Free Shrapnel by Robert Swindells

didn’t ask.’
    â€˜Well what about the
plane
– what sort was it? Did it burn up or is it still in the field?’
    Gran shrugged. ‘I dunno, love, Violet didn’t mention it.’
    â€˜Were they
armed
, Gran – Lugers or anything?’
    â€˜I don’t know.’
    It was dead frustrating. Why does all the interesting stuff happen during school time? If I’d been there, I’d have asked Violet Varney all sorts. Why couldn’t the thing have landed on Trickett Boulevard, and why aren’t grown-ups interested in anything except funny wireless programmessuch as
ITMA
and when they’ll see bananas again?
    It was in the local paper a few days later. The story, and a blurry snapshot, just clear enough to make out that the plane was a Dornier, nicknamed the flying pencil. It didn’t answer any of my other questions.
    I wonder if there’s a chap in Germany just like me, building aero models, full of questions only he cares about?

THIRTY-THREE
Sorry
    SATURDAY BEGAN DRY, but that was all right – Dad works Saturday mornings, so he couldn’t have come with me to Myra Shay if he’d wanted to. Whoever was giving me my instructions probably knew this.
    It was hairy, biking with the Skymaster. I’d detached the wings, of course, and fastened them with rubber bands to the fuselage, but it still made an awkward cargo. The bike had no carrier over the rear wheel, so I had to balance the plane across the handlebars. Every gust of wind threatened to topple it and me into the gutter.
    I didn’t have Myra Shay to myself. There were two dog walkers, and a kite flyer with his mum or older sister. As I assembled the plane, I could see the kite flyer watching. I knew he wanted to come over and look at it, but luckily the girl wouldn’t let him. I wound the engine tightly and performed my maiden launch.
    It was a wizard first solo. Propeller whirring, the Skymaster soared skyward and went off across the Shay like a golden eagle, while I ran after it laughing like a jackass. For the first time I understood why some chaps prefer flying models to solids. It was as if a part of me was up there, soaring with the plane.
    It made a near-perfect landing, bouncing across the turf till it lost speed and a wing tip touched the grass, swinging it round. I picked it up and examined it anxiously. There was no damage.
    I looked all around. The dog walkers had disappeared. The young woman was holding the kite-flyer’s hand, leading him away. He was resisting, but I could’ve told him it was no use. A chap about my age had arrived, also by bike, also with a flying model, but he no more wanted toacknowledge me than I did him. There was nobody else. Nobody watching to see how I’d get on, unless they were miles away with binoculars.
    I gazed towards the chain-link fence round Manley’s. It was nine feet high, with barbed wire coiled along its top. Beyond it ran a cement pathway, and beyond that were some low, red-brick buildings. I wasn’t sure what sort of place Manley’s was – some sort of storage facility, I thought. Lorries came and went, stuff was loaded and unloaded, but it certainly wasn’t a factory. There was no sign of anybody inside the fence. I didn’t fancy sending the Skymaster over there.
It will be returned in minutes
, the note had said. By
whom
, for Pete’s sake?
    Words from a poem came to me:
    Theirs not to reason why,
    Theirs but to do, and die.
    Hoping it wouldn’t come to that I rewound the engine, walking towards the fence as I did so. I had to assume the loss of my plane should seem accidental, so I didn’t aim at the fence and launch. Instead I waited for a gust of wind, then hurledthe machine parallel to the wire. It rose into the wind, banked sharply to port and was carried over, clearing the barbs with a foot to spare. I faked a cry of despair in case someone was within earshot, hooked my fingers through the mesh