Free When the Bough Breaks by Connie Monk Page A

say hello to her and tell her you want some help with the beans.’
    â€˜Leave your basket, I’ll take it to the shed. Then when I’ve weighed it all up I’ll run the stuff along to the shop. Jess can ride with me.’
    So she left him and went towards the house where Jess was going from room to room looking for her.
    â€˜Hello love, I heard you running up the lane. I’ve been helping your dad with the picking. He said to tell you he could do with an extra pair of hands now that I have to start getting some food ready. Better take off your school dress first. Just your knicks will do out there; the sun is lovely.’
    â€˜I came home with Ben Williams, Mum – well, till I got to our lane I did. You know what, Mum? He skips better than I do. Isn’t that funny –
better than I do –
cross hands, bumps, all of it he can do and he hasn’t even got a rope of his own. I let him take mine if he promised to bring it to school in the morning.’
    â€˜That was a good idea, Jess. Arms up, while I pull off your dress and vest. There you are. Off you run.’
    Yes, she thought, watching Jess dart across the small patch of lawn to the field beyond, Den’s right, it’s almost frightening how lucky we are. Further than that she wouldn’t let her thoughts go, for surely it was nonsense to think Hitler’s screaming speeches and the wonderful displays of marching youths whose pictures were so often in the newspaper would lead to war. How could they, after all the trouble Mr Chamberlain had gone to less than a year ago? If we could understand what he is shouting about it might not be so scary.
    There were plenty of better off people in Sedgewood village, but it wouldn’t have been surprising if some of them envied the Hawthornes’ independent way of living. But of course that would have been seeing the picture through rose-tinted spectacles, for many a night when Dennis and Kathie went to bed they knew the sort of tiredness never experienced by those who worked regular hours.
    The last of the asparagus was no more than a memory, green peas and broad beans came to an end, the crop of marrows swelled with the promise of a bumper year, the runner beans grew long and succulent. This year was no different from any other as the land brought forth its bounty. Kathie suspected there was defiance in the cheerfulness of people she met when she went shopping in the village; or did she imagine it, simply because she knew it to be the truth for herself? There were evenings when she twiddled with the tuning knob on the wireless and the screaming voice of Adolf Hitler filled the sitting room making her blood run cold. If Den had been there with her, her imagination might not have carried her into such unknown regions of horror, but by August most of his evenings were spent with the Terriers.
    There was the day when Kathie and Jess went to the Old National School in the village and queued to collect their gas masks. With each breath they made a noise like a pig grunting. One little boy was crying and didn’t want to put his on, but Jessie was determined to look grown up, even though hers was made to look like Mickey Mouse. She wasn’t going to let anyone guess that she had a horrid pinching sort of feeling in her tummy and wished they were at home and none of this was happening.
    â€˜Remember Fred Dawkins?’ Dennis greeted Kathie when, on their return, she found him picking runner beans. ‘Calls himself the billeting officer apparently. He came to see what space we have. It seems they’re expecting a load of London kids and are fixing up where they can be housed. Not here, I told him. Having only two bedrooms lets us off the hook.’
    â€˜Poor little souls! Imagine if it were the other way round and children from here were being sent to strangers. They’ve got to make plans – the same as with those horrid gas masks. But it won’t happen. It