Stay Where You Are and Then Leave Read Online Free PDF

č eks and the soldiers. “He just told you that he’s not German, and anyway, he’s lived here for years. Kalena was born on this street. They’re no threat to anyone.”
    â€œStep aside, missus,” said the army man, signaling to one of his colleagues to open the back doors of the van.
    â€œYou’re a traitor, Margie Summerfield!” cried Mrs. Milchin. “Cozying up to the enemy! You ought to be ashamed!”
    â€œBut he hasn’t done anything! My husband’s a soldier,” she added, as if this would help.
    â€œStep aside, missus,” repeated the army man, “or you’ll be taken into custody too.”
    A lot of fighting happened then, and it took almost twenty minutes for the Janá č eks to be loaded into the van. They weren’t allowed to go back into their house or to take anything with them. Mr. Janá č ek pleaded to be permitted to take a picture of his wife, but he was told that they could take the clothes they were standing up in and nothing else. Kalena ran to Alfie’s mum and threw her arms around her, and one of the soldiers had to drag her away as the little girl screamed and wept. The last Alfie saw of them was Mr. Janá č ek weeping in the back of the van while Kalena stared out of the window behind her at Alfie, waving silently. She looked very brave, and Alfie knew there and then that she would become prime minister one day, and when she did, she would make sure that nothing like this ever happened again.
    Later that night, Margie explained what had happened. “ Persons of special interest , that’s what they call them,” she told him. “Anyone German. Anyone Russian. Anyone from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, if I have it right. And that’s where the Janá č eks come from. Maybe it’s for the best.”
    â€œBut it’s not fair,” said Alfie.
    â€œNo, but they’ll be kept safe while the war is on. A few months on the Isle of Man, it’s not so bad when you think about it. Think of all the damage that has been done to their shop, after all. It was only a matter of time before those vandals turned their attentions to Mr. Janá č ek himself.”
    The house at number six had remained empty ever since. No one else came to live there and no one ever went inside. Until one day, when Margie was sitting in the front room counting the pennies from her purse and deciding whether she should pay the rent, the coal man, or the grocer that week—it couldn’t possibly be all three; it probably couldn’t even be two—Alfie had an idea.
    He ran out of the back door and made his way down the alley toward number six, jumped over the wall into the Janá č eks’ backyard, and broke the kitchen window with a stone he found near the door. Reaching in, he opened the latch and pulled it up, climbed inside and looked around, searching for the one thing that he thought might save his family from homelessness or starvation.
    He found it in the corner of the parlor, sitting on the floor next to a rocking chair.
    Mr. Janá č ek’s shoeshine box.
    When Alfie left, it was the only thing that he took with him.

 
    CHAPTER 3
    KEEP THE HOME FIRES BURNING
    They said it would be over by Christmas, but four Christmases had already come and gone, a fifth was on the way, and the war showed no sign of coming to an end.
    Alfie was nine years old now, and six mornings a week, his mum shook him awake when she was leaving for work. He still got a shock when he opened his eyes to see her standing there in the half-light, the white dress uniform of a Queen’s Nurse gathered close around her neck and waist, the pleated cap settled neatly on her head as her tight blond curls peeped out from underneath.
    â€œAlfie,” she said, her face pale and tired from another night with so little sleep. “Alfie, wake up. It’s six o’clock.”
    He groaned and rolled over,