Free Lucky Bunny (9780062202512) by Jill Dawson Page B

and Dad says that’s our nan and signs something and he gives the billeting lady a wink, which sends her away all fluttery like the pigeons. And clippie-cloppy on her shoes. When her back is turned, Dad makes this little movement, rubbing his hands behind her, as if her backside is hot. We’re so happy that we’re squealing, me and Bobby; we sound like the pigs when Bobby pulled their tails.
    Dad says he knows a shop where you can get five donuts for just five pence, and let’s go and buy them—and eat the lot! Or Sally Lunn’s, he says. You choose, kiddo.
    â€œCan we go down Romford Market and see the eels in their buckets, getting the heads cut off of them?” Bobby asks. He’s obsessed with eels since Archie Markham got that eel hive. Dad just laughs.
    â€œWe’d better go see your nan. Tell her I’ve been and got you.” He puts his face close to Bobby. “Tell her the old scallywag’s out and about again!”
    We both know better than to ask. Out from where? For how long? Any case, we’re thinking about buns and eels and Sally Lunn’s. I’m thinking of the soap in my pocket and Nan’s face when she sees it. And Dad with his sweet-smelling hair, glossy with the cream he slaps on it. The prickly feel of his face with all his stubble, like kissing a hedgehog. And a new toy—he says he’s got something spanking new that he says we’ll love. He promises to show us when we get home.
    Where’s Mum? I want to ask. Is Mum out, too? Which house are we going to? Is the house all bombed away or do we have another one? Why were you away so long? I fight these questions. Squish them down.
    Dad loves me best though for my best skill: keeping mum, he says. Keeping my lips sealed. I can do that. He’s so tall and so swingy, he can “show out” as he walks along, with all the ladies looking at him, and he has something new: a limp, and as he limps by, the ladies cock their heads at him like little birds, their hands on their hips and smiling, so, so sweetly, and kindly. He’s like something royal, like a prince or a soldier as he limps quickly through the station, touching his hat here and there to people. The dog’s bollocks, Mum would say. Or a dream.

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    Keeping Mum
    C hristmas comes and goes with not much kerfuffle: just an orange for Bobby, which he can’t open and tries throwing down the stairs, and a golliwog for me, and a Mr. Jollyboy for Bobby that Dad found in a house after it had been abandoned. The Mr. Jollyboy is the best thing in the world. That’s the spanking-new thing Dad was talking about. It’s all wooden with a black cap of hair (just like Dad’s) and a painted red shirt and black boots and jointed shoulders, knees, and arms; and if you wiggle the stick in its back and put him on a flat surface, he can really dance. Dad does this for us and makes Bobby nearly wet himself laughing.
    The Mr. Jollyboy comes in a box with a picture of four laughing children on it, and a kind man with grey hair. The box says, “The most amusing toy of all times. Keeps everyone in fits of laughter . ” I try not to feel cross that Bobby got the most amusing toy of all times and I’m Dad’s favorite and I got a golliwog.
    We’re back now in the house on Lauriston Road, and we visit Mum in the London hospital, and Dad says she’s not all her ticket, which means she’s not right in the head. She’s waiting there for something. Some decision to be made—a court case, or something. I don’t understand, but I know she won’t be there for long, that’s what Dad says, and so of course I imagine that she might come home soon. Whenever I think of this my stomach turns over. I should be glad, I should want her to, but I feel sick and I’m ashamed of it. I keep picturing her in her hospital bed. She’s in a pale blue nightie with forget-me-nots on it, all tied up at the neck, and