He rattled his newspaper irritably.
“They look just like me ’n’ you,” Alf said. “They pretend to be readin’ the papers, but they’re really spyin’ on people and then tellin’ ’Itler.”
The two young women began whispering to each other. Eileen caught the word “spy,” and so, apparently, did the man, because he lowered his paper to glare at them and then at Alf, who was munching on a biscuit, and then retreat behind his newspaper again.
“You can tell fifth columnists by the way they hate children,” Binnie told Theodore. “That’s ’cause children are ’specially good at spottin’ them.”
Alf nodded. “’E looks exactly like Gцring, don’t ’e?”
“This is intolerable!” the man exclaimed. He flung his newspaper down on the seat, stood up, yanked his valise down from the overhead rack, and stormed out. Binnie immediately moved into the now-vacant window seat, and Eileen expected an explosion from Alf, but he continued calmly munching his biscuit.
“You better not eat that,” Binnie said. “You’ll be sick.”
The soldier and the young women looked up alertly.
Alf dug another biscuit out of the packet and bit into it. “I will not.”
“You will so. He’s allus sick on trains,” she said to the soldiers. “’E threw up all over Eileen’s shoes, didn’t ’e, Eileen?”
“Binnie-” Eileen began, but Alf shouted over her, “That was when I ’ad the measles. It don’t count.”
“Measles?” one of the soldiers said nervously. “They’re not contagious, are they?”
“No,” Eileen said, “and Alf isn’t going to-”
“I don’t feel well,” Alf said, clutching his middle. He made a gagging sound and bent over a cupped hand.
“I told you,” Binnie said triumphantly, and within moments the compartment had emptied, and Alf had scooted over to the other window. “Can I have a sandwich, Eileen?” he asked.
“I thought you got sick on trains,” Eileen said, moving Theodore off her lap and onto the seat beside her.
“I do, ’specially when I ain’t ’ad nothin’ to eat.”
“You just had two biscuits.”
“No, ’e ain’t,’ Binnie said. “’E ’ad six,” and the compartment door opened.
An elderly woman leaned in. “Oh, good, there’s room in here, Lydia,” she said, and she and two other elderly ladies came in. “Little boy,” one of them said to Alf, “you don’t mind sitting next to your sister, do you? There’s a good boy.”
“No, of course he doesn’t mind,” Eileen said quickly. “Alf, come sit here next to me.” She pulled Theodore onto her lap again.
“But what about my planespottin’?” Alf protested.
“You can look out Binnie’s window. And don’t you dare pretend to be sick again,” she whispered. “And no fifth columnists, or you shan’t have any lunch.”
Alf looked as if he was going to object and then reached into his pocket and said to the ladies, “Want to see my pet mouse?”
“Mouse?” one of them squeaked, and all three shrank back against the upholstered seat.
“Alf-” Eileen said warningly.
“I told ’im not to bring it,” Binnie said virtuously, and Alf took his fisted hand from his pocket. A long pink tail dangled from it. “’Is name’s Arry,” he said, holding his fist out to the ladies.
Two of them shrieked, and all three scooped up their things, and fled. “Alf-” Eileen said.
“All you said was no being sick and no fifth columnists,” he said, sticking his fist back in his pocket. “You never said nuthin’ about mice.” He shut the compartment door, sat down by the window, and pressed his nose to the glass. “Look, there’s a Wellington!”
“Alf, give me that mouse this instant.”
“But I gotta mark down where I seen the Wellington.” He pulled out the map the vicar’d given him and began to unfold it.
Eileen snatched the map away from him. “Not till you give me that mouse.” She held out her hand.
“All right,” Alf said grudgingly, bringing it out of his pocket. “It’s only a bit of string.” He held a faded pink cord out in his open palm.
It looked oddly familiar.
“Where did you get this?”
“That carpet of Lady Caroline’s,” Binnie said.
“It fell off,” Alf said.
Lady Caroline’s priceless medieval tapestry. And when she finds out…
But by then Eileen would be long gone, Lady Caroline would blame it on the Army, and Alf and Binnie would have been long since hanged for some other crime, so she settled for an admonition against frightening people and gave the three of them the sandwiches and bottles of lemonade in the basket, which they were happily drinking when a woman with iron-gray hair and a no-nonsense air opened the door.
“No,” Eileen said to Alf and Binnie.
The woman sat down across from Eileen, both hands on the handbag on her lap. “You should not allow your children to have lemonade,” she said sternly. “Or sweets of any kind.”
“Would you like to see my mouse?” Alf asked.
The woman turned a gimlet eye on him. “Children should be seen and not heard.”
“It’s to feed my snake with.” He showed her the dangling tapestry cord.
She looked coldly at it. “I have been a headmistress for thirty years,” she said, taking hold of the cord and pulling it from his fist. “Far too long to be fooled by schoolboy tricks regarding imaginary mice.” She handed the cord to Eileen. “And imaginary snakes. You need to be firmer with your children.”
“She isn’t my mother,” Theodore piped up, and the headmistress turned the gimlet eye on him. He shrank back against Eileen.
“They’re evacuees,” Eileen said, putting her arm around him.
“All the more reason for you to use a strong hand with them.”
Alf put his hand on his stomach. “I don’t feel well, Eileen.”
“Alf allus gets sick on trains,” Binnie said.
“I shouldn’t wonder,” the headmistress said to Eileen. “This is what comes of giving them lemonade. A dose of castor oil will cure them.”
Alf promptly removed his hand from his stomach, and he and Binnie both scooted over to the corner.
“It’s clear all three of your charges have been pampered and indulged far too much,” she said, glaring at Theodore.
Theodore. Who’s had a luggage tag pinned to his coat and been handed over to strangers and shipped off to a strange place how many times?
“Coddling is not what children need,” the headmistress said. She turned to glower momentarily at Alf and Binnie, who were whispering in the corner. “They need discipline and a firm hand, particularly during times like these.”
I’d have thought they needed more “coddling” during a war, Eileen thought, not less.
“Being nice to children only makes them dependent and weak,” which weren’t exactly the words Eileen would have used to describe Alf and Binnie. “Spare the rod and spoil the child.”
“You mean beating?” Theodore asked tremulously, burrowing into Eileen’s side.
“When necessary,” the headmistress said, looking over at Alf and Binnie with an expression that clearly indicated she thought it was necessary now.
Alf had stepped up on the seat to reach the luggage rack and Binnie was standing below to catch him. “Alf, sit down,” Eileen said.
“I’m lookin’ for my planespotter log,” he said, “so I can write down the planes I seen.”
“Children should not be allowed to talk back to their elders,” the headmistress said. “Or to clamber about like monkeys. You there,” she shouted to them, “sit down at once,” and, amazingly, they both obeyed her. They sat down next to her, their hands folded on their laps.
“You see?” she said. “Firmness is all that is required. These modern notions of allowing children to do whatever they-yowp!” She shot to her feet, flung her handbag at Eileen, and brushed madly at her lap as if it had caught fire.