A MILLION ANGELS

I draw a million inky angels up and down her little arms and string them together with hearts.

“You have to blow them through the sky to your mum. Look,” I say, blowing the first one for her. “Watch them fly.”

And one by one the angels flutter from her arms and soar towards the sky. The little girl swallows and opens her eyes wide.

“They’re really going to find her?” she says.

“Really,” I say. “I promise. And they’re going to look after her too. They’re going to keep her safe. They’re going to bring her home.”

I begin working my way around the dining room. I draw a million inky angels and felt-tip pen hearts up and down all the kids’ arms. Everyone wants some, except Jess. She glares at me. She swoops her plastic glittery dolphins through the air. But I won’t let her stop me. I keep going and going and other kids start drawing too until we’re a frenzied army of blue biros. A battalion of red felt-tipped pens.

“You’re all crazy,” says Jess, “if you really think pathetic biro angels are going to help. It’s not a game our dads are playing, Jemima, they’re fighting a war!”

“But maybe if we draw enough of them,” I say, “and we all keep blowing them every day, it might help. Just imagine how many of them are flying through the sky right now. There must be a trillion at least. My dad told me about this thing called collective thought. It’s a powerful thing, Jess. It’s when lots of people are thinking hard about the same thing to try to make something happen. Maybe it’s a bit like when people pray for peace and stuff and for everyone to be saved. And you don’t know, it might just work because miracles do happen, you know.”

Jess raises her eyebrows and laughs.

“But they’re not flying, are they?” she says, staring at our arms. “They’re just pictures, Mima. Useless biro pictures.”

I swallow the lump in my throat, ignore her horrid words and turn back to the other kids.

“Don’t listen to Jess, listen to me. You have to keep blowing them,” I say. “Every single day and I promise all our dads and mums will come home safe. Everyone will come home alive.”

A shadow falls over my face.

“Jemima!” my mum shrieks, towering over me. “What on earth are you doing?”

The shrill and tinkling laughter clatters and smashes to the ground. Everyone’s sharp eyes and dazzling lips land on me.

“Look at them all,” she says, pointing to the inky octopus of arms. “It’ll take for ever to wash all that off, Jemima, and everyone has school in the morning.”

“I was only trying to help,” I say. “I thought it was a lovely idea.”

“It might be a lovely idea, sweetheart,” she sighs, “but it isn’t really helping, is it? Helping is being good and getting on with things.”

Later, when I’m alone in bed, the wind howls around the house. Hisses through the window frames, roars through the trees. Thunder growls in the distance again. Rumbling this way.

I creep out of bed and along the hall to Granny’s room. She’s propped up on a tower of pillows. She snores in her dreams. I slide under her cover, find a warm spot and snuggle down. I trace the angels on my arm with my finger and think about my mum. I wish she’d understand me more, like my dad does. He’d understand that I am trying to help. He’d understand that my angels are my way of getting on with things.

In the morning, when Mum’s busy in the kitchen, I creep into her room, open Dad’s wardrobe and climb inside. I burrow through the forest of fabric and snatch a deep noseful of his smell. I shut my eyes and he’s right here next to me, reaching out for my hand. I search for his, but all I find are the ghosts of empty jacket sleeves, the wood of the wardrobe that reminds me of coffins and dead soldiers on TV. The ghosts shudder through me like silk slipping over my skin. I reach up to the top shelf and pull down one of Dad’s berets, then I creep back to my room. I tuck my gas mask in my bag and shove my school shoes under the bed. I shout goodbye and head off towards the bus before Mum sees what I’m wearing.

I hate the school bus. Everyone huddles together in cosy little groups and I never know where to sit. I wish I could camouflage with the grey seats or turn myself into a window. Then everyone could sit on me or peer through me, but not see me. They could get cosy on me or draw hearts in my window mist and things like that.

I pull a notebook out of my bag and make myself look busy. Mrs Cassidy wants us to get all our presentation ideas on paper so we can tell the whole class what we’re planning before we do our research. I’m going to use Granny’s box because I can’t think of anything else to do it on. I want it to be all about Granny and Derek. I want to show people that war doesn’t only bomb things and kill people. War also breaks hearts. I want to make it sad and touching. I want my audience to cry.

Mrs Cassidy is going to love it. Granny’s going to love it. And if Derek isn’t dead I think he’ll love it too. That’s why I need to start my Bring Derek Home mission right away. Granny needs him like I need Dad and if I don’t bring them both back the war will have won and everyone will end up dying with a broken heart. And that would be too sad.

That is, of course, if I’m still at school by the end of term.

Part two of my Bring Dad Home mission is brewing nicely inside, but it doesn’t need writing on paper, it’s written on my heart.

At the very top of the first page I write END OF TERM PRESENTATION and underline it in red felt-tip pen. Then I write the word WAR, which makes the images from Dad’s war films dance about in my brain, and my tummy flips.

I stuff my notebook in my bag. I can’t bear to look at it any more. It’s the word ‘war’ I hate. It stings me. I stroke a little angel that’s peeping out from under my sleeve and blow it to Dad. I watch it flurry from my skin, shaking its wings. Fading from biro blue to a radiant flash of brilliant white, a blaze of pure beauty that swoops and soars towards the sky. It flies over the seas and the oceans. It sweeps through the clouds and the stars. It heads straight, like a dart, to the heat of the desert that’s frying under the sun.

Then I blow a million more and watch them settle all around him, guarding him, keeping him safe until my plan works out and I can bring him back home.

Jess bounces on the bus with a big smile.

“Hi,” she says, plonking herself next to me. “Have you heard from him yet?”

I shake my head.

“Neither have we. We’ve been watching the news though,” she says. “My mum’s eyes are practically glued to it. All sorts of terrible things are happening, Jemima. There’ve been bombs already! Mum says they really will be lucky if they make it home this time. Imagine! This might be it!”

She grips my arm.

“We might be on telly!”

I wish I could stand on the bus seat with a megaphone and shout, SHUT UP! I’d like to say it really, really loudly, just like that, so that everyone would hear. I’d like to take my socks off and stuff them in Jess’s mouth and say, SHUT UP, JESS. JUST STOP TALKING ABOUT SCARY STUFF, OK? SHUT UP! That would make me really happy. But I keep my mouth closed and flick a little tiny angel from my wrist towards the sky.

“Why are you wearing your dad’s beret?” she says. “Jemima, you are so weird. You do know that, don’t you? And if Mrs Bostock catches sight of you wearing those boots, or catches a glimpse of that angel mess up your arms, you’ll be in for the chop, I promise.”

“She can chop me up as fine as an onion,” I say. “See if I care. Being dead would be fine by me. At least I wouldn’t have to go to her stupid school any more. I don’t really care about anything, Jess, except getting my dad back home. And that’s the truth.”

I turn away from her and stare out at the rain. Everything is grey. Even the houses are sad. It is true. I don’t care about anything else but my dad and Derek and bringing them safely home.

“If you’re just going to be boring and stare out the window,” says Jess, leaping up, “I’m off.”

She bounces to the back of the bus and slides on to a seat next to Ned Cotsford. She giggles. I stare at the rain. Life would be so much easier if I were a raindrop. I’d just fall from the sky, dribble down a windowpane, swoosh down a drain and run off out to sea. I wouldn’t have to worry about making important things happen because I wouldn’t have a brain. I’d be a brain without the B, which means I’d just have to go with the flow. I’d just have to trust that I’d make it to the sea. But trusting takes too long. I’m going to make things happen soon.

At the next bus stop Tory Halligan and her flock of parrots get on. They huddle together, laughing and giggling. Jess bobs up, bounces over and points Tory Halligan to an empty seat near hers.

“Hello,” Tory smiles, as she passes me. “The Lieutenant Colonel’s daughter.” She stands up straight and salutes me, then spins round to salute Jess.

My face starts to burn. Jess bobs back down in her seat.

“H – Hi!” I stammer.

“Interesting hat you’re wearing today, Jemima,” she says. “Your wardrobe is always such a delight.”

My hand slides up to my dad’s green beret. If only she knew I had a gas mask in my bag. I know deep down that it’s a stupid thing to have, but I can’t help the fact that I like it.

Sameena rests her hand on Tory’s arm.

“Ssh, Tory,” she says. “Give them a break. You know, their dads have just gone, and—”

“I’m not doing anything!” shrieks Tory, breathing Coco Pop breath all over me. “I’m just saying that I like her hat and it’s true, I do. Nothing wrong with that! I’ve decided to do my end of term presentation on fashion and I was thinking I might get some advice from Jemima, that’s all.”