Secrets and Shadows Read Online Free PDF Page B

was stocked in large brown sacks and where she baked the bread and cakes in a big oven. Grace had been intrigued to know how her boss managed to get supplies of scarce ingredients, and Nellie had explained that in running a business she was entitled to an industrial quota of rations – although sometimes supplies wereinterrupted and she had to bake items that required less fruit, or sugar, or whatever other ingredient ran short because of the war.
    Now she had finished showing Grace the way to work the cash register and how to keep track of the stock. Grace looked at the tempting rows of rhubarb and apple tarts, jam slices, gur cakes and scones. She was looking forward to trying some of them, but for now she gave her attention to Nellie, who was about to leave her alone in the shop for the first time.
    ‘So remember, Grace, the customer is always right – even though half the time they’re eejits and they’re wrong. But when they come in here they’re right, and we’re nice to them.’
    ‘OK.’
    ‘On the other hand, you have to have your wits about you. Most people are honest, but there’s some would take the eye out of your head. Do you follow?’
    ‘Yes. The customers are always right – but watch them like a hawk.’
    Nellie smiled. ‘Now you have it. I’ll be back to lock up.’
    ‘All right, Miss Kinsella.’
    The older woman crossed the shop in several jerky strides, then exited into the busy thoroughfare of Manor Street, leaving Grace alone behind the counter.
    Grace looked at the rows of cakes and felt her mouth watering. The last five days had been tough, what with losing her home in the air raid and then having to start from scratch in a new school. But as part-time jobs went this was a pretty good one, somaybe her luck was turning. And right now the only decision was whether to have a jam slice or a slab of gur cake. Maybe she would have both. But which to try first? She thought a moment, then went to the cash register and pressed the key, as Nellie had taught her. The machine rang, and the till opened. Grace reached in and took out a penny, then quickly tossed it.
Heads for gur cake, harps for a jam slice.
It was heads. She replaced the penny and shut the till, took up a slice of juicy-looking gur cake and raised it to her mouth. No, she thought, this wasn’t a
pretty good
job – this was a
brilliant
job!

    Barry walked contentedly along the street. Today had been a good day. In school there had been no trouble with Shay McGrath, and he had scored a really stylish goal for his team in a schoolyard football game. The morning had begun well with a letter from his mother. It contained a ten shilling note and lots of news from Liverpool. The most exciting thing for Barry however was the details that his mother sent regarding the Royal Navy’s sinking of the biggest, fastest ship in the German navy, the battleship
Bismarck
. The Germans had boasted that
Bismarck
was unsinkable, but Mum had explained how a fleet of British vessels and aircraft had pursued it for over seventeen hundred miles, finally sinking it west of Land’s End.
    Barry thought of his father, and hoped that his ship had beeninvolved in the victory. It would help to make up for all the months in which he had missed Dad if his vessel had been involved in this blow against the Nazis.
    Lost in his thoughts, Barry continued along the busy thoroughfare of Stoneybatter, the late afternoon sunshine bathing the fronts of the shops and pubs along the street in golden light. He walked on past where Stoneybatter became Manor Street, then stopped at the shop known as Miss K’s. He checked that he had the half crown his granny had given him, then stepped into the bakery. To his surprise he saw Grace Ryan behind the counter.
    ‘Oh…it’s you!’
    ‘Who did you expect?’ she answered.
    ‘Miss Kinsella. Doesn’t matter – it’s the cakes I came for.’
    ‘Right.’
    ‘Sorry. That sounded a bit…what I mean is…’
    ‘It doesn’t