The English Refugee: The Day It Happened Here

  THE ENGLISH REFUGEE

  Jonathan Pidduck

  Copyright 2015 Jonathan Pidduck

  Sometimes I worry that it was my fault that everything went so wrong. I haven't told anyone else that; it makes me feel really bad, just thinking it. All those people hungry, all those people dead. Maybe us, too, soon. I don't want people to hate me for starting it all. But as your eyes are shut, and you're not saying anything, it makes it easier to tell you.

  Life was pretty normal up until my dream. I went to school; I played on the swings and slides at the park (Ben thought I was getting too old for that, but Mum told me that she would have played on them too if her bottom wasn't too big!); I had a Happy Meal at McDonald's most Saturdays (Ben always had one as well, so maybe he wasn't as grown-up as he kept telling me). We were a normal family, living in a normal street, and we loved each other like normal people do, even though Mum and Dad argued so much near the end. Just like you and your family loved each other, I bet, before the bombs started falling.

  Ben told me once - when we were on the way back to Ramsgate - that he knew what was coming. It had been in the papers, he said. It had been on the News at Ten. But I'd never seen him read a paper in his life, and he went to bed at half past nine, so I think he might have just been trying to make himself look grown-up. It helped a little, though, thinking that maybe all this was going to happen, whether I'd had the dream or not. I don't know what I'd do if I found out it was all down to me.

  It was different from any dream I've ever had. When I've had bad dreams before, they were all about forgetting my words in a school play, not having any clothes on when I go out, losing Teddy (you can guess what Ben has to say about me still having Teddy at my age). But I'd never dreamt of people dying.

  I was standing outside my house, still in my pyjamas, with Teddy tucked under my arm. I have no idea why I was out there; that's what dreams are like I guess. I could see Mum and Dad and Ben walking along the road towards me, chatting away to each other, without a care in the word. But I just knew that something bad was going to happen. I called out to them, telling them to run away and hide.

  "What's up, Jack?" Dad called back. "What's wrong?"

  I didn't know. It was just a feeling, if you know what I mean. I shrugged. I still wanted them to run, but I just couldn't explain why, and I didn't want to look stupid.

  They carried on walking towards me.

  The feeling got worse.

  "Run!" I cried. "Run!"

  There was a plane overhead. There were lots of little sticks dropping from it, heading down towards the four of us. Bombs. They had to be bombs.

  I tried to call out again, but my voice wouldn't work. My legs wouldn't move either. I pointed up at the plane, praying that they would see the danger, that they would take cover and be safe. But they just kept walking towards me, smiling all the time.

  There was an explosion, a flash of light, but most of all there was a bang, a bang so loud that it woke me up. I'd never had sound in my dreams before, as far as I can remember, let alone a noise so loud enough to wake me up. That was weird. It made it all more real.

  I sat up in bed, shaking. I was sure that it wasn't just a dream, that one of my family - maybe all my family - was really dead. I looked over towards Ben's bed. He was sound asleep, and snoring a little. He was alright, but I still didn't know about Mum and Dad. He wouldn't be happy if I woke him up, so I left him alone. I thought (wrongly) that it was Monday, a school-night, and now he was at big-school he was always telling me that he needed his sleep because the stuff they did during the day was much harder than all the baby-stuff we still did at my school. But I needed to talk to someone. I needed someone to tell me that it was just a dream, and that everything would be fine by the morning.

  I decided to go and check on Mum and Dad, to make sure that they were alright. If they were fine, then I could go back to sleep. I would ask them to phone Nan in the morning, just in case anything had happened to her in Canterbury, and I would be a little worried about my friends until I had counted them all in at school, but if my family was okay then I could at least go back to sleep.

  I was just putting my dressing-gown on when the bombs fell for real.

  #

  The explosions came one after the other, really close together. On TV, in cartoons, you hear a whistle, gradually getting louder, and then a big bang. But this just seemed to be bang after bang after bang, like the beat in a song, only turned up really loud.

  "They're bombing us!" said Ben, suddenly awake.

  "I'm sorry," I told him, feeling like it was my fault. There had been no bombs before I'd dreamt them.

  "Under the bed," he said. "Quick."

  I wanted to go upstairs to my parents' bedroom. They'd know what to do, how to make it safe. Parents are good like that. But he said it again, and it didn't seem the right time for an argument, so I pulled enough toys out from under my bed to make room for an eight year old boy, and commando-crawled beneath it to keep him happy.

  There were footsteps on the stairs. Mum and Dad were on their way down. The bombs were getting louder. There was a crash as some badly-balanced books toppled off the top of our book-case on to the carpet. My Dr Seuss, I think, as Ben always puts his books away carefully.

  I could see Dad's bare-feet from under the bed. There was a click as he tried to turn on the light-switch, but it stayed dark.

  "Turn the light on," Mum told him. She sounded almost as worried as the time I'd fallen from the top of the slide in the pub play area when they were inside getting our food (which was pretty worried because they'd taken me to hospital for a check-up after that, although it turned out I was fine). "Turn the light on!"

  "What do you think I'm trying to do?" Dad replied. He sounded cross, as if this was her fault. Maybe she had had the same dreams as me.

  "They're gone," she wailed. "Look; their beds are empty. Where have they gone?"

  "We're here," I called to her, to let her know I was okay, wanting to look after her so she could look after me. I crawled out from beneath the bed. She had me in her arms before I was even standing up. As she hugged me, I could see Ben wriggling out from beneath his bed, too. I was better at crawling than him, so I got out first.

  The bombs were still falling. I wondered why. Ramsgate is not a big town. It wouldn't take long to bomb. We must have been the only house still standing by now.

  "Stand under the door frame," Dad told us.

  "Isn't that for earthquakes?" Mum worried.

  "What does it effing matter?" (He didn't say "effing", you understand. He said the swear-word which I'm not supposed to know, let alone to use. They must think I'm deaf since I've lost count of the number of times they mutter it under their breath or say it when they're sitting in the front seats of the car with us in the back. But it's a rude word all the same, so I'll just say "effing" if that's okay).

  "There's no need to swear at me. I was just asking."

  Dad and Ben stood under the door frame of our bedroom. There was just about enough room for me and Mum to squeeze in as well.

  There were the loudest bangs yet, four or five of them, and the whole room shook. I had a picture of Taylor Swift on the wall, taken when she was much younger than she is now (back in her early days, when she was still in her twenties). It wasn't mine, but it was above my bed as Ben had run out of space for it on his wall. It shook loose, falling on to my pillow near where my head had been. Mum started crying. I squeezed her hand and told her everything was going to be alright, which made her cry all the more. She told me that I was her brave little soldier, which made me cringe in front of Ben (because I knew he'd say it back to me
, in her voice, later on).

  The room was brighter now. It was lighter outside, as if morning had come early.

  I needed the toilet, but I didn't think it would be a good time to ask.

  And then it went quiet, all except for a car-alarm which was going off outside.

  "Is that mine?" Dad asked.

  Mum laughed, as if the question was stupid.

  "What?" he asked.

  She ignored him. "Are you guys okay?"

  I nodded. "Can I go to the toilet?"

  She nodded, too.

  "Will they be back, Dad?" Ben asked. "Do we need to hide somewhere?"

  I decided to wait around to see what the answer was. I shuffled out from beneath the door-frame, though, as it was a bit crowded under there, and I like to have a bit of space.

  Dad looked at Ben for a while, and then at Mum. He started to say something, but then changed his mind and just smiled instead. "No," he told him. "It's all over now. It's all over."

  It wasn't, of course. It was just the start.

  #

  I get that I'm young, but it seems that whenever something bad happens my parents start treating me like a little baby. Especially Mum. She followed me to the toilet and insisted on standing right outside the door while I was in there, calling out to me from time to time that she was still there. The lights were still broken (I'd pulled the chord but nothing had happened), so it was kind of nice in a way, but I knew that Ben would tease me later. I was half expecting him to start straightaway, but when I went back out on to the landing he asked me if I was okay, which surprised me as usually he's not very nice to me at all. I told him it would take more than a few bombs to scare me, and he laughed (which surprised me as well, as it wasn't really meant to be a joke).

  Dad was gone. The car-alarm stopped, so I guessed he was outside. Mum was tidying up our room, putting the books back on to the book case in alphabetical order of writer (she does that to keep Dad happy, as he likes everything to be in alphabetical order except breakfast cereal boxes). Ben went to help her, as he likes it tidy, too.

  I went down the stairs so Dad wouldn't have to be alone. The door was wide open. It didn't look as dark out there as I thought it would be. I thought that maybe it must have been nearly morning.

  He was standing on the driveway by our car, the keys still in his hand, staring down the street. I looked where he was looking. Halfway down the road, three or four of the houses had gone. Just gone. Where they had stood, there was nothing but a pile of smoking bricks. The houses on either side had lost part of their fronts; the bricks were all jagged, like a half-finished jigsaw. The one on the right, the one nearest to us, was on fire, which was why it was lighter than it should have been at that time of the morning.

  I saw something blowing down the street to us. I was going over to pick it up, but Dad took hold of the arm of my dressing-gown to keep me by his side. I watched it as it blew past our house. It was a bill or something, like Dad gets for the electricity (even after all these years, he won't let Mum get them online like everyone else does). I wanted to go and get it, to take it back to where it belonged. But Dad kept hold of me, and I stayed where I was.

  More pieces of paper blew by. Pages from a newspaper, I think, or a magazine.

  Dad looked at me. He smiled (one of those brave smiles that grown-ups give to cheer you up when you're sad). "You were very brave up there," he said. "I was proud of you."

  I smiled back. I shrugged as if it was nothing. Being brave was easier when your parents are there to look after you. I know that now.

  #

  Dad was the first to notice that I was on fire. Well, I say on fire; it was really just little spots of orange on my dressing gown from sparks which had floated down from further along the road. He put them out with his hands without burning them, which was cool. He must have had harder hands than me.

  Mum came out. "What are you doing out here?" She sounded cross, as if she had caught us skiving off. I hurried back indoors. Dad came in too, without answering her. They had been like this for weeks, always snapping at each other, always angry, and I couldn't understand why. We have always been a really close family, always cuddling and stuff (except for Ben, who says he's too old for that, and that I should be, too, so I only let them cuddle me when we were indoors and no-one could see us). But just lately, all that had changed. I guess that they must have known about the bombing before it happened, and been worrying about that. I hoped so, as that would mean that the bombs would have come whether I'd dreamt about them or not. I also hoped that now it was all over, now the bombs had fallen and were out of the way, everything could go back to normal, as they were starting to worry me. It didn't seem that they liked each other much anymore.

  "Half the street's gone," Dad told her when we were back indoors.

  "Do you think it's everywhere? Not just here?"

  He shrugged. "I guess so. I can't see why we'd be singled out. There's nothing here."

  "What about Mum?" she asked, (she meant Nan). "She's on her own."

  "Call her. I'm gonna get dressed and go up the road; see if there's anything I can do to help."

  "No. We need you here. With your family."

  He laughed, as if she had said something funny. She glared at him, but said nothing. She went into the living room, over to where we keep the phone. She had her back to me, but I could tell she was dialling because I could hear it. Dad tried to turn the lights on for her, but there was no power down there either. He went to fetch a torch to check the fuse-box.

  Ben came down. "What's going on? I can see fire down the road."

  "Mum's phoning Nan to check she's okay."

  Mum turned round to look at us, the phone to her ear. We caught her looking worried. She gave us both one of her brave smiles, like Dad had given me outside. Grown-ups do that quite a lot. "Just checking that your Nan's alright. I'm sure she will be."

  "I've told Ben that already."

  She turned her back on us again, as if they would stop us from hearing what she was going to say to Nan. She wasn't saying anything yet, though. Nan couldn't have answered.

  There was a clicking sound behind us as Dad tried the switches in the fuse-box in the cupboard under the stairs. Ben went to watch. He likes that sort of thing, because it's what dads do. The lights stayed off.

  "Come on, come on," Mum was muttering under her breath. "Pick up, Mum."

  Dad and Ben came back into the living room. Dad started searching round for the remote control for the telly (Dad and Ben always put it back where it belongs, but the Mum and me leave it wherever we happen to be when we last use it, which drives Dad mad as one of us lost it for three days once and it turned up on the bookcase in my room). So it's hard enough to find the remote in the daylight, but it was even harder when the room was still quite dark. I found it for him, tucked down the side of a cushion on the sofa where Mum sits.

  Mum stared as if he was mad when she saw the remote control in his hand. "You're not going to watch the telly when I'm trying to phone my Mum?"

  "I need to check the news. Find out what's going on."

  She humphed, and turned her back again. I was starting to get a bit upset. We'd just been bombed. I needed them to make me feel safe again. I didn't want them to start arguing.

  Dad held out the remote in front of him and pressed the on-button at the top. Nothing happened. He crooked his arm a little, holding the remote like maniacs hold guns in films when they're about to shoot someone at close range (yes, I know I shouldn't be watching those sort of films, but we're allowed to stay up late at Christmas, and my friend George at school tells me all about them anyway as he says that his Dad lets him watch them whenever he wants, even the ones with kissing and stuff). That didn't work either. He walked towards the telly, standing just a few feet away, and tried again and again. Still nothing. It was broken, like the lights.

  He threw the remote across the room. It bounced off a wall and came to a rest on the dining table. I started cry
ing. I didn't like it when he got cross.

  Ben took me by my hand and led me back upstairs. "Let's go back to bed. It'll be alright in the morning."

  "Stay here," Mum said, her ear still pressed to the telephone. "I want you both where I can see you."

  "They're fine upstairs for now," Dad overruled her. "Go on, up you go. I'll be up in a second."

  He closed the door behind us as we left the room. He had stuff to talk to Mum about which he didn't want us to hear. It was dark upstairs. I wasn't afraid of the dark; I've had the light off in my room for as long as I can remember, because Ben can't sleep if there's any light at all. All the same, I was glad he was there to keep me company.

  The door downstairs opened again when we were halfway up. It was Dad. "Ben, could you see if your i-pad's working, please?"

  Ben scurried upstairs, glad of something to do. I scurried straight after him, just in case he needed help. Behind me, I could hear Mum putting the phone down. She hadn't got through to Nan.

  For the first time, I started to worry that this might not be over after all.

  #

  Ben's i-pad worked, but we couldn't get on the internet with it, so when Dad came up he asked us to turn it off again.

  Mum passed our bedroom door on her way back to her bedroom. "Pack an overnight bag," she told us. "We're going to see if your Nan's okay."

  "We don't need an overnight bag to go to Nan's," Ben pointed out. "She's only in Canterbury."

  Dad insisted. "I don't know what it's going to be like on the roads. It might take longer than usual. Best to take a bag, just in case we have to stay there tonight. I'm gonna pack some food to take with us, too. Either of you want to help me?"

  We both nodded, but Dad wanted one of us to keep Mum company, and Ben chose me for that. So I followed her upstairs while Ben and Dad went downstairs to the kitchen to make some sandwiches.

  Mum was looking for her overnight bag. She hadn't used it for years. She knew it was in a cupboard in her bedroom, but she couldn't find it. I told her I would look for it while she sorted out a change of clothes for us. She hugged me tightly, as if I was doing something brave, but it was just a bag.