Free Christmas at Rosie Hopkins' Sweetshop by Jenny Colgan

CHEER US ON our . . .”
    The throaty, roaring, crashing noise was slow and undercut the tremendous tumult of twenty-­one little hands clanging bells all at once. The back of the jackknifed lorry pulled down the wall and ripped through the side of the Portakabin that held the art and music classes. Its headlights were suddenly beaming through the open air, the storm whipping into the hot little room, flurries of snowflakes dancing in the lighted air. An open-­mouthed scream went up, and the children automatically shrank back, mindlessly obeying the loud voice that immediately shouted, “GET DOWN! GET DOWN! GET DOWN!” then a figure hurled itself forward, a cane clattering to the ground, throwing itself on top of the boy singing the solo, standing apart from the others, his dirty glasses already slipping down his face from the force of the inrushing wind, the air pushed ahead of the great machine.
    The noise shook the village. Then everything went dark.

 
    Chapter 5
    â€œW HAT WAS THAT ?” said Rosie. The lights had all flickered out, then on again. “Was it an earthquake?”
    Tina and Anton looked confused. Rosie let Anton sit down in Lilian’s special chair (normally he wasn’t allowed to; Rosie was trying to keep him mobile for the sake of his veins).
    The great glass jars had wobbled on their shelves, but apart from a row of mints and a ­couple of the chocolate boxes propped up for display, nothing had fallen. Rosie dashed out into the street. She could see other ­people emerging from their homes, looking confused. The day was still so overcast and gloomy that it felt like the middle of the night. Rosie ran down to Malik’s shop. The fruit and veg he kept outside had tumbled to the ground, but he wasn’t paying any attention to that. Instead, he was gazing down the hill, eyes wide open, pointing. Rosie followed his finger, and her hand flew to her mouth.
    â€œOh my God,” she said. “Oh my God.”
    He was pointing at the school.
    S HE DID N ’ T HAVE to knock up Moray, he was already running, trying to pull on his jacket at the same time, which made Rosie curse as she ran back to her own home for blankets. They would need them. Please God, they would need them. All the time her heart was panicking. She ran back past parents, mothers, all of them fleeing down the hill, all of them thinking one thought, she knew: “Please let it not be mine. Please let it not be mine.”
    The scene of devastation, the fuel in the lorry already smoking, had clenched her heart, and she couldn’t let herself think about Stephen, or the children in the school, every single one of whom bought lollies and chocolate and ice cream and bonbons, every single one of whom she knew well—­the guzzlers, the expectant choosers, the value-­for-­money buyers and the indecisive agonizers. She knew all of those children.
    Tina was walking down the road in a trance, like a zombie. Her eyes were looking at the school, but she wasn’t seeing it. Rosie threw herself into the house and snatched all the blankets from the linen cupboard. She was going to need more than this for shock. They’d have some down there . . . and tea, they’d need tea. She ordered her brain to behave itself. She’d worked in accident and emergency for years. She needed to go into that mode now, not think about who was there, just about what she needed to do. She knew Moray could do it; she could do it too. She had to.
    T HE SIRENS F ILLED the air—­there was a fire station at Carningford. Mrs. Baptiste, the head teacher, was filing children from the main building and into the street. Some looked dazed, the littler ones were crying, and some of the boys were rather excited. One by one they were fallen on by desperate, weeping parents, filled with guilty, overwhelming relief.
    Moray was by the door of the cab, desperately trying to open it. Rosie ran and screamed