Free The TV Time Travellers by Pete Johnson Page B

died. And that four-line letter he’d just sent me showed he wasn’t coming back.
    Not ever.
    And my new dad just couldn’t be bothered with me. I was only a big nuisance to him now. In fact, if he could, I bet he’d like to pay Aunt Sara a bit more money and dump me on her permanently. Then he could go and start a brand-new life somewhere else and forget all about me.
    After I’d torn up his apology of a note, Izzy insisted on putting the bits away in the bin. And when she came back she started asking me about my mum. I know Izzy was trying to be kind, but I really didn’t want to talk about Mum just then. So I told her I was going to see Farmer Benson.
    He was outside and I asked him if there were any extra little chores he wanted doing. I often asked him that and he always looked pleased. ‘Now, what would I do without my star helper?’ he said. ‘You never stop working on a farm. There aren’t very exciting chores though, just helping me carry—’
    ‘I’ll do anything,’ I said eagerly.
    And I worked away even more keenly than usual. Then we stopped for a tasteless cup of tea and I asked Farmer Benson if he had any children. He told me he’d got one daughter who’s at university and doing really well, but she had absolutely no interest in farming at all. Then he went on to say that I’ve worked so hard he doesn’t know how he’ll manage after I’ve gone.
    And that’s when I had my dazzling brainwave.
    Up to now, me staying on here had just been like a game of ‘Let’s pretend’. But now I saw how it actually could come true.
    Dad wants rid of me, and Farmer Benson doesn’t know how he’ll manage without me. Well, he won’t have to any more. I’ll stay on here after the TV show is over.
    And I bet Mrs Benson won’t mind either. In fact, only yesterday when she saw my clean plate she said I was an absolute pleasure to feed. Well, that pleasure lies ahead of her for years now.
    It was a fantastic solution.
    Especially as for months and months now I’d had the feeling that bad things just kept on happening to me. And I couldn’t do anything about them.
    Now at last I could do something, starting with me living on this farm as a new evacuee. Not that I’d tell anyone just yet. But still, I knew all about it, so it was a bit like having a secret identity, like being Batman or someone.
    I sailed off to the evacuees’ reunion, happier than I’d felt for months.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN
    A Reunion – and a Warning
    Zac
    TWO MINUTES TO four at the village hall.
    The tables were laden with wartime food and tea urns, behind which sat women from the village, all dressed in the clothes their grandmothers would have worn. Flags streamed across the room, and wartime posters too, urging people to
Dig for Victory
and warning them that
Careless Talk Cost Lives
.
    And Mr Wallack had just given us our briefing. ‘Remember, this afternoon is about celebrating the real-life evacuees. I shall walk amongst them, encouraging them to tell me their stories. As will Miss Weed and Farmer Benson. Your job is just to offer our guests food: nothing else. You are certainly not here to enjoy yourselves. There are about thirty guest evacuees expected, so on no account are you to touch the food. None of it is for you.’
    Then he and Miss Weed gave us a masterclass on the correct way to hold a tray and address our guests. But for once I was hardly listening. I was too busy imagining those evacuees returning to the village hall they’d first walked into seventy years ago. And especially Victor and Dennis. I kept studying their pictures.
    ‘They’ll have changed a tiny bit, you know,’ said Leo.
    ‘Or maybe they won’t,’ said Barney. ‘Maybe they’ll look exactly as they did in 1939. Wouldn’t that be spooky?’
    The doors opened and two people appeared: a woman in red tinted glasses and with two ribbons in her hair, and a bald man, leaning heavily on a stick. The woman announced to no one in particular, ‘I knew we’d