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 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,
“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,