Free The Machine Gunners by Robert Westall

marmalade.
    "What are you doing? Who are these children?" Mrs. Nichol let go of the doorpost to come into the room, staggered, and changed her mind. Her dressing gown was falling open and Chas thought she wasn't wearing much. He felt all queer.
    "Fiona, what are you doing?" Another voice, a man's, came from the room behind Mrs. Nichol.
    "That's the chap in charge of the ratings," muttered Nicky. "He lives here too."
    "Mind you behave yourself, Benjamin," said Mrs. Nichol vaguely, and drifted away.
    There was a long silence in the kitchen.
    "Let's go and see the goldfish," said Audrey abruptly. They went down the long back garden. It was full of interesting things: walls and steps and statues, and queer marble pots on stands. Chas wondered if those were the pots where Mrs. Nichol kept her money; his mum always said the Nichols had pots of money. But ivy was growing over everything.
    They peered into the green depths of a large pool, and were rewarded by a flash of red-gold all of six inches long. Nicky sprinkled breadcrumbs onto the thick green water, and the fish rose, mouthing silently.
    "There used to be twelve of them," said Nicky. "My father imported them from China, but this is the only one left. He's called Oscar."
    "Hello, Oscar," said Audrey softly.
    "He only speaks Chinese," said Chas. "What's at the bottom of the garden?" There was a huge rockery, all overgrown with ivy, too, and the gravestones of cats and dogs. Nicky knew all their names, and talked about them as if they were still alive. The last, wooden, cross had no name on it.
    "What's that one?" asked Chas.
    "That's for my father," said Nicky, and the other two looked away.
    "What's over the fence?" said Chas at last, stammering. He climbed to the top of the rockery and peered over. And there it was—the view down to the bay and the sea; exactly the way any Germans would come.
    "I vote we make a secret camp here in the rockery," he said.
    "Oh, yes please," said Audrey. Nicky nodded, after a moment. They were his only friends, and he wanted to keep them.
    "Where you bin?" asked his mother.
    "Nichol's house."
    "You what?"
    "I've been to Benny Nichol's house. He's got a goldfish six inches long, in a pool."
    Mr. McGill set down the newspaper with its glaring headline Invasion Imminent? and took off his reading spectacles. "What you been up to now?"
    Chas's voice went up to a screech of righteous indignation. "Nothing! I was walking home with him, and he said he'd got this fish, and I said he hadn't..."
    "You are not to go there again. And you aren't to play with that Nichol boy again."
    "Why not?"
    "Never mind why not. Because I bloody well say not."
    "Look, tell me why? You always tell me why I can't do things." His father looked at his mother, and his mother at his father. They both seemed acutely embarrassed.
    "We can't tell you. You're too young to understand."
    "But it's a marvellous place to play..." Sensing their embarrassment, Chas pressed on unmercifully.
    "You can play anywhere else you like. But not at the Nichols' house, and that's final." Mr. McGill vanished again behind the Daily Express. Mrs. McGill went on with her ironing. Chas knew a brick wall when he saw one. But he also had a taste for getting round brick walls. Nicky's house had suddenly become the most desirable place on earth.
    "Oh damn," said Audrey, "I've split another fingernail." She sucked and bit at her nail meditatively, looking up at the sky. It was a fine sunset for December, with a rim of sun just showing over the trees to the west.
    "I'll go and get some lemonade," said Nicky. They watched him running and ducking toward the house, keeping out of sight of the sitting room where his mother was, with the officer.
    "He's not a bad kid when you get to know him," said Chas.
    "My mother doesn't like him," said Audrey. "She's told me not to come here."
    "Mine too." Chas scuffed his foot. "What's everyone got against the poor kid?"
    "I think it's because his mother... drinks."
    "So does