a while anyway. We all gave Grandfather a hand with the evening milking to cheer him up, and it worked, but not for long. There’s only a week to go now before we have to have everything out of here. It’s all Grandfather can think about. The house is piled high with tea chests and boxes. The curtains and lamp shades are all down, most of the crockery is already packed. We may have the Christmas decorations up, but it doesn’t feel at all like Christmas.
For my present I got a pair of red woolly gloves that Mum had knitted specially and secretly, and Barry had a navy blue scarf which he wears all the time, even at meal times. Mum didn’t knit that, she didn’t have time. We all went off to church this evening. It’s the last time we’ll be doing that for a long while. They’re going to empty it of all its precious things – stained glass windows, candlesticks, benches – in case they get damaged. The American soldiers are coming to take it all away. They’ll be putting sandbags around everything that’s too heavy to move, so that everything will be protected as much as possible. That’s what the vicar told us – he also said they’ll be needing all the help they can get. They’re starting to empty the church tomorrow. Mum says we’ve all got to be there to lend a hand.
I gave Tips some cold chicken this evening for her Christmas supper. She licked the plate until it was shiny clean. She’s a bit upset, I think. She knows something’s up. She can see it for herself and she can feel it too. I think she’s unhappy because she knows we’re unhappy.
I’m getting a bit fed up with Uncle George already, and we haven’t even moved in with him yet. All he talks about is the war: the Germans this and the Russians that. He sits there with his ear practically glued to the radio, tutting and huffing at the news. Even today, on Christmas Day, he has to go on and on about how we should “bomb Germany to smithereens, because of all they’ve done to us”! Then once he got talking about it, everyone was talking about it, arguing about it. So I came up to bed and left them to it. It’s supposed to be a day of peace and goodwill towards all men. And all they can talk about is the war. It makes me so sad, and I shouldn’t be sad on Christmas Day. But now I am. Happy Christmas, Dad.
PS Just after I finished my diary I heard Barry crying in his room, so I went to see him. He didn’t want to tell me at first. Then he said he was just a bit homesick, missing his mum, he said. And his dad – mostly his dad. What could I say? My dad is alive and I’m living in my own home, going to my own school. Then I had an idea. “Shall we say Happy Christmas to the cows?” I said. He cheered up at once. So we crept downstairs in our dressing gowns and slippers, and ran out to the barn. They were all lying down in the straw grunting and chewing the cud, their calves curled up asleep beside them. Barry crouched down and stroked one of them, who sucked his finger until he giggled and pulled it out. We were walking back across the yard when he told me. “I hate the radio,” he said suddenly. “It’s always about the war, and the bombing raids, and that’s when I think of Mum most and miss her most. I don’t want her to die. I don’t want to be an orphan.”
I held his hand and squeezed it. I was too upset to say anything.
I’ve had the strangest day and the happiest day for a long time. I met someone who’s the most different person I’ve ever met. He’s different in every way. He looks different, he sounds different, he is different. And, best of all, he’s my friend.
We were supposed to be helping to move things out of the church, but mostly we were just watching, because the Yanks were doing it all for us. Grandfather’s right: they do chew gum a lot. But they’re very happy-looking, always laughing and joking around. Some of them were carrying sandbags into the church, whilst others were carrying out the pews and chairs, hymn books and kneelers.
Suddenly I recognised one of them. He was the same black soldier I had seen in the jeep a while ago. And he recognised me too. “Hi there! How you doing?” he said. I never saw anyone smile like he did. His whole face lit up with it. He looked too young to be a soldier. He seemed so pleased to see me there, someone he recognised. He bent down so that his face was very close to mine. “I got three little sisters back home in Atlanta – that’s in Georgia and that’s in the United States of America, way across the sea,” he said. “And they’s all pretty, just like you.”
Then another soldier came along – I think he was a sergeant or something because he had lots of stripes on his arm, upside-down ones, not like our soldiers’ stripes at all. The sergeant told him he should be carrying sandbags, not chatting to kids. So he said, “Yessir.” Then he went off, smiling back at me over his shoulder. The next time I saw him he was coming past me with a sandbag under each arm. He stopped right by me and looked down at me from very high up. “What do you call yourself, girl?” he asked me. So I told him. Then he said, “I’m Adolphus T. Madison. (That’s T for Thomas.) Private First Class, US Army. My friends call me Adie. I’m mighty pleased to make your acquaintance, Lily. A ray of Atlanta sunshine, that’s what you are, a ray of Atlanta sunshine.”
No one has ever talked to me like that before. He looked me full in the eye as he spoke, so I knew he meant every word he said. But the sergeant shouted at him again and he had to go.
Then Barry came along, and for the rest of the morning we stood at the back of the church watching the soldiers coming and going, all of them fetching and carrying sandbags now, and Adie would give me a great big grin every time he went by. The vicar was fussing about them like an old hen, telling the Yank soldiers they had to be more careful, particularly when they were sandbagging the font. “That font’s very precious, you know,” said the vicar. I could see they didn’t like being pestered, but they were all too polite and respectful to say anything. The vicar kept on and on nagging at them. “It’s the most precious thing in the church. It’s Norman, you know, very old.” A couple of Yanks were just coming past us with more sandbags a few moments later when one of them said, “Who is this old Norman guy, anyway?”
After that Barry and me couldn’t stop ourselves giggling. The vicar told us we shouldn’t be giggling in church, so we went outside and giggled in the graveyard instead.
We told Grandfather and Mum about that when we got back this evening and they laughed so much they nearly cried. It’s been a happy, happy day. I hope Adie doesn’t get killed in the war. He’s so nice. I’m going to pray for him tonight, and for Dad too.
Tips has just brought in a dead mouse and dropped it at my feet. She knows how much I hate mice, dead or alive. I really wish she wouldn’t do it. She’s sitting there, licking her lips and looking so pleased with herself. Sometimes I think I understand why Barry doesn’t like cats.
It’s my very last night in my own bedroom. Until now I don’t think I thought it would ever really happen, not to us, not to me. It was happening to everyone else. Everyone else was moving out, but somehow I just didn’t imagine that the day would ever come when we’d have to do the same. But tomorrow is the final day and tomorrow will come. This time tomorrow my room will bè empty – the whole house will be empty. I’ve never slept anywhere else in my whole life except in this room. For the first time I think I understand why Grandfather refused to leave for so long. It wasn’t just because he was
