Rosie Goes to War Read Free

chuck it out because it wasn’t ours. He reckoned she might come back for it one day.’
    â€˜That’s ridiculous. Even if she survived the bombing, she’d never have come back. Not after what she did.’
    This is getting interesting. ‘Who’s Queenie?’ I ask.
    â€˜A spy,’ says Great-aunt Eleanor.
    â€˜No,’ says Gran, smiling. ‘She was a bit odd – downright daft sometimes – but she couldn’t have been a spy. She was a girl who stayed with us for a bit in the war.’
    â€˜She wasn’t as stupid as she appeared. I think she was very cunning. She was far too vague about where she came from, and she disappeared without a trace.’
    Gran sighs. ‘The poor girl didn’t stand a chance. We should never have let her go out on her own that night. ‘
    â€˜It was her own fault,’ says her sister. ‘She managed to upset everyone. I’m sure it was deliberate. I’m convinced she’d completed whatever mission she had, and used our argument as an excuse to escape back to wherever she’d come from.’
    â€˜Oh, for goodness sake,’ Gran laughs. ‘What good would a fifteen-year-old girl be as a spy? There weren’t no war secrets in our house.’
    â€˜No, indeed, but she came to work with us at the factory, didn’t she? She could have been spying there.’
    â€˜Blimey, Nelly, what would Hitler have needed to know about the seams on sailors’ trousers? Their inside-leg measurements? She never got good enough to do more than the basic stuff.’
    Great-aunt Eleanor sniffs. I try not to smile. This is great. Whoever Queenie was, she’d caused a stir.
    â€˜Maybe not,’ Great-aunt Eleanor goes on. ‘But she certainly got friendly with the young men around here, in and out of uniform, as you well know.’
    Gran tuts and waves a hand at her sister. ‘Are you still cross about that? After all these years? Come on, love, I’m sure she didn’t mean no harm. It all worked out in the end, didn’t it?’
    â€˜What happened?’ I ask.
    â€˜She stole her man,’ Great-aunt Eleanor points at Gran.
    Gran laughs. ‘Oh, God help us. She did me a favour. Besides, it was seventy-odd years ago, Nell. It’s all water under the bridge. Here, Rosie, nip up and bring that suitcase down, love. We’ll have a look.’

CHAPTER TWO
    I run upstairs for the suitcase. As I go into the bedroom to get it, the walls start doing their funny stuff again. The bedcover is dark red now, and there’s brown lino on the floor instead of the beige carpet. But the case is still there on the bed, so I grab it. I nearly fall down the stairs rushing to get back to Gran and normality.
    Great-aunt Eleanor opens the case. Inside are clothes, shoes, a gas mask, and some old notebooks. Gran picks up a buff-coloured booklet.
    â€˜Ooh, look! It’s an old ration book. I don’t miss the food from them days, do you, Nelly? There was hardly anything nice in the shops, and what you got wasn’t enough to keep a mouse fed. We had no trouble keeping our figures, did we?’ She pats her belly. ‘Now we can eat what we like, we always have to watch the scales.’
    â€˜You’re not fat, Gran,’ I laugh. I hope I’ll be like Gran, but it’s not likely, worse luck. I’m already taller than her. I’ll probably end up more like Mum’s side of the family. They’re what Dad calls ‘substantial women’.
    â€˜I’m not as skinny as I used to be, our Rosie. Like a stick insect, I was. No curves, just straight up and down.’
    â€˜And what you lacked in inches, you made up for in chatter,’ says Eleanor. ‘What else have you got there, May?’ She rummages in the suitcase and finds some papers. I reckon that woman needs to chill out. Doesn’t she ever smile?
    The papers don’t look very interesting. I’d rather