Free Lord of the Nutcracker Men by Iain Lawrence Page B

explode it's like the air's full of razors. Just the sound can kill you, if it's close enough. My dad says he's seen people blasted into so many pieces that he had to pick up the bits with a dustpan.”
    “Stop it,” I said. I didn't want to hear about that.
    “You can even die from a scratch,” she said. “If a rat bites you, it might—”
    “Stop!” I shouted. “I told you not to come here.”
    “I brought you something.”
    I still hated her, but I didn't mind looking at her present. I parked the ambulance and stood up.
    Like the sergeant, she kept her hand behind the wall. “It's a present,” she said. “Because I'm sorry your soldier broke. It's an aeroplane, Johnny.”
    She lifted her arm, the aeroplane zooming up as high as she could reach. It banked and swooped down, did a loop-the-loop in her hand, then landed on the wall. “It's yours to keep,” she said.
    It was hardly more than a block of wood, the sort of thing my dad would have mocked as “utter rubbish” and wouldn't have been caught dead even selling in his shop. I couldn't tell what type it was, or even which side it was on. But it was better than no aeroplane at all, and I said, “You can bring it into the garden.”
    She clambered over the wall and stood straddling the German trench, towering like a giant above my nut-cracker men. The aeroplane swooped in her hand,straight at the soldiers, then twisted along right on top of the trench.
    “It wouldn't do that,” I said, pleased to know more about something than Sarah. “It should stay up high. It's on reconnaissance.”
    “Why?”
    “Because the Germans are going to attack.” I looked her straight in the eye. “I don't care what you say. They're going to attack. You be the British, and you have to fight them off.”
    “If that's what you want,” she said. “I suppose it
might
happen sometimes.”
    As we changed positions, the aeroplane became a German. It flew lazily over the battlefield until my nut-cracker men were lined up and ready. Then I took out my brass cartridge and whistled. “Over the top!”
    “I thought they were Germans,” said Sarah.
    “Over ze top!” I screamed, and whistled again.
    Up swarmed the nutcracker men. They rose in a flood from the trench, pouring onto no-man's-land like the river of gray that my father had written about. They charged across in a rippling line as I pushed them along, two and three at once.
    “Start shooting,” I said. “You have to fight them off.” The aeroplane landed. Sarah took a metal machine gunner and swiveled him back and forth. “Boppaboppa-boppa.”
    Six of the nutcracker men fell flat in the mud. The rest kept going. Already they were halfway to the British trenches.
    “Where's the barbed wire?” asked Sarah. “They're supposed to tangle up in the wire.”
    “Just pretend they've passed it.” I didn't have any barbed wire. “Keep shooting, Sarah.”
    “Boppa-boppa-boppa.” A dozen more men fell in a row.
“Arrrgh!”
they shouted.
    My hand was on Fatty Dienst. “Fight on for Cher-many.”
    “Boppa-boppa-boppa.”
    The nutcracker men were coming up to the British trench. I told Sarah, “You'd better fix bayonets.”
    “Fix bayonets!” she shouted.
    My whole German army balanced on the edge of the British parapet. I stepped across them to help the British. The messman ran up with his pots; the sleeping man woke and leapt to his feet. Little Cedric, far behind, said, “Send me reports. Tell me what's happening.”
    “The Huns are here!” shouted Sarah. She picked up the tiny lieutenant and charged him up to no-man's-land. He battled there, hand to hand against the nutcracker men.
    “Ratta-tatta-tat.” I worked the machine gunners, slamming the Germans down. Then I saw my wooden dad toppled in the trench. He got up and fired his rifle, and Fatty Dienst—the last German standing—crumpled into the mud.
    “Oooh,” said Sarah, panting. We grinned at each other, and I was sure she felt just as I did,