.
    Jean took Sophie’s hand in her own and squeezed it gratefully.
    “I’d love you to come, Sophie,” she said. “I’ve been wanting to go for ages; it’s supposed to be lovely. I’d have asked you before, but I didn’t think you’d be interested.”
    Even if one didn’t care about kitchens one way or the other (Sophie didn’t), it was certainly nice to feel wanted.
    They left the park by the east gate and walked past the grand row of embassies along Regent Terrace until they passed the school, then wound their way through the monuments on the hill and down by way of Waterloo Place into Princes Street.
    They stopped outside the showroom, Jean gazing into the windows while Sophie looked up and down the street. This was where the most recent bomb had gone off, but there were hardly any signs of damage. All the plate-glass windows had been replaced, and only the heap of flowers on the pavement in front of the Army and Navy Store told one that people had died here. Following some impulse she didn’t understand,Sophie leaned down and picked up one of the flowers, which she tucked into the pocket of her satchel.
    Next to Sophie, Jean’s breath was misting up the shop window.
    “Isn’t it gorgeous?” she said to Sophie.
    Sophie reached for her pocket handkerchief to wipe away the mist.
    “I’d like that for my mam,” Jean continued, pointing to an enormous electric cooker.
    Everybody at school knew that Jean’s mother was a slave to housework as well as to Jean’s father, who was an awful miser. Jean’s godmother paid her school fees. The really monstrous thing was that Mr. Roberts refused to electrify the flat despite his being an electrical engineer who dined out every second Tuesday evening at the electricity lovers’ Dynamicables Club.
    Suddenly Sophie thought of how unhappy Peggy would be to learn that she was right in the middle of the city’s most crowded shopping district. She shifted nervously from one foot to the other.
    “Come on, then!” Jean cried, grabbing Sophie’s hand. They pushed open the door and made their way into the crowded shop. Two girls in black maid’s uniforms and spotless white caps and aprons walked around the room with trays of savories cooked in the electric oven, and Jean and Sophie sampled prunes wrapped in bacon and pigs-in-blankets before wandering to the back of the showroom, where an elegant woman had just taken a beautifully golden sponge cake out of the oven and was inviting members of the audience to lay their fingers on the cake’s perfect surface.
    There was no doubt it looked a lovely cake, but it soon became clear that the woman wasn’t going to cut it up and distribute the pieces—perhaps it was needed for another electric cookery demonstration later that afternoon?—and the girls drifted to the only part of the showroom they had not yet explored, the Electric Arbor at the back of the shop. Here fronds of synthetic greenery had been draped over the really expensive appliances.
    “But you said it could be delivered later this week,” cried a large lady in a fur jacket that made her look like a walrus. She didn’t notice Sophie and Jean gazing at her from the other side of a massive freezer chest.
    “That was the ordinary model,” the shop assistant said. “With the special features you’ve requested, madam, it will be a month or more before the manufacturer can ship it.”
    “I don’t want to wait a month!” the lady snapped. “I want it right now!”
    “Isn’t she awful?” Sophie whispered to Jean. It was curiously enjoyable to see a grown-up person behaving so badly in public.
    “Yes,” Jean said, “but Sophie, isn’t there something familiar about her?”
    Meanwhile the