Lifeboat 12 Read online

  For Ken Sparks, with thanks to my mother-in-law, Nancy Hurst-Brown, a British evacuee whose childhood letters home led me to this story

  ESCAPE

  SUMMER, 1940

  The Envelope

  I shouldn’t do it.

  I know I shouldn’t.

  I’ll be in trouble

  if I open the large envelope

  addressed to my parents.

  But it’s stamped

  “on His Majesty’s Service.”

  It’s not every day

  a family like mine

  gets a letter from the King.

  The clock tick, tick, ticks.

  I glance down the hall

  to make sure I’m alone.

  I slide my finger

  under the flap,

  and peer inside.

  Dear Sir (or Madam),

  I am directed by the

  Children’s Overseas Reception Scheme . . .

  It’s nothing,

  a dull form letter

  but . . . wait!

  Someone has written in my name—

  your preliminary application

  has been considered

  by the Board and

  they have decided that

  KENNETH J. SPARKS

  is are suitable for being

  sent to . . . CANADA.

  “What are you doing?”

  cries my stepmum,

  seizing the letter from my hands.

  “That is not addressed to you.

  Charles! Charles!

  This cheeky son of yours

  wants a good clout about the ears!”

  “That letter is about me!” I say.

  “You’re sending me away!”

  I glare up at my father

  who appears in the doorway.

  My stepmum got her wish—

  to get rid of me.

  “Ken, let me explain,”

  says my dad.

  “This letter could save your life.”

  The Reasons Why

  They sit me down.

  I shrug their hands off my shoulders

  and stare at the floor,

  heart slamming,

  heat rising.

  They talk and talk,

  voices swirling in the air

  rising and falling,

  overlapping, interrupting,

  weaving a net,

  a trap,

  but I’m not going

  to fall for it.

  I try to block them out.

  I concentrate on

  slowing the storm in my head.

  They’re sending me away!

  But hang on,

  what’s that about the Germans?

  “The Germans are coming,” says Dad.

  “France surrendered this summer

  and the Nazis are gunning

  for England next.

  Hundreds of thousands

  of parents applied

  to have their kids sent

  out of harm’s way.”

  “You’re lucky

  to have been selected,” says Mum.

  “I have a sister

  in Edmonton, Canada.

  You can live with her.

  With your father out of work,

  money is tight.

  We can rent out your room

  to help pay for rations.”

  “Just think—sailing on a ship!” says Dad.

  “It will be an adventure!

  You’ll make your way in the world.

  Get your head out of those books. . . .”

  My books? My stories

  of buccaneers and buried gold,

  cowboys, braves and days of old. . . .

  I snort.

  Most parents would be chuffed

  to have a kid who loves to read.

  I read them because

  they take me away . . .

  far from the way I’m living.

  My three-year-old sister toddles over

  and rests her head on my knees.

  I run my hand over her curls.

  “What about Margaret?

  Shouldn’t she go, too?”

  “She’s too young,” says Mum.

  “Only ages five through fifteen are allowed.”

  At thirteen I’ll be one of the oldest.

  “No adults?” I ask.

  “Parents can’t go,” says my dad,

  “but you’ll have escorts—

  a whole staff of

  doctors, nurses, teachers, priests

  who are volunteering.

  Yes, son, you’re one of the lucky ones.

  You leave in September.

  You mustn’t tell your friends,” says Dad.

  “Loose lips sink ships,

  you know.”

  “And there will be a new overcoat for you,”

  says Mum

  as if that clinches the deal.

  I squint up at her and think,

  I’m as good as gone.

  I tear out of the house.

  Escape

  I dash

  down the streets,

  down the railway line,

  across the tracks,

  over a fence.

  There in the wall,

  behind the loose brick,

  I snatch my stash

  of penny cannon fireworks.

  I stick some in a tree,

  strike a match to the fuse,

  and back away.

  I watch as the wick

  sputters,

  smokes,

  sparks.

  BLAM!

  It makes quite a hole.

  The charcoal-scented smoke wafts away

  and my fury with it.

  The smoke distracts me

  as it does angry bees.

  Let’s face it.

  My stepmum has never liked me.

  She calls me a terror,

  a little so-and-so.

  I wish my own mum

  were alive.

  The doctors told her

  she wasn’t supposed to have children,

  but she didn’t listen.

  She died soon after I was born.

  It’s all my fault.

  But why did my dad

  have to marry my nanny?

  Well, I wouldn’t have Margaret otherwise. . . .

  Sure, she’s a bother sometimes,

  but she makes me laugh.

  I think about my stepmum,

  the ship, and this evacuation plan.

  I feel like a hand-me-down

  my stepmum doesn’t want,

  so she’ll donate me to a good cause.

  Forget it. I’m not going.

  She won’t get rid of me that easily.

  I climb over another fence,

  hoist myself up a tree,

  and grab an apple to eat.

  She thinks I’m a terror?

  Just because I like to

  scrump a few apples?

  My dad just says

  I’m full of beans.

  I can’t get away with much

  or I get a clout round the ear hole

  or the cane at school.

  Now they want to send me away

  across the ocean.

  Well, I’m not going.

  The New World

  That’s what they call it.

  Wonder what it’s like?

  Everything I own

  is old,

  tired,

  secondhand.

  Well, I got a new mum,

  but I’m her secondhand kid.

  She makes me feel

  worn,

  torn,

  worthless.

  A New World

  sounds wide open,

&
nbsp; a chance to start my miserable life

  over again.

  A black ant

  makes his way along the

  gnarled branch

  high off the ground.

  He’s brave, that one.

  I chew on my apple.

  How can it

  taste sour and sweet

  at the same time?

  Maybe Dad’s right. It will be an adventure . . .

  far from the rations,

  far from my stepmum’s scowl,

  far from teacher’s cane,

  far from the war . . .

  ’twould be folly to miss this chance.

  They say I’m one of the lucky ones.

  Maybe I am.

  A Sea Change

  A dog starts barking.

  A man yells,

  “Hey! You again?

  Get down out of that tree.

  Clear off or

  I’ll have your hide!”

  I pluck another apple,

  jump down, and run

  for the fence,

  the dog at my heels.

  Up and over, I make my getaway.

  All the way home

  I think of narrow escapes

  and high adventure.

  Okay, I’ll show them!

  I’ll go and grow up

  like the chaps in my books—

  like Wart and Robin Hood.

  I’ll go to sea like Jim Hawkins or Robinson Crusoe.

  How long will I be gone?

  Months?

  Years?

  Will I ever come back?

  Liver Again

  “Oh, you’re home now, are you?”

  says my stepmum,

  as I walk in the door.

  “You get a little hungry

  and all is forgiven.”

  “Leave him be, Nora,” says my dad.

  “He’s had a lot to think about.

  Come on, son, let’s sit down to eat.”

  Mum places a plate

  of roly-poly on the table.

  I’ve watched her make it before—

  a bit of chopped liver

  rolled up in a pastry

  of flour, oatmeal, and suet.

  Disgusting.

  I grab a potato and say,

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “You will be if this rationing

  gets any worse,” says Mum.

  “Those Huns keep sinking

  our food supply ships

  and you’ll be lucky

  for any scrap you get.

  That’s almost the last meat for the week,

  so eat up.”

  “Any sweets, Mummy?”

  asks Margaret.

  “Yes, dear,” says Mum.

  “A nice baked milk pudding

  for dessert.

  Now eat your roly-poly.”

  Oof, I’m ready to get out of here.

  Something New

  I haven’t had store-bought clothes

  in months . . . years maybe.

  “Make do and mend,”

  everyone says,

  part of the war effort.

  I wear hand-me-downs

  from cousins and neighbors,

  patched, faded, worn, torn,

  with stains that won’t come out,

  with arms too long,

  legs too short.

  But it’s cold in Canada,

  says my stepmum.

  With no overcoats

  to be found from friends,

  I find myself fussed over

  in a shop of secondhand clothes.

  “Here’s just the ticket, young man,”

  says the storekeeper,

  who seems beside himself

  to have a customer.

  “Try it on.”

  I look in the mirror

  and run my hands

  down the good English wool—

  dark gray,

  double-breasted,

  with wide lapels

  deep pockets and a belt.

  I don’t recognize the person

  smiling back at me in the mirror.

  He almost looks like a man.

  A man with money.

  “Is it warm?” asks my stepmum.

  “That’s the important thing.”

  “Oh yes,” I say.

  Mum asks the storekeeper,

  “What’s the cost?”

  “Fifteen shillings, Madam.”

  “Fifteen! Fifteen shillings

  of our hard-earned money?”

  I knew it.

  Nearly a pound sterling on me?

  That’ll never happen.

  I start to untie the belt.

  “Oh, very well,” she says.

  “There’s no getting round it.

  I hope you appreciate

  all we’re doing for you, Ken.”

  “Yes, Mum.

  Thank you, Mum.”

  I follow her out

  with a grin on my face.

  This coat is probably the nicest thing

  I’ve ever owned.

  SATURDAY, 7 SEPTEMBER

  It Begins

  September sneaks up on me.

  I’ll be leaving soon.

  Mum is making me clean out my room

  to ready it for a boarder.

  I admit it’s a bloomin’ mess,

  but I like it that way.

  I stack my comics

  and shove them under the bed.

  Oof, it’s hot, even though the sun

  is starting to go down.

  I sweep some trash into the dust bin

  when . . . what’s that?

  Sirens.

  We’ve heard them before.

  It’s probably just another drill.

  Then come the explosions—

  BOOM!

  BOOM!

  BOOM!

  “Dad!” I call.

  “Mum?”

  The bombs are not far off—

  blasts shatter the air.

  The earth shudders.

  Margaret wails.

  I hear Mum’s footsteps rushing to her side.

  “Dad!” I yell. “DAD!”

  “You hold your noise, you!” says Mum.

  “You’re frightening Margaret!”

  “No more Phoney War,” says my dad.

  “We’re in the thick of it now.”

  “What should we do?

  Should we get to the shelter?”

  “No, c’mon,” Dad says. “Get under the table.

  If it’s going to hit us, it’s going to hit us.”

  The four of us

  spend the night

  huddled

  under the table.

  Blasts flash in the dark,

  momentarily exposing

  the fear on our faces

  as the table jumps

  and the cutlery rattles.

  Teacups clatter off the shelves

  and crash to the floor.

  Margaret fusses and cries,

  but finally falls off to sleep,

  overcome and wrung out.

  I hunker down,

  and stare at the floor,

  sleepless, in shock.

  This is it.

  Hitler has taken over Europe.

  And now he’s coming for England.

  He’s coming for us.

  SUNDAY, 8 SEPTEMBER

  Fallout

  At first light,

  Dad, Mum, and I stagger to

  the wireless to hear what happened.

  The news makes me dizzy

  as reporters reel off numbers—

  more than three hundred bombers,

  six hundred escort fighter planes,

  daylight raiders,

  sparking sky-high firestorms

  that lit the way

  for a second wave of

  three hundred night bombers—

  more than three hundred tons of bombs

  d
ropped on London last night.

  Our buses, factories,

  and power stations have been hit,

  hospitals attacked,

  houses smashed.

  They call it the Blitz.

  “Dad, what does it mean?” I ask.

  “Short for blitzkrieg,” he says,

  “German for ‘lightning war.’ ”

  Dad and I go up to London

  to see for ourselves.

  Dazed people

  pick their way

  through piles of rubble,

  past a three-story house

  with the front walls blown off.

  Most of the rooms and furniture are intact,

  but exposed to the street,

  like a life-size version of Margaret’s dollhouse.

  At the corner,

  headlines shout the news:

  100S DEAD!

  MORE THAN 1000 HURT!

  1000S HOMELESS IN ONE DAY!

  Everywhere we look

  there’s smoke, ash,

  glittering glass,

  anger, confusion.

  Fire engines pump water

  from the Thames,

  but red-hot fires rise

  and reflect off the clouds,

  so it seems

  there’s nowhere safe.

  The world is coming apart.

  We think of the London Zoo.

  “Dad, the animals!”

  “Don’t worry,” Dad says.

  “Most were sent north a year ago.

  They killed the snakes

  and other poisonous reptiles

  so the bombs

  wouldn’t set them free.”

  I shudder to think

  of snakes slithering out.

  But now

  a new danger

  hisses from the air.

  “Look at this, Dad,”

  I say, pointing to

  a gray, jagged metal bit

  in the street.

  “Shrapnel,” says Dad.

  “It’s a piece from an exploded bomb.”

  “Can I touch it?”

  “Yes, it won’t hurt you now.”

  I pick up the twisted metal shard

  and pocket it—

  a memento of the day,

  of London in pieces;

  a reminder of how lucky I am

  to be whole, to be alive.

  We hurry home.

  And tonight

  it begins again.

  S Is for Shelter

  Night two.

  Wailing

  air raid sirens

  rattle our sleep

  “Get up, Ken,” says my dad.

  “Don’t forget your gas mask.

  Hurry!”

  “Where are we going?”

  “To the shelter down the street,” says Dad.

  “It’s not safe at home. Let’s go!”

  The sirens scream at us—Run! Run!—

  to the brick shelter

  marked with a big, black S.

  We scramble inside and huddle

  with nearly fifty other people,

  some in coats, some in pajamas.

  I hoist Margaret up on one

  of the wooden bunk beds,

  stacked four high.

  It’s damp and dark inside,