Stay Where You Are and Then Leave Read Free Page A

gossip—although it was really to bring her sheets for Margie to wash too—held the newspaper up to her face and squinted at the print, complaining over and over about why they made it so small.
    â€œI can’t read it, Margie,” she was saying. “Are they trying to drive us all blind? Is that their plan?”
    â€œDo you think Dad will take me on the float with him tomorrow?” asked Alfie.
    â€œDid you ask him?”
    â€œYes, but he said I couldn’t until I was older.”
    â€œWell, then,” said Margie.
    â€œBut I’ll be older tomorrow than I was yesterday,” said Alfie.
    Before Margie could answer, the door opened, and to Alfie’s astonishment a soldier marched in. He was tall and well built, the same size and shape as Alfie’s dad, but he looked a little sheepish as he glanced around the room. Alfie couldn’t help but be impressed by the uniform: a khaki-colored jacket with five brass buttons down the center, a pair of shoulder straps, trousers that tucked into knee socks, and big black boots. But why would a soldier just walk into their living room? he wondered. He hadn’t even knocked on the front door! But then the soldier took his hat off and placed it under his arm, and Alfie realized that this wasn’t just any soldier and it wasn’t a stranger either.
    It was Georgie Summerfield.
    It was his dad.
    And that was when Margie dropped her knitting on the floor, put both hands to her mouth, and held them there for a few moments before running from the room and up the stairs while Georgie looked at his son and mother and shrugged his shoulders.
    â€œI had to,” he said finally. “You can see that, Mum, can’t you? I had to.”
    â€œWe’re finished,” said Granny Summerfield, putting the newspaper down and turning away from her son as she looked out of the window, where more young men were walking through their own front doors, wearing uniforms just like Georgie’s. “We’re all finished.”
    And that was everything that Alfie remembered about turning five.

 
    CHAPTER 2
    IF YOU WERE THE ONLY BOCHE IN THE TRENCH
    The Janá č eks had already been gone for almost two years when Alfie stole the shoeshine box.
    They had lived three doors down from the Summerfields for as long as he could remember, and Kalena, who was six weeks older than he was, had been his best friend since they were babies. Whenever Alfie was in her house in the evening, Mr. Janá č ek could be found sitting at the kitchen table with the shoeshine box laid out before him, shining his shoes for the next day.
    â€œI believe a man should always present himself to the world with elegance and grace,” he told Alfie. “It is what marks us out from the animals.”
    All the people on Damley Road were friends, or they had been before the war began. There were twelve terraced houses on either side of the street, each one attached to the next by a thin wall that carried muffled conversations through to the neighbors. Some of the houses had window boxes outside, some didn’t, but everyone made an effort to keep the place tidy. Alfie and Kalena lived on the side with all the even numbers; Granny Summerfield lived opposite, with all the odd ones, which Margie said was particularly appropriate. Each house had one window facing onto the street from the front parlor, with two more up top, and every door was painted the same color: yellow. Alfie remembered the day Joe Patience, the conchie from number sixteen, painted his door red, and all the women came out on the street to watch him, shaking their heads and whispering to each other in outrage. Joe was political—everyone knew that. Old Bill said he was “his own man,” whatever that meant. He was out on strike more often than he was at work and was forever handing out leaflets about workers’ rights. He said that women should have the vote, and not even all the