The Sky is Falling by Kit Pearson Read Free Book Online

someone seven years old. “We aren’t going to see our mothers and fathers for a long, long time, not until the war is over.”
    â€œOf course he knows,” snapped Norah. “Clean yourteeth, Gavin.” She tried to find their toothbrushes in the clutter.
    But Gavin just sat on his bunk looking stunned. He fingered his elephant. “Creature said they would be on the ship,” he whispered.
    â€œWell, they aren’t.” He continued to sit passively, so Norah undressed him, put on his pyjamas and tried to tuck him into his bed.
    â€œI want to sleep with you,” said Gavin in a small voice.
    Norah tried to control her irritation. “Oh, all right.” It was difficult to find enough room for both of them in the narrow space, but finally they slept.
    Norah woke up with a start a few hours later. Where was she? Her bed was vibrating and there was a low, humming sound. Then she remembered and moved her leg from under Gavin’s. She brushed across a cold, wet patch.
    â€œGavin!” Norah sat up and shook him angrily. “Look what you’ve done!” She made him get up and stand shivering on the cabin floor while she stripped the sheets and covered the damp mattress with blankets.
    â€œGavin wet the be-ed, Gavin wet the be-ed,” crowed Lucy in the morning. “He’s a baby .”
    He did it every night. Because he insisted on sleeping with Norah, she made him curl up at the other end of the bed, but she still woke up every morning to the wetness. Miss Montague-Scott helped her rinse out the sheet and his pyjama bottoms every morning in the tiny sink, butthey never dried properly and she could never get it all out. Soon there was a perpetual sharp odour in the cabin, and Norah spent as much time as she could away from it.
    Gavin followed her around like a lost puppy. After Norah had pulled his grey balaclava helmet over his head on the first windy day, he refused to take it off. He wore it to meals and even to bed. It made his round blue eyes look even larger and more frightened. He had become strangely silent and didn’t even talk to Creature. Norah knew she should soothe him, but what could she say? She couldn’t tell him they’d see their parents soon—they wouldn’t. She couldn’t think of anything comforting about Canada to offer him. And she couldn’t help nagging him to stop being so babyish.
    Then she got a reprieve. On the third day at sea, she and Gavin sneaked up to the upper-class decks. The government-sponsored children were supposed to stay below, but no one noticed if they didn’t. Many of the children above were under five and several had mothers, nannies and other adults travelling with them. Norah found a place to sit beside a friendly looking mother with a baby in a carry-cot beside her.
    â€œHello, you two.” She smiled at Gavin. “Aren’t you hot in that hat?”
    Gavin shook his head, but he took out Creature for the first time since they’d boarded and held him up to the woman.
    â€œWhat a very nice elephant. What do you call him?”
    â€œCreature,” whispered Gavin.
    The woman laughed. “That’s an unusual name. Where does it come from?”
    Norah explained how Gavin had named the elephant after the line in the Sunday school hymn: “All Creatures Great and Small.”
    â€œHe’s very small for an elephant, you see,” said Gavin. “What’s your name?”
    â€œMrs. Pym. And this is my little boy, Timothy. We’re going to Montreal to live with Timothy’s grandparents.”
    After that, Gavin spent all his time trailing after Mrs. Pym. She didn’t seem to mind; she even took him into meals with her and came down to kiss him good-night every evening. Norah felt vaguely guilty about abandoning him, but he seemed much happier with Mrs. Pym than he was with her.
    Now that she was free of Gavin, she longed to spend the whole of each day