give up now, Jack,’ he says. ‘You’ve worked hard at staying out of trouble.’ Jack does not tell him that he has already started to thieve again. Three wallets in almost as many days. He had forgotten what easy money it was compared to the lugging and scrimping down at the docks. Blackout has its advantages, after all.
Betsy tugs at Jack’s sleeve.
‘Look,’ she says. She holds a piece of coloured glass up to the light. Although it has been polished smooth to a hazy green on the outside, inside it there is an imperfection – a crack – that looks just like a star. ‘It’s for you.’
‘Don’t you want to keep it?’
‘Promise you won’t send me away like the other kids?’
‘I’m not planning on it.’
‘Promise.’
‘Fine! I promise.’
‘Then I want you to have this to remember your promise.’ It’s the most she’s said in weeks. Her solemn brown eyes peer out at him from under the tangle of her hair.
‘I don’t need it to remember,’ he says, grabbing hold of her and rumpling the top of her head.
‘Take it.’ She presses the glass into his hand until it hurts.
‘All right!’ he says. ‘I won’t forget. You’re not going anywhere.’ He pulls her down next to him and gives her a squeeze. They watch the sky darken and lighten as clouds shift across it, chasing each other away from the city. They are each lost in their thoughts.
It starts to drizzle, blobs of cold on their skin. Jack stands, yanking Betsy up too. ‘Come on,’ he says. The three of them make their way towards the embankment. The rain trickles down their backs and over their gas mask boxes, softening the cardboard and making the doodles on Betsy’s blur at the edges.
The boys start to run, but Betsy can’t keep up. Carl grabs her and hoists her over his shoulder as if she weighs nothing more than a coat. She hangs there giggling as he trots up the beach and the uneven stone steps towards the road. Jack laughs too: he had forgotten what Betsy’s happiness sounded like. It rolls and falls from her mouth like a song in time with Carl’s strides, and her long hair flies out behind them like seaweed.
Sunday, a year later, and they no longer meet at Cherry Garden Pier. In fact, Jack has not seen Carl for weeks. The Nazis have started to fly their bombs across the Channel, and Mr Mills keeps an even tighter rein on his son.
With fewer and fewer ships making it through, there is hardly any work at the docks. The men clamour for jobs; the gangers struggle to keep them under control. There is nothing for Jack. He is bottom of the heap. It is no longer a question of whether he stays straight. He does what he can to survive.
Betsy and Jack wander the streets and parks, making the most of what little daylight there is and enjoying the break from the daily drudgery of their lives. It has been raining heavily, and there are dirty puddles on the road. The pavement is dark and shiny. The wheels of the traffic splosh through the water and spray them with mud. They wander past their old school. It has been taken over by the air-raid wardens, and doubles as a first-aid post. The playground where they used to play hopscotch and marbles and kick-the-can is empty now, apart from sandbags and a big board with a clock face on it, telling them what time blackout is tonight. An ARP warden has just finished moving the hands. It’s the same warden who patrols their street, shouting through the letterbox if he thinks there’s any light showing at night.
They are at the edge of the park when Betsy tugs on Jack’s sleeve. ‘Look!’ she says. It is the first time he has seen her smile for weeks. The cumulative effect of fear, poverty and boredom has ground them both into near silence; his face is as pinched and drawn as hers.
Carl is waving at them across the grass. The boys greet each other warmly, and Betsy lets Carl hug her. He lifts her clean off her feet. She looks pitifully scrawny dangling there against his stocky frame. The three of them linger in the park, relaxing in each other’s company, catching up on all those weeks missed.
‘I’m going at the end of the month,’ says Carl.
‘Going?’
‘Don’t you remember? Sea school.’
‘So it’s actually happening? You’re leaving me for dust.’
‘It’s not too late, Jack. You could still come. There’s space …’
‘You know I can’t …’
Carl shrugs. There is no point pressing on. ‘How you been keeping anyway?’
‘I get by.’
Carl frowns, but there is no time to expand, because at that moment they see more familiar figures approaching: Tommy and Vince are swaggering along the path. Beside them is Stoog, carrying a football and walking with jerky movements, as if at every step he expects trouble.
Jack can sense Carl’s irritation. ‘Come on,’ he says, ‘they’re not that bad. Have a game? It’ll be like the old days.’
‘I thought you two had fallen out?’
‘We fell back in again.’ It is true that they have buried the hatchet for now, but there is always a simmering tension where Stoog is involved, and Jack knows that he has not forgiven him. But Jack needs Stoog again, as he needed Carl before. Stoog can get him work. On the street they’re brothers of a kind.
‘You know you can’t trust him …’
‘I have to trust him. I’ve got no choice.’
‘There’s always a choice.’
‘Please?’ Jack puts a brotherly arm around Carl, and Carl rolls his eyes, but nods.
The incomers are upon them. ‘Up for a game?’ says Jack.
Stoog shoots Carl one of his looks. They have never got on. The other boys watch in silence. Stoog puffs out his chest, enjoying being the one on whom the decision rests. He nods slowly. The boys grin.
They call to a couple of the other boys who are scattered across the park. Jack recognises Eddy, who used to be in Betsy’s class, one of the many kids who trickled back to the city after the first round of evacuations to the country. ‘Why don’t you two go and look for conkers?’ says Jack.
Betsy nods at Eddy shyly and they wander off towards the large horse chestnut tree on the edge of the path. Eddy swings his gas mask up into the tree. Betsy giggles and does the same. They run to where the green balls are knocked down on to the wet grass, cracking them open to see if any are worth keeping.
The older boys set up a football pitch, using their gas masks to mark the goal posts. ‘Only thing they’re bloody good for,’ says Jack.
‘And this,’ says Stoog. He takes his mask out and holds it over his face, making a loud farting noise. The boys laugh. Stoog is in charge again, and everyone is in their rightful place.
It has turned into a breezy day, and the ground has dried a little but it is still slippery. Jack soon warms up. It is good to be doing something physical, to be chasing his friends and to feel his heart pumping and to be thinking of nothing else but the ball. Soon they are caked in mud. Stoog forgets his attitude, and Carl belongs for a moment. They point and laugh at each other, and their cheeks glow as steam rises from their skin and dissipates into the cool afternoon air.
But their fun is short-lived. A man in a tin hat is making his way across the grass towards them. ‘Come on, lads,’ he shouts. ‘Time to get home now.’
It’s the ARP warden. The boys roll their eyes at each other.
‘Just a bit longer …’ says Tommy.
‘No,’