My Friend the Enemy Read Online Free Page A

hair was the blackest I’d ever seen. The only other person I knew with hair as black as that was Mrs Robertson, but she was old and everyone knew hers was dyed. The girl beside me didn’t have dyed hair, though. Hers was natural, and when the evening sun caught it just right, as it did now, it looked as if it had bits of blue in it.
    I didn’t speak to her, I just looked at her, but she didn’t seem to notice me looking. She was concentrating on what the soldiers were doing at the foot of the hill. And as she watched them, she tightened her lips, chewing the inside of her pale cheek.
    â€˜It’s a Heinkel,’ she said. ‘I wonder why it was flying here.’
    I glanced around, wondering if she was talking to herself or someone else.
    â€˜I’m talking to you.’ She looked sideways at me.
    â€˜Hm? Me?’
    â€˜Yeah, you.’ She turned so her brown eyes were looking into mine. ‘You saw it crash, didn’t you?’
    â€˜Aye. Came right over the top of me. Knocked me off me feet when it blew up, it did.’
    â€˜Lucky beggar.’ Then she looked away and continued watching the soldiers as some of the villagers grew bored and started heading home, taking their children with them. A few of us stayed, though, ten or eleven of us waiting at the top of the hill on the warm grass.
    I sat with my legs crossed and my elbows on my knees, casting my eyes sideways from time to time, snatching glimpses of the girl, but she didn’t speak again. She just stared ahead, fascinated by the crash site, taking in every detail, not missing a thing. She even seemed to sit up a little straighter when the fire started to die down and one of the soldiers was ordered to inspect the plane.
    The young soldier approached slowly, leaning his body away from the smouldering beast as if that would make any difference at all. He called back to the lieutenant thatit was too hot to get any closer, and he walked around the area, looking for anything of interest.
    â€˜You think they’re looking for bodies?’ the girl asked when the soldier disappeared behind the twisted metal.
    She hadn’t said anything for some time and I turned to her, studying her features for a moment before she looked at me.
    â€˜D’you think that’s what they’re doing?’ she asked, raising her eyebrows at me.
    â€˜I s’pose,’ I said. ‘Aye. Maybe.’ But really I hadn’t even thought much about the people in the plane. Not until right then, when I remembered the gunner, terrified as the ground came at him.
    â€˜As many as five men crew that thing, you know. You think they all died? Apart from the parachutist, that is.’
    â€˜How do you know about that, like?’
    â€˜I saw him too.’
    â€˜No, I mean how d’you know how many people are in a plane like that?’
    She shrugged. ‘Everyone knows, don’t they?’
    â€˜I don’t.’
    She made a noise as if she were laughing through her nose. A quick rush of air accompanied by a half-smile. ‘My dad told me. And my brother’s a pilot.’
    â€˜Is he?’
    â€˜Yeah. And anyway, I’ve seen a hundred of those planes.’
    â€˜Honest?’
    â€˜Yeah.’
    Down below, the soldier had completed his walkaround the wreck and was speaking to the one in charge, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying. Behind me, some of the remaining children were growing restless, chattering and starting to mess about.
    â€˜How come?’ I asked. ‘Where’ve you seen hundreds?’
    â€˜Well, maybe not seen hundreds,’ she said. ‘But I’ve heard hundreds.’
    I looked at her again, wondering why I’d never seen her before. She wasn’t dressed like most of the girls I knew. Most of them wore dresses or shirts and pinafores, but this girl was dressed more like I was. As if she were a boy. She was wearing a pair of shorts that came to her knees