All Clear

I take it back about being glad to see him, Eileen thought. “Yes, I’m certain I heard it. I was in there”—she pointed back at their tenement—“talking to Binnie—”

His eyes narrowed. “What about?”

“It doesn’t matter. Alf, we must get to a shelter now, before the raid—”

“You ain’t ’ere ’cause of Child Services, are you?”

Why on earth would she be here on behalf of Child Services? “No. Alf—” She tugged on his arm.

“We don’t need to go till the planes come,” he said maddeningly. “ ’Sides, me and Binnie ain’t afraid of a little raid. There was one last week what blew up a

’undred ’ouses. Ka-boom!” He flung his arms up to show her. “Bits of people all over. What did Binnie tell you?” he asked suspiciously.

We are going to be killed standing here, she thought desperately. “Alf, we can discuss all this later.”

“Wait,” he said as if he’d suddenly had an idea. “What did the siren sound like?”

“What do you mean, what did it sound like? An air-raid alert. Alf, we must—”

“Where was you when it went?”

“In the corridor outside your—Why?” she asked, suddenly suspicious.

“I’ll wager you ’eard Mrs. Bascombe.”

“Mrs. Bascombe?” What would Mrs. Bascombe be doing here in Whitechapel?

“Our parrot.”

A parrot.

“We taught ’er to do the alert and the all clear,” Alf said proudly. “And HEs. Blooey! Ka-blam!”

“You have a parrot that can imitate an air-raid alert?” Eileen said furiously, thinking, Of course they do. This is the Hodbins. Binnie had told it to do its siren imitation and then led her on a merry chase down the stairs and hid behind the tenement, where she no doubt still was, laughing her head off.

“Mrs. Bascombe sounds just like ’em,” Alf was saying. “ ’Specially the HEs. She scared old Mrs. Rowe so bad she fell down the stairs. You thought it was a real siren,” he said, pointing at her and then doubling up with laughter. “What a good joke! You shoulda seen your face. Wait’ll I tell Binnie!” He started to run off, but Eileen hadn’t spent nine months with them for nothing. She was not leaving without the map. She grabbed Alf’s collar and held on in spite of his wriggling.

“Stop squirming and stand still,” she said. “I want to talk to you. Do you still have the map the vicar gave you?”

“I dunno,” he said. “Why?”

“I need to borrow it.”

“What for?” he said, his eyes narrowing again. “You ain’t one of them fifth columnists, are you?”

“Of course not. I need it to look up something. If you’ll lend it to me, I’ll give you a book.”

Alf snorted. “A book?”

“Yes,” she said, attempting to decide whether she dared let go of him long enough to take it out of her bag. “About chopping people’s heads off.”

He was immediately interested. “Whose ’eads?”

He was immediately interested. “Whose ’eads?”

“Anne Boleyn’s. Sir Thomas More’s. Lady Jane Grey’s.” She took the book from her bag.

“Does it got pictures?” he asked, and when she nodded, “Can I see ’em?”

“Not till you bring me the map.”

He thought it over. “No,” he said finally. “What if a Messerschmitt comes over? ’Ow’ll I mark it if I ain’t got—”

“I only need it for a day or two. After they chopped their heads off, they put them up on spikes on London Bridge.”

His face lit up. “Does it got pictures of that?”

“Yes,” she lied.

“All right. Only you got to pay me. Five quid.”

“Five quid?” Eileen said. “Do you know how much money that is? I have no intention—”

Alf shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

Very well, Eileen thought. “Where did you get that parrot, Alf?” she asked. “You stole it, didn’t you?”

“No!” he said, outraged. “We never. We found it in the rubble. There’s all sorts of things in the rubble.”

“That’s looting,” Eileen said, “and looting’s a crime.”

“It ain’t looting!” he protested, his hands going defensively to his pockets. “ ’Ow can it be looting if the people what owned it’s dead?”

Which was a good point, but Eileen needed that map, and they’d just taken ten years off her life with that parrot. “It’s still looting in the eyes of the law.”

“Mrs. Bascombe woulda died if we ’adn’t found her. We rescued ’er.”

“That may be, but I’m still going to have to call a constable and tell him you’re keeping a stolen parrot in your rooms.”

He went white as a sheet. “Wait! Don’t!” he pleaded. “You can borrow the map.”

“Thank you,” she began, and he wrenched suddenly free of her grasp, snatched the book out of her hands, and went racing off across the rubble. “Alf, you come back here!” Eileen called after him, but he’d already disappeared.

And so had her chances of getting the map. She would have to admit defeat, go to Charing Cross Road, and hope she could find a map in a travel guide.

She began walking toward Mile End Road, hoping the journey back wouldn’t be as—

“Eileen!” Alf called, running up to her, Binnie at his heels. “You was s’posed to wait,” he said accusingly, and handed Eileen the map.

“You needn’t bring it back,” Binnie said. “You can keep it. He don’t do planespotting no more. Now he collects shrapnel.”

“And UXBs,” Alf said.

Of course, Eileen thought.

“So you needn’t come back,” Binnie finished.