Rosie Goes to War (26 page)

‘And we don't take kindly to little toe-rags messing with defenceless girls,' says Gran, shaking her brolly at him.

‘Defenceless? She's nearly killed me!' he cries.

Gran gives him a poke in the stomach with the brolly. Harry falls to his knees. ‘Please, missus! I didn't mean no harm.'

‘Like hell,' I shout, slapping the back of his head. ‘He nicked your ring and Dad's tie-pin, and tried to burn the place down.'

‘Oh dear,' Eleanor purses her lips. ‘What are we going to do with you?'

‘Lock him up and throw away the key!' says Gran.

Harry whimpers.

Eleanor shakes her head. ‘There's no time for that.' She nudges Gran with her elbow. They both look up. I follow their gaze and realise that the line between the girls' hall and Gran's hall is going wobbly. The portal is about to close. ‘Stand up, boy. Rosie, your work here is done. Open the door.'

I do as I'm told. There's no time to lose.

‘Now, young man. We know who you are and where you live. If you continue with the life you've been leading you will never be safe, do you understand? We are avenging angels who will be watching your every move. You will leave this place and never return. If you know what's good for you, you'll join up and become a man. Do you understand?'

Harry nods.

‘Well, go on then you snivelling little rat, be off with you!' Gran waves the brolly again and he heads out the door, his hands still tied behind his back. I pick up his smouldering coat and throw it at him. He shrugs it off and legs it. We watch him run a few yards before his belt-less trousers fall round his ankles and he pitches forward onto his nose. He lets out a scream and keeps moving, trying to get away from us. ‘That's it, slither off on your belly like the snake you are,' yells Gran as she slams the door shut.

She turns and grabs my arm. ‘Come on Rosie. We can't hang about.'

I look at Eleanor and she's fading. ‘Take my hand,' she says. As soon as I do she pulls us through and we all land in a heap on the carpet.
Carpet!

I'm laughing and crying at the same time as I help Gran and Great-aunt Eleanor to their feet.

‘Well, I never did,' says Gran, laughing with me. ‘What a turn up for the book!'

‘You saved me, Gran!' I hug her, so happy. ‘I've been trying to get back for ages, but I couldn't. How did you do it?'

‘God knows, love. We heard you take a tumble just now and when we came out to see if you were all right, there you were with Harry.'

‘You mean – I've only just – but –'

‘That appears to be the nature of time travel,' says Great-aunt Eleanor, brushing soot off her skirt. ‘You tend to return to the moment from which you left.'

‘Come on, Rosie love, let's see if there's any tea left in the pot. I expect you'll be wanting a biscuit with that n'all.'

I follow them into the kitchen. The fitted oak units and stainless steel sink are back, the old water heater and monstrous cooker gone. It's exactly as I left it over a week ago.

‘Sit down, darling. What an adventure! Thank God we managed to get you back. I'd never have forgiven meself if you'd been stuck there.' Gran fusses, checking the tea in the pot. ‘Oh, this is stewed. I'll put the kettle on for a fresh one.' She pushes the biscuit tin towards me. I pick a chocolate digestive and eat it in three bites. Oh wow, that tastes epic! I take another one and nibble it slowly. If I'm not careful I'll polish off the whole tin. The sugar rush gets my brain working again.

‘Hang on,' I say. ‘Did you know this was going to happen?'

‘Of course,' says Eleanor, sipping her tea. ‘We've been aware of Queenie's true identity since before you were born.'

‘But how –?'

‘Bill,' says Gran. ‘Bless him, he couldn't keep it secret once we was married, now could he?'

Bill. My friend. My Grandpa. I'm never going to see him again.

‘Ah, bless, don't cry, love.' Gran pats my hand, and I flinch. ‘Oh! Of course, you burned yourself on the iron, didn't you? Come here, I've got some proper cream for that now. Lucky you never let us put any butter on it, ain't it? Blimey, we had some daft ideas in them days, didn't we? I'd better get a flannel for your face n'all, you're all dusty. Is that a bruise on your forehead? Oh you poor love, you have been through it, haven't you?'

I put my hand up and feel a great big lump where I head-butted Harry.

‘I don't understand,' I say. ‘Why didn't you tell me before? You acted like – I don't know – ‘

‘We acted like a pair of batty old women,' says Eleanor.

‘Exactly. Why?'

She smiles. ‘Spoilers.'

I put my head in my hands. ‘Lil.'

Gran laughs. ‘We thought she was dotty, for years and years, God rest her. I even thought my Billy was taking after her when he started talking about you being our grandaughter, I can tell you. But in the end, it all started to make sense. And when you was born, of course, there weren't no denying it.'

‘I thought she was dotty too. In fact, I hoped she was. She said she met me before. I thought I was going to be stuck in the wrong time for the rest of my life.'

‘No love. Billy said you would get back, and here you are, thank God. But he didn't know it would be me and Nelly what rescued you though. He'd have loved that, wouldn't he? Did you see Harry's face?' Gran laughs so hard tears run down her face. ‘No wonder we never saw hide nor hair of him again! Oh, Nelly, you was amazing, weren't she, Rosie? ‘We are the ghosts of Christmas yet to come.' I thought Harry was going to wet himself.'

‘Totally,' I say, grinning.

Eleanor shrugs. ‘As the incident occurred close to Christmas, I took my inspiration from Dickens. However, Harry was never going to be difficult to deal with. I've had a lot of practice with recalcitrant children in my career.' She's looking stern, but her eyes are sparkling.

‘Nelly,' I say. ‘You were fabulous.'

‘My name is Eleanor,' she says. ‘A strange young woman I met a long time ago told me it was a nice name. Only my stubborn sister persists in calling me by that ridiculous nickname.'

‘She must have been something special for you to take any notice of her,' I say.

‘She had her moments,' she says and we all laugh.

‘Seriously though, some of the stuff Lil told me doesn't make sense,' I say. ‘I mean, she said she met me when she was a girl, and then I apparently met her daughter.'

Gran looks at her sister. ‘Is it all right to tell her, Nell?'

‘Mmm,' says Eleanor. ‘I suppose we ought to. Lil and I had some interesting conversations with her after the war. You could say she sparked my interest in history. And then of course there are the diaries.'

‘What diaries?'

‘The one that you wrote in this house, for starters. Did you really think that a teacher of my experience would be unable to decipher simple text-speak?'

I feel my cheeks go hot. God, I hope I didn't say anything too nasty about Nelly! I'm sure I didn't, but sometimes I just wrote stuff down without really thinking.

‘And then Bill's Aunt Ethel gave us some more,' says Gran. ‘I couldn't make head nor tail of them of course, so I handed them over the Nelly.'

This doesn't sound good.

‘You might well look concerned,' says Eleanor. ‘It seems that your adventures are far from over. But don't worry. I have had many years to study the diaries and the history of the times. I will ensure that you are at least properly equipped to deal with whatever you encounter.'

‘Can I read the diaries?'

‘I don't think that's wise, do you?'

‘But you said –'

‘That I would prepare you. That doesn't mean you should know everything, young lady. To use your own phrase – we must beware of spoilers.'

‘It's not my phrase. It's from Doctor Who.'

‘That explains a lot. Young people today take television far too seriously. But it does not change the fact that if you know what is going to happen you may try to change it, and that could be disastrous.'

‘Or I might change the future,' I sigh.

‘Exactly.'

I take another biscuit and eat it. This sucks. Eleanor knows exactly what's going to happen and I'm left to stumble around in the dark.

‘Do you at least know
when
it's going to happen?' I ask. ‘I mean, not just where I'm going, but when it happens in our time?'

‘Don't worry,' she says. ‘We have a little while yet before your next adventure. But we've a considerable amount of work to do, so we must get on.'

‘Not tonight, Nell, surely?' says Gran. ‘Look at the poor girl, she's in no fit state. What she needs is a decent meal and a good wash.'

‘Ooh, yeah! Can I have some fish fingers, Gran?'

‘Course you can, darling. With chips?'

My mouth is watering. ‘Ah Gran, you're the best!'

She laughs and gets on with the cooking while I run upstairs to May's old room, now a gleaming modern bathroom, and have a quick shower.

When I come down, I sit and watch her. I'm so happy to see Gran again. It was great to meet her when she was younger, and I'm going to miss May. But this is my Gran, and I love her. And Nel - er – Great-aunt Eleanor. Now I've known the Nelly that Gran grew up with, the old one isn't nearly as scary as I thought she was. It's dead easy to talk to her now, and we chat about what I've been doing over the past week.

‘What I don't understand,' I say to her, ‘is
why
it happened. I mean, it shouldn't be possible, should it? And why me? I'm nothing special. Just an ordinary teenager. And what about that suitcase? Where did that come from?'

‘Indeed. I have wondered about that myself. But that seems to be one mystery we aren't going to be able to solve. Whether the real Miss Smith sent her things on in advance and then met with an accident, I don't know. But no one ever claimed it.'

‘I suppose it's stuck in a time loop now. I find it here, it goes back to 1940 with me, I leave it there, you guys keep it, and I find it again years later.'

‘Mmm. Who knows?' Eleanor shrugs. ‘It was certainly a lucky coincidence that it did arrive.' She looks thoughtful. ‘Unless …'

‘Unless what?'

‘Oh, I don't know. Perhaps I should have asked Lil about it. I'm beginning to think that there's far more to this than we might imagine.'

‘And what does – did - Lil have to do with it?' I still can't get my head round the fact that it's not 1940 anymore.

‘I can't be sure, but I suspect you are not the first person in the McAllister family to have travelled through time.'

‘Seriously? Are you saying it's genetic or something?'

‘I have no proof, but Lil often became confused, and sometimes she mentioned incidents that didn't seem to relate to you. When I questioned Bill, he confirmed he had heard the same stories about family members, usually female, who claimed to have met their ancestors. He'd dismissed them as myths, assuming these women were hinting at clairvoyance or some such nonsense, as we all did. But after meeting you, of course, he began to think quite differently.'

No wonder Bill believed me. If Lil had been feeding him stories like that, what I told him would have made some weird sort of sense.

‘This is doing my head in,' I sigh, rubbing my eyes. ‘Does that mean I could come face to face with other time travellers, and we'll be related?'

‘Possibly. But maybe not. It will be interesting to find out.'

‘Well not tonight it won't' says Gran putting a plate of fish fingers, chips and beans in front of me. ‘Get that down you love. You've lost weight, ain't you? We'll soon get you sorted.'

‘Oh Gran, this is …' I try not to cry. No more spam fritters. No more corned beef hash. No more sterilised milk. ‘Fantastic. Bloody fantastic.'

She hands me a knife and fork and I dig in. Mmmm! It's soooo good.

‘And what about the fresh pot of tea you threatened us with?' Eleanor asks Gran. Before Gran can answer, she raises a hand to stop her. ‘No, I'll do it,' she says, standing up stiffly. ‘A woman could die of thirst waiting for a cup of tea in this house.'

I nearly choke on my chips. God, it's good to be home!

THE END

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