Catching Falling Stars Read Online Free PDF Page B

replies, her eyes scanning the pleasant room. “Look – I noticed that when Harry was talking to Miss Saunders.”
    Mum’s nodding towards the wall with the wood-panelled door to the stairs, and I notice what hadn’t caught my eye at first: a framed teacher’s certificate which has pride of place above a polished piano. I know that the certificate will impress Mum, and the well-looked-after piano will please her too. Mum used to play on her grandma’s piano when she was a girl, and has always wished we could afford one. She’ll also be charmed by the posy of roses in the small vase placed on top of the piano.
    So … Miss Saunders is convinced she’s having nothing to do with us beyond a cup of tea, but Mum clearly has other ideas.
    Realizing that, a knot tightens in my tummy. I don’t care if that teaching certificate means Miss Saunders is probably a responsible adult, or that the cared-for piano means she’s musical, or the hand-picked posy means she likes nature. She’s a stranger. Even more of a stranger than Vera’s useless, distant relative by marriage. What is Mum getting us into?
    “Mum, we can’t—”
    A cough interrupts me, and I turn to see Miss Saunders looming in the shadowy passageway like a wary grey owl.
    “Mrs Gilbert,” she says, “I was wondering if the children could run across to the shop and fetch me some sugar? I seem to have run out.”
    “Of course,” Mum says brightly. “They’re very helpful.”
    She nudges me and Rich to stand, and Miss Saunders nods at us, as if to say thank you.
    What thin lips she has , I find myself thinking. It’s as if someone was in a rush to draw her mouth, and thought a flick of the wrist and a simple straight line would do.
    “Oh,” Miss Saunders adds, as something occurs to her, “just tell Mr Brett at the shop to put it on my bill.”
    Now it’s my turn to nod. I reach for my brother’s hand and lead him back out of the cottage.
    With the door clunked shut behind us, I stop for a second, take a deep breath and get my bearings. We’re standing in a tiny front garden, filled with overgrown foliage and end-of-season roses. A last bee of the summer buzzes close by. Across the narrow road is the cabbage-filled village green, and beyond that is the grocer’s shop, its frontage partly hidden from our view by the branches of the oak tree overhanging the pond.
    “Come on,” I say to Rich, hoping he doesn’t hear the unsure wobble in my voice as I lead him out of the gate and on to the road.
    “Do you think that lady will give us a biscuit, Glory? I think she might be the sort of person who has biscuits. Or cake. Don’t you think so?” Rich babbles loudly as we walk.
    “I don’t know,” I say, while trying not to let the knot in my tummy make me feel sick.
    “I think she might be a nice lady,” Rich babbles on, skipping jerkily by my side. “She seems nice. And tidy. But we aren’t going to stay there, are we, Glory?”
    “I don’t think so,” I say, as we pass the old pub.
    Now I’m outside in the fresh air, I feel hopeful that Mum will come to her senses. With us out of the way, she’ll see things more clearly and realize that she can’t seriously get on the bus back to London and leave us stranded here with a thin-lipped, owlish woman we don’t know.
    Though now I think about it, isn’t that exactly what happened to every other evacuee…?
    One of the girls in my class who came back after the Phoney War, she told me they had to wait in a draughty town hall while people strolled by and chose who they wanted, as if the children were all stray dogs waiting for new owners.
    “Oh, that’s good if we’re not staying, isn’t it?” says Rich, letting go of my hand and starting to chase a flitting butterfly. “I mean, I like it here, though. I like the butterflies. The pond is nice too. Having all the cabbages growing on the green is funny, isn’t it?”
    “It is a bit,” I answer him, watching as he bounces and skips around.