When the Sky Fell Apart Read Online Free Page A

Damn the damned Bosche.
    He hurled a stone into that hole that shouldn’t have been there. It made a decent splash as it hit the water. He threw in another, then another. Then he kicked some of the sand in.
    Suddenly he was scrabbling on hands and knees and pushing great armfuls of sand into the hole, as fast as he could, panting with the effort of it. His head was swimming but he carried on anyway. Armfuls and fistfuls and whatever he could push in. It made no difference at first, but after a while the water disappeared. He kept going. Each armful of sand burying the Bosche.
    When he’d finished pushing all the sand back in, he sat back and tried to look at the shallow hole. Just as if he’d been walking along the beach and then happened upon it. Could have been made by children, pretending to dig their way to China. Black ash buried by the sand. Nothing to make you think of bombs or death. Just the beach, rumple-faced after a day of play, the same as ever.
    Now for the others.
    He had just started the second hole when he heard a voice behind him.
    ‘What on earth are you doing?’
    Maurice nearly jumped from his skin. Behind him stood a girl. God knows how long she’d been watching him. She was holding a shell in her hand. An ormer.
    He felt his cheeks heat with embarrassment. ‘What does it look like?’ he said, gruffly. ‘I’m filling in the holes.’
    He pushed another armful of sand in.
    ‘Can I help?’
    He stopped and stared. She could only have been eight, nine at a push. She was narrow-chested, with tangled hair and a gaping hole in the leg of what looked like boys’ trousers. She was half smiling, but her eyes were watchful.
    ‘I’m Claudine. I’m ten.’
    He smiled. ‘I’m Maurice. I’m thirty-one.’
    ‘Very pleased to meet you, Maurice.’
    Then, without waiting for his say-so, she started hurling sand into the hole. She went about it like a burrowing animal, crouching over and flinging her arms so the sand went flying—some into the hole, but a good amount into his eyes and mouth too.
    After a minute, she stopped, panting.
    ‘Bombs made these holes, you know.’
    Maurice gave a wry smile. ‘I thought as much.’
    ‘We’re most likely to die, once the Germans arrive.’
    He stopped digging and stared at the strange girl, with her scrawny legs and her clear voice: the matter-of-fact way she said die. Were all children like this? He struggled to find something reassuring to say.
    ‘I’m sure no one will die.’
    She pointed to the bomb craters all around. ‘They’re bombing us,’ she said. ‘And I’m not a fool. People always think children are fools. But I hear things. I’ve learnt about wars at school. People die and are killed. And everyone knows the Germans are evil. I heard the grown-ups say so. After they poured water all over the man who was on fire—the butcher.’
    ‘On fire? Clement Hacquoil?’
    ‘Yes. He looked like raw meat where he was burnt. You could see under his skin. All bones and blood, like in his butcher’s shop. I didn’t know people’s bodies looked like raw animals inside.’
    Maurice took a moment to realise she was waiting for a response. ‘Dreadful,’ he said. ‘So Clement’s in the hospital now?’
    ‘Yes. Some other people died too, I think. Everyone kept telling me to run along. They said the Germans had bombed the harbour. The whole army will be here any day. And they have guns. Real guns for killing people.’
    The girl’s eyes were wide and her voice trembled a little with the horror of it but her words were bleak and merciless.
    ‘Do you think the Germans will kill us all in our beds? Or bomb us again?’
    Poor Clement. It was unimaginable. He’d seen him just the day before. Bought some chicken livers from him, for a good price too.
    ‘No, of course not,’ he said.
    Claudine shrugged and started to twist her hair around her finger, again and again.
    ‘Everyone else thinks so. And they all say women have to be very careful because