The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society Read Online Free PDF

note. Come quickly, it said. And bring a butcher’s knife. I tried not to get my hopes up—but I set out for the manor house at a great pace. And it was true! She had a pig, a hidden pig, and she invited me to join in the feast with her and her friends!
    I didn’t talk much while I was growing up—I stuttered badly—and I was not used to dinner parties. To tell the truth, Mrs Maugery’s was the first one I was ever invited to. I said yes, because I was thinking of the roast pig, but I wished I could take my piece home and eat it there.
    It was my good luck that my wish didn’t come true, because that was the first meeting of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, even though we didn’t know it then. The dinner was a rare treat, but the company was better. Talking and eating, we forgot about clocks and curfews until Amelia (Mrs Maugery) heard the chimes ring nine o’clock—we were an hour late. Well, the good food had strengthened our hearts, and when Elizabeth McKenna said we should strike out for our own homes instead of skulking in Amelia’s house all night, we agreed. But breaking curfew was a crime—I’d heard of people being sent to prison camp for it—and keeping a pig was a worse one, so we whispered and picked our way through the fields as quietly as we could.
    We would have come out all right if not for John Booker. He’d drunk more than he’d eaten at dinner, and when we gotto the road, he forgot himself and broke into song! I grabbed hold of him, but it was too late: six German patrol officers suddenly rose out of the trees with their Lugers drawn and began to shout—Why were we out after curfew? Where had we been? Where were we going? I couldn’t think what to do. If I ran, they’d shoot me. I knew that much. My mouth was as dry as chalk and my mind was blank, so I just held on to Booker and hoped.
    Then Elizabeth drew in her breath and stepped forward. Elizabeth isn’t tall, so those pistols were pointing at her eyes, but she didn’t blink. She acted as if she didn’t see any pistols at all. She walked up to the officer in charge and started talking. You’ve never heard such lies. How sorry she was that we had broken curfew. How we had been attending a meeting of the Guernsey Literary Society, and the evening’s discussion of
Elizabeth and Her German Garden
had been so delightful that we had all lost track of time. Such a wonderful book—had he read it?
    None of us had the presence of mind to back her up, but the patrol officer couldn’t help himself—he had to smile back at her. Elizabeth is like that. He took our names and ordered us very politely to report to the Commandant the next morning. Then he bowed and wished us a good evening. Elizabeth nodded, gracious as could be, while the rest of us edged away, trying not to run like rabbits. Even lugging Booker, I got home in no time.
    That is the story of our roast-pig dinner.
    I’d like to ask you a question of my own. Ships are coming in to St Peter Port harbour every day to bring us things Guernsey still needs: food, clothes, seed, ploughs, animal feed, tools, medicine—and most important, now that we have foodto eat, shoes. I don’t believe that there was a decent pair left on the island by the end of the war.
    Some of the things being sent to us are wrapped up in old newspaper and magazine pages. My friend Clovis and I smooth them out and take them home to read—then we give them to neighbours who, like us, are eager for any news of the outside world in the past five years. Not just any news or pictures: Mrs Saussey wants to see recipes; Madame LePell wants fashion pictures (she is a dressmaker); Mr Brouard reads obituaries (he has his hopes, but won’t say who); Claudia Rainey is looking for pictures of Ronald Colman; Mr Tourtelle wants to see beauty queens in bathing costumes; and my friend Isola likes to read about