Kezzie at War Read online

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  BOOK I: KEZZIE

  BOOK II: A HOMECOMING FOR KEZZIE

  About the Author

  Also by Theresa Breslin

  Copyright

  About the Book

  Kezzie’s life changes for ever when a mining accident tears her village apart. Struggling to hold her family together, she takes solace in her dreams of becoming a doctor, and in her growing friendship with a handsome young Irish boy, Michael. But then her little sister disappears – and Kezzie must abandon everything in her search for Lucy.

  Through poverty, homelessness and the threat of war, Kezzie fights bravely on, and her spirit and kind heart have always seen her through. But will her family be reunited? Can they survive the terrors of the Blitz? And will she ever see Michael again?

  BOOK I: KEZZIE

  For Agnes McCall

  ‘Aunt Agnes’

  with much love

  BOOK I: KEZZIE

  Dedication

  PART ONE: SCOTLAND

  Chapter 1: Canal trip

  Chapter 2: Aunt Bella

  Chapter 3: The silver locket

  Chapter 4: Disaster

  Chapter 5: Eviction

  Chapter 6: The bothy

  Chapter 7: Potato harvest

  Chapter 8: Michael’s farewell

  Chapter 9: The rag doll

  Chapter 10: The pit boots

  Chapter 11: Starvation

  Chapter 12: Matt McPhee

  Chapter 13: Kezzie plays a trick

  Chapter 14: A trip to the seaside

  Chapter 15: The royal connection

  Chapter 16: The accident

  Chapter 17: Where is Lucy?

  PART TWO: CANADA

  Chapter 18: A game of chess

  Chapter 19: Lucy arrives in Canada

  Chapter 20: William’s accident

  Chapter 21: Niagara Falls

  Chapter 22: On the train

  Chapter 23: Jane Smith

  Chapter 24: The rag doll

  Chapter 25: The farmstead

  Chapter 26: Papers

  Chapter 27: The doctor’s house

  Chapter 28: Jack

  Chapter 29: Christmas

  Chapter 30: A letter from home

  PART ONE

  Scotland

  CHAPTER 1

  Canal trip

  ‘RUN, KEZZIE, RUN!’

  Kezzie could hear her little sister’s shrill voice as she rounded the last curve on the field and saw ahead of her the rope, held at either end by the minister and the Sunday school teacher. Her bare feet thudded on the grass, dry after many sunny summer weeks.

  Peg McKinnon, on her right, was still in front and running fast, her long plaits dancing at her back. Could she catch her? This would be her last year to run in the annual race. When the school returned after the holidays she would be a senior and much too dignified for this. Kezzie’s long brown hair flew out behind her. She was aware her ribbon was loose, her yellow ribbon which her father had tied in her hair that morning. Oh! How she would love to win, and beat the long-legged Peg just this once!

  John Munro, a tall good-looking man of about forty, stood with a group of fellow miners fifty yards short of the finishing line. They were holding back the rest of the younger children who would otherwise have crowded on to the track.

  ‘My money’s on the tall one with the print frock,’ said the colliery foreman.

  John Munro shook his head.

  ‘The lassie with the yellow ribbon,’ he said.

  And, as his daughter drew level with him, he shouted, ‘Now, lass, now!’

  Kezzie heard her father’s voice beside her and she thrust herself forwards. Head back, power surging in her body, she flung herself at the finishing line.

  ‘Yeeees!’ Lucy was there, grabbing her legs, the end of her skirt, anywhere, with her little fists. ‘I knew you’d win, Kissy. I just knew you’d win. I said so. I told everybody. Didn’t I, Daddy?’ She held her hands outstretched as her father approached and he gathered her up and swung her across his back.

  John Munro looked at his eldest daughter.

  ‘We all knew,’ he said quietly. He put his hands on Kezzie’s shoulders. ‘Hold still, now, while I fix your ribbon.’ And he retied the bright yellow silk among the long brown curls.

  They came home with all the rest down the canal in the coal scows, which had been scrubbed out by the carters and decorated for the occasion. The ponderous Clydesdale horses, beribboned and tasselled, made their way along the towpath. There would be a prize for the best decorated! Aunt Bella’s husband always won. He spent long hours pleating and combing the horse’s mane, intertwining lace, coloured wool and ribbon among the heavy glossy hair. One year he had even got Bella to knit the horse ear muffs! A purple plume nodded on its forehead. Bells and brasses, polished and shining, hesitated, then swung on, as they opened the bridge at Auchinmarloch. In the gathering dusk the scows glided through towards Stonevale and home.

  ‘This has been the best ever,’ said Lucy as she snuggled into her father’s jacket. ‘Hasn’t it?’

  John Munro glanced at Kezzie.

  ‘What do you say?’ he asked.

  Kezzie smiled back. She loved the annual treat. The trip along the water away from the village and the grim grey houses of the next town of Shawcross, then out to the country. Tinnie round their necks, the children lined up for their lemonade, their bun, biscuit and rock cake. And then the competitions! Well, she had her prize, her pencil and book and her dad’s team had won the tug-of-war, and Grandad … She glanced behind her. Old John Munro was having a great day too. Sitting in the back, a big slab of a man still, despite his white hair and moustache, red kerchief knotted at the neck of his collarless shirt, cap pushed to the back of his head, he was arguing, as always, with his friends.

  ‘Nationalisation,’ she heard him say. ‘It’s the only thing if mines are going to be modernised. The owners will never put money in for new machinery. We’re years behind Europe. We’re relying on the same wooden props that my father made; they’ve got conveyor belts and we’re still using the ponies.’

  ‘Well,’ said another old miner sarcastically. ‘If ye keep yer safety levels low it saves ye payin’ off if there’s a slump. We’re in 1937 and there’s thirty miners injured an hour. Nae compensation, a tied hoose and some still paid by piece rates. Ye canna win.’

  ‘Amn’t I the one who knows about no compensation?’ said Kezzie’s grandad indicating his crippled leg. Her grandad had been retired early from his job as a skilled engineer after an accident. ‘That’s why the pits should be nationalised,’ he insisted, ‘and, we will win. They tried to break our backs in 1926 in the General Strike.’

  ‘Aye and did it too,’ said one of the other men bitterly.

  There was a silence.

  ‘It’s the Jarrow men I feel sorry for. There’s nothing there for them.’

  ‘Now there was a piece of chicanery, if ever there was,’ said Kezzie’s grandad. ‘That’s a classic case of owners looking after themselves. Palmer’s Yard in Jarrow was bought out by a group of other shipbuilders and then to keep their monopoly they deliberately closed that yard down. An’ I’ll tell you what the President of the Board of Trade said to one group of marchers after the march to London, “Go back to Jarrow and work out your own salvation.” And that’s where they are yet. On the dole.’

  Kezzie knew her grandad had been on one of the hunger marches to London and still got upset when he spoke about it. The marches hadn’t seemed to affect the thinking of those in power, though she had been told that all the way down the long road south people from villages and towns, some of them very poor themselves
, had come out to give the men food and shelter. Already on Tyneside this decade was beginning to be known as the ‘Hungry Thirties’.

  ‘Trade’s picking up slowly,’ said another miner, ‘if the appeasement policy wins through and there’s no war with Germany and Italy we can progress internationally.’

  ‘Appeasement,’ snorted Kezzie’s grandad. ‘You don’t appease bullies like Adolf Hitler and Mussolini.’

  ‘Come on, Dad,’ said Kezzie’s father.

  The boat was tying up and already some of the windows were lit in the miners’ rows.

  Kezzie’s father took Grandad by his sleeve. ‘Time to go home now.’

  CHAPTER 2

  Aunt Bella

  ‘HOW DO YOU spell “Kissy”?’ Lucy asked on their way home from school one day a few weeks later.

  ‘“Kezzie.” How many times do I have to tell you?’ laughed Kezzie. ‘You’re nearly six now, you should be able to say my name properly. K-E-Z-Z-I-E. Why do you want to know?’

  ‘It’s a surprise,’ said Lucy. ‘You’ve not to know about the cake.’

  ‘What cake?’

  Lucy put her hand to her mouth. ‘You weren’t to know,’ she wailed.

  ‘Know what?’ asked Kezzie.

  ‘Well, it’s a secret,’ said Lucy, ‘but if you promise not to tell …’

  ‘But it’s me that’s not to know,’ Kezzie giggled. She regarded her little sister gravely. ‘Can’t you keep a secret?’

  ‘I don’t want to,’ said Lucy, ‘not from you. Grandad and I are making a cake for your birthday. It’s going to have icing and your name on it. We’re going to make it when you go to see the headmaster with Daddy, and then we’ll hide it and it’ll be a surprise for your birthday tomorrow.’

  Kezzie shook her head and laughed as Lucy skipped on ahead past the washhouses to play with her friends. Kezzie went on to their house at the end of the row. Her grandad was sitting at the door in the sun peeling potatoes.

  ‘Aye, lass,’ he acknowledged as she went indoors.

  Kezzie had always thought of herself as lucky. Being at the end of the row their house had three rooms compared to the others with only two or even one. They had space to live with each other, some plain but serviceable furniture and pretty net curtains at the window. She placed her books on the dresser and put on the cross-over flowery pinny, which had belonged to her mother. Then she set the big kettle of water to boil on the fire. She dragged the tin bath out from under the recess bed and put a towel and soap on the little stool, ready for her dad coming off his shift at two. She took his shifting clothes from the cupboard and hung them on the clothes horse to air, catching sight of the photograph of her mother on the mantelpiece. She was said to resemble her mother, tall, with brown eyes and hair. Kezzie couldn’t properly recall her, just remembered a special loving smell and someone singing when she was little.

  Yes, they were luckier than most. Her father had never dropped a shift and with the money her grandad made doing odd jobs on a nearby farm they managed quite well. Well enough for her father to be able to let her stay on at school. Not so Peg, her great running rival, who had not returned after the summer holidays. Her parents didn’t think it was worthwhile for girls to be educated. Peggie was now working as a maid in one of the big houses along the main road and Kezzie saw her on her day off each month. She said she liked it fine and she got to keep a few pennies of her ‘own money’ and she acted so grown up, but Kezzie knew Peg had longed to stay on and go to college. Their teacher had called her a mathematical genius. She would have studied book-keeping and accounts. It didn’t seem a lot to want.

  Kezzie scraped the remains of the morning’s porridge into a dish and sat it on the dresser. With some warm milk it would do for supper for Lucy. She went out to collect the potatoes from her grandad. Aunt Bella was approaching, two of her children at her side and a cup in her hand.

  ‘Uhuh,’ Grandad grunted and got up. ‘Here’s Bella Borrow. She must have seen ye coming by.’ He went to stand at the gable-end of the house to smoke his pipe.

  ‘Eh, hello, hen,’ said Aunt Bella glancing nervously towards the old man. ‘I don’t suppose you could spare a wee drop of …’

  ‘Of course,’ said Kezzie kindly. She knew that Aunt Bella’s husband didn’t earn as much as her dad and much of what he did never reached his wife, but instead found its way into the pockets of the innkeeper at the canal bridge. She went inside and took two sticks of liquorice from a little jar on the dresser and gave them to the children. Kezzie noticed the porridge.

  ‘Would this be of any use to you?’ she asked. ‘I was going to put it out anyway.’

  The older woman took the dish gratefully.

  ‘You’re a good girl, Kezzie, kindly, just like your mother was. She never turned anyone away. She would have been proud of you. The way you keep this house and look after the wee one. You’re going to stay on at the school, I hear. That’s a great thing for the likes of us. Aye, she would have been that proud.’

  When Bella left Kezzie put the potatoes on to boil, and then sat down at the table and opened her school books. She chewed the end of her pencil and frowned in concentration. She was going to pass the exams. She wasn’t going to let her father down and besides she had to get good grades if she was going to achieve her ambition. As yet she had told no one about that.

  CHAPTER 3

  The silver locket

  ‘BLOW OUT YOUR candles!’ cried Lucy. ‘And make a wish!’

  Kezzie closed her eyes and wished.

  ‘What did you wish for?’ asked Lucy.

  ‘You’re not supposed to tell,’ said Kezzie.

  ‘But you can whisper it to me,’ said Lucy. ‘I won’t let ANYONE know.’

  Everyone around the kitchen table laughed as Kezzie cut her birthday cake.

  ‘Did you see what Aunt Bella gave me?’ Kezzie showed her father the leather-bound notebook. ‘Isn’t it beautiful?’ She stroked the black binding.

  Lucy opened it up.

  ‘This book has no story,’ she complained.

  ‘I’ll tell you a story before you go to sleep tonight,’ said her father.

  ‘Aunt Bella bought me the notebook for my school work. I’d better do some fine work in a book like this.’

  Kezzie’s grandad snorted.

  ‘She’d be better off putting food in her bairns’ mouths than running up her book at the Co-op on fancy presents.’

  ‘Grandad,’ said Kezzie gently. ‘It’s her way of saying thank you.’

  ‘And here’s mine,’ said Kezzie’s father, interrupting. He handed her a little red box.

  Kezzie opened it up. A dainty silver locket with a fine chain lay inside.

  Kezzie had never seen, far less owned, anything like it. She felt her eyes fill with tears. She let the chain run through her fingers.

  Her father took it from her and fastened it around her throat. He kissed the top of her head.

  ‘You’re a woman now. Happy fourteenth birthday.’

  There was a soft knock on the door. Lucy jumped down from her chair and ran to open it.

  A woman stood there with a baby across her shoulder, happed up in a plaid. By her side was a barefoot boy of about twelve. Their clothes were threadbare and they had a weary look.

  ‘Your da at home?’ the woman asked.

  John Munro got to his feet at once.

  ‘Come in, now, come in. There’s some stew here, and milk for the baby.’

  The travellers came regularly round the village but were not welcome at every door. The two of them sat down at the table, the boy on the very edge of the chair. The woman filled a bottle with milk from the jug on the table and began to feed her baby.

  ‘Where’s your man tonight?’ John Munro asked.

  ‘In jail, in Perth. Quadded for poaching.’

  ‘Bad fortune,’ said Kezzie’s grandad as he ladled stew into two bowls.

  ‘Shaness,’ repeated the woman in Cant, ‘that allows one man to own the birds of th
e air and shoot them for sport, and another to be put in prison for trying to feed his family.’

  She wrapped up her baby, lifted a spoon and began to eat her food slowly.

  Lucy was staring at the boy.

  ‘What’s your name? Mine’s Lucy, and this is Kezzie. She’s my big sister and it’s her birthday,’ she said.

  ‘Matt McPhee, miss,’ the boy said, touching his forehead with his fingers.

  ‘Would you like a piece of cake?’ Kezzie offered him the plate.

  His face flushed and he took the cake and carefully put it in his mouth.

  The boy’s mother took Lucy’s hand.

  ‘Let me see now, what good luck is coming your way.’ She studied Lucy’s palm. ‘A journey,’ she intoned, ‘a long journey, across the water.’

  Lucy’s eyes opened wide. ‘Where?’ she asked.

  ‘That I can’t rightly say, lamb. Only that it’s a faraway country, and ye’ll be going soon.’

  Kezzie held her hand out. ‘What about me?’

  ‘Now, you’re the same. A journey, in a great boat.’

  ‘Oh, Kezzie,’ cried Lucy. ‘We’re going in a boat together!’

  ‘I didn’t say ye’d be together,’ said the woman. She frowned at Kezzie’s palm. ‘You’re with someone on this boat, but it looks like a young man.’

  It was Kezzie’s turn to blush.

  ‘Is he handsome?’ asked Lucy.

  ‘Is he rich?’ asked Kezzie’s father.

  ‘Aye, he’s both,’ said the woman. She took hold of Grandad’s hand despite his protest. ‘Now, here’s an interesting hand, a long lifeline, and ye’re going to meet a queen.’

  Everyone laughed.

  ‘Well, if the King and Queen ever visit Stonevale,’ said Kezzie’s grandad, ‘I’ll certainly be havin’ a word with them.’

  ‘I tell ye now. It’s true,’ the woman protested. ‘There’s a royal connection in your life.’ She looked at her son. ‘Am I ever wrong, Matt?’

  The boy shook his head.

  Kezzie’s father stretched his hand across.

  ‘Now, tell me I’m to meet a princess,’ he laughed.