Searching for Shona (3 page)

Shona had moved ahead and was already back to the place where they’d left their luggage. Running to catch up, Marjorie said breathlessly, “I don’t think it will work, Shona. The teachers will know I shouldn’t be there, and this Matron you spoke about, won’t she spot me?”

“She’s going with the wee ones from St. Anne’s,” answered Shona. “She’s not even going to the same town. Us older ones are being evacuated with Preston Primary School, and Miss Watson, one of the teachers, is in charge. I’ve never had her, so you’re all right there. We’ve got partners and mine’s Anna Ray. She won’t tell on you, but I promised Matron that I would look out for her.”

“What do you mean—look out for her?” Marjorie asked.

“She’s a bit—well—not too bright, and Matron said I was to look after her. She’ll find it hard living in someone else’s house. You’d better go now—they’re moving.”

But Marjorie had one last thought. “How will we change back?” she asked.

“I’ll work that out,” Shona said, giving Marjorie a push. “After the war—in Holyrood Park.”

Marjorie picked up Shona’s small cardboard suitcase, which was unexpectedly heavy, and walked off down the platform without looking back. She told herself that if she could just stay hidden among these school children until the next day, then the boat would sail to Canada without her. Beyond that, she wasn’t going to think.

Anna Ray. Anna Ray. Marjorie scanned the labels on the children’s coats, searching for the girl who was to be her partner. A small, forlorn child, with short black hair and dark eyes, was standing beside a porter’s trolley. Older children were jostling for a place to sit on the trolley while they waited, but the little girl paid no attention to them. Even before Marjorie could read the label on her coat, she was sure this must be Anna, and when she got close to her, she found she was right.

“Anna,” she said softly. “I’m going with you instead of Shona. We’re going to be partners.”

Anna looked at Marjorie with round frightened eyes and then reached out and touched the red coat.

“I want Shona,” she said.

“I’m going instead. You can call me Shona.”

But Anna drew back, her lower lip trembled, and then she began to cry. Marjorie would have turned back to look for Shona right then had not one of the teachers in charge announce that all the children in Miss Watson’s group were to board the train. Marjorie and Anna were engulfed by the noisy, excited crowd of boys and girls.

They found seats together in an overcrowded compartment. The other children were much too excited to care that Marjorie didn’t belong with them. She quickly slipped off her coat and folded it carefully so that the name pinned to it didn’t show.

When the train started with a jerk, the children responded with a wild cheer, but even before they were out of the station, it stopped again, and there was a long delay. Marjorie wondered nervously why they were waiting. Was Miss Watson checking to see that she had all the children in her group? Anna was still sobbing. Marjorie could think of nothing comforting to say, and the other children in the compartment paid no attention to her.

When the train finally started again, everyone was more subdued. Some were already eating the sandwiches and bars of chocolate they had brought along to eat on the journey, and Anna brightened up at the prospect of food. She rubbed away her tears with the back of her hand, leaving her face streaked with dirt. Then she pulled a paper bag from her pocket and took out a squashed jam sandwich.

Marjorie felt in the pocket of Shona’s coat, wondering if she, too, had some lunch. Anna watched with her round dark eyes and then said, “Shona ate hers already. Before we left.”

It didn’t really matter, Marjorie told herself. She wasn’t the least bit hungry. She stared out of the window, as towns, villages, fields, and farms passed in a blur. What was going to happen when they found out she wasn’t Shona? She tried to imagine how Shona was feeling, but she had the suspicion that Shona was probably quite unconcerned and might even be enjoying herself. After all, Shona had managed to miss school four days last week without being caught.

“Where is Shona?” Anna asked in a low voice, pulling at Marjorie’s sleeve to attract her attention.

“We’ve changed places,” Marjorie said. “So now I’m Shona.”

The words echoed in Marjorie’s mind. She looked down at the unfamiliar clothes—the unpressed gray skirt, the matted jersey, the faded red coat folded over her lap so that the ripped lining was exposed. Did these make her Shona?

“Matron said Shona had to stay with me,” Anna said in her small, persistent voice.

“I’ll stay with you,” promised Marjorie, and Anna gave her a watery smile.

When it began to get dark outside, a conductor came along snapping down the window blinds, leaving the carriage lit only by the faint glow of dim blue light bulbs. The faces of the other children stood out as pale ovals and everything else merged into darkness.

Then the train stopped at a small station, and Marjorie heard a porter call out in a singsong voice, “Canonbie! Canonbie! Everybody for Canonbie!”

Where had she heard that name recently
, Marjorie wondered. Before she could place it, Miss Watson came along telling them in an agitated voice that this was their stop.

There was a mad scramble for coats and suitcases. Anna began to cry because she’d lost her gas mask and wouldn’t get out of the train without it. All the other children had climbed down onto the platform, and Marjorie was panic-stricken in case the train started before they got out. She groped under the seat and at last felt the square box. Jerking it out, she handed it to Anna.

“Put the strap over your shoulder and hurry up!” she said. “We don’t want to be left behind.”

The station, like the train, was lit only by eerie blue light bulbs, giving the place an unreal, dreamlike quality. Even the boldest boys crowded around Miss Watson, intimidated by the strangeness of their surroundings.

They were led down the street to a bare church hall where a square woman with a deep voice told them she was Mrs. Brown, the billeting officer, and that she would assign them to their families. She gestured toward a crowd of people, standing around drinking tea from thick white cups, who had watched them come in.

All this time Anna was holding Marjorie’s hand tightly. Marjorie looked down at her and saw that her nose was running and her face was streaked with tears. The pocket of her coat was torn and her shoe lace untied. Had there been a mirror in the hall, Marjorie would have seen that she didn’t look much better herself. Her too-small coat made her appear gawky and overgrown, and her hair stuck out from under her beret in uneven tufts.

“Shona McInnes,” Mrs. Brown’s voice boomed out.

Marjorie walked shakily forward, Anna still clinging to her hand.

“Is this your sister?” the billeting officer asked.

“No, ma’am,” whispered Marjorie.

“Only sisters and brothers can request a home together—not friends.”

“Shona was to look out for me,” Anna said, starting to cry again. “Matron said Shona was to stay with me.”

“Oh, you’re from the orphanage,” the woman said, running her pencil down the list. “What’s your name?”

“Anna Ray.”

“We’ll send you both to the Miss Campbells then.” She raised her voice and shouted, “Miss Campbell, I’ve got two little girls here for you—if you’ll just come over to this table and sign the papers.”

A small, thin lady with brown hair and round glasses came forward to the table and looked at the two girls cautiously. Anna stopped crying and looked timidly up at Miss Campbell.

“My sister … my sister said not to get girls who wouldn’t be old enough to do for themselves. We’re often busy … with the shop, you know.” Miss Campbell spoke in a nervous, apologetic voice, rather as if she didn’t expect Mrs. Brown to listen to her and that is, in fact, what happened.

“We can’t have exactly what we want, not with a war on,” Mrs. Brown said brusquely, and pushed forward some papers for Miss Campbell to sign. With one last nervous glance at Anna, Miss Campbell wrote her name and then told the girls to come along with her.

“Is this all you brought?” she asked, looking at their small suitcases.

“Yes, Miss Campbell,” said Marjorie.

“I’ll take yours,” Miss Campbell said, reaching for Anna’s case.

It was very dark outside. Apparently the Canonbie blackout was strictly enforced because no lights showed anywhere. Miss Campbell switched on a small flashlight and the girls stayed close beside her, trying to walk in the dancing pool of light that shone dimly ahead of them. At last, they turned into a small gate, and Marjorie stumbled over a step.

“We’ll go through to the kitchen, and I’ll get you girls a bite to eat,” Miss Campbell said, ushering the girls inside. “My sister is still at the shop—all these new regulations and forms to sign with the war.”

She raked the fire to life and put on a kettle and then set the table, all the time talking nervously. Luckily, she didn’t seem to expect an answer because Anna was too shy to speak and Marjorie too preoccupied.

When tea was ready, she told the girls to pull up chairs to the table. Anna ate hungrily, but Marjorie was unable to swallow anything.

“Oh, dear!” Miss Campbell said, shaking her head. “I hope you’re not a picky eater. My sister doesn’t like picky eaters.”

“I’m just too tired to eat,” Marjorie mumbled.

Glancing at the clock, Miss Campbell said, “It might be a good idea for you to have a quick bath and get into bed. You can meet my sister in the morning when you’re cleaned up a bit.”

Then she added hesitantly, as if she couldn’t quite believe that their grubbiness had all been accumulated in only a few hours’ train journey, “They did have baths in that place you lived in, did they?”

“Of course,” Marjorie said, and then stopped abruptly when Anna broke in saying, “You weren’t there!”

“I’ll show you to your room,” Miss Campbell said, not understanding Anna’s remark. “I’ll help you with your bath—we can’t use too much water, you know.”

Miss Campbell led Anna and Marjorie upstairs to a large front room. There were two single beds, and the thick blackout curtains were firmly in place.

“You find your nighties while I run your bath.”

Marjorie laid Shona’s suitcase on the bed and opened it, looking with dismay at the meager assortment of clothes that were now hers. She had never set much store by clothes, but then she had never thought there were girls whose entire wardrobe consisted of three jerseys, two skirts, a ragged change of underwear, an extra pair of socks, and a short flannel nightgown.

There was, however, something else in the suitcase.

Taking up the whole bottom of the case was a painting in a narrow wooden frame. Marjorie was puzzled that Shona, who had so few possessions, would bring a painting along with her. She lifted it out of the suitcase and carried it over directly under the light where she could see it better. It showed a Victorian house, rather ornate and turreted, standing in the middle of an overgrown garden. The windows were blank and empty and, in the foreground, iron gates hung open, bent and rusted. The big stone gateposts leaned at drunken angles, and a decorative stone ball had fallen from the top of one. It lay among the weeds, chipped and shadowed so that it looked like a skull.

Marjorie stared at the picture, and Anna, who had crept up beside her, said, “That’s Shona’s house. She’s going to find it some day.”

Of course! Shona had mentioned a painting that very first day when they talked together in the park. What was it she’d said? That it held a clue to her past. And then Marjorie remembered where she had heard the name Canonbie before. It was where Shona’s mother came from—the place Shona was some day going to find.

Poor Shona! She would never have changed places with Marjorie had she known they were being sent to Canonbie. Marjorie felt guiltier about that than about cheating Uncle Fergus and Mrs. Kilpatrick.

When they heard Miss Campbell’s footsteps coming from the bathroom, Marjorie hurriedly pushed the picture under the bed.

Chapter 3

Canonbie Primary School

Marjorie was awakened the next morning by a light tap on the bedroom door and a voice saying, “It’s time to get ready for school!”

For a brief moment she thought she was at home on Willowbrae Road and that it was Mrs. Kilpatrick’s voice, and then the events of the previous day flooded her mind. What had possessed her to do such a terrible thing? What would happen when she turned up at school today, saying she was Shona McInnes, when most of the other evacuee children knew she wasn’t? Could she tell them about the switch, as she had told Anna? They would probably just tell the teacher and then there would be a terrible row. The teacher would phone Mrs. Kilpatrick and maybe even Uncle Fergus. Marjorie couldn’t imagine what would happen then. She shrank farther down under the covers at the very thought of the commotion she was going to cause.

How was Shona managing, Marjorie wondered. At least
she
was among complete strangers, so had less chance of being discovered. But Marjorie had the feeling that Shona would be able to cope with any situation she found herself in. Other children would always be on her side.

A muffled sound told her that Anna was awake. Reluctantly, Marjorie climbed out of bed. The uncarpeted floor was cold on her feet as she made her way across the room to open the thick blackout curtains. When she drew them back, she saw that Anna was lying huddled on the bed, crying.

“I don’t want to go to school,” she said.

“Neither do I,” answered Marjorie. “But we have to.”

“Shona didn’t—she played in the park. She was going to take me with her this week.”

“We don’t know where any parks are around here,” Marjorie said.

“Shona would have found one,” said Anna with a sniff.

Marjorie turned away and opened Shona’s little suitcase and pulled out a faded tartan skirt and much-washed yellow jersey. With a pang of regret, she remembered her own tartan kilt, the pleats carefully pressed by Mrs. Kilpatrick, and the white silk blouse she always wore with it. Anna finally crawled out of bed and pulled on the same blue skirt and jersey she’d worn the day before.