Adela wasted no time and hit the accelerator in the direction of the East End. Twenty minutes later, they pulled up at the school-turned-rest-centre near the docks.
Joyce and Adela pushed open the door. Joyce scarcely believed it possible, but if anything, it was even busier than the previous evening. The stench of so many hot, stale bodies crushed together was unholy. Officials had set up a few latrine buckets, partitioned off behind a blanket. The ground floor was now jammed solid, and a steady stream of people were attempting to pick their way down the heaving staircase to find shelter below, just adding to the stew of bodies in the basement.
‘What can we do?’ Joyce asked a harassed-looking WVS lady.
‘There’re a lot of mothers here at their wit’s end trying to keep kiddies distracted. You’re a mobile library, yes? I saw you pull up outside. So read!’
Joyce and Adela hurried back to the van and grabbed armfuls of children’s books.
Back inside, the WVS lady had manged to clear a small space and found two chairs.
Joyce suddenly felt horribly overwhelmed. How did she even start? This wasn’t the calm, organised sanctuary of Swiss Cottage Tube.
A group of angry women were haranguing a WVS woman nearby, clamouring for information.
When are the coaches arriving? They were supposed to come last night! It’s a disgrace is what it is!Their desperate voices reached a cacophony in her head.
‘I’m... I’m not sure this is going to work,’ she stammered. ‘I-I don’t think I can.’
Adela gripped her firmly on the arm.
‘This isn’t about you, Joyce. You are ashlingen bikher...a book lover, yes? Now, be a friend to these mothers.’
Adela was, as always, right. ‘Come on, Joyce,’ she chastised herself. ‘If people can’t get to the books, we take books to the people.’
She repeated their vow over and over, filling herself with courage. This was one of the very goals the Secret Society had set for themselves at the start of the war, and this hellish scene was the epitome of that need.
Adela, meanwhile, had taken a more practical approach. She hoisted herself up on the chair, put two fingers in her mouth and let rip with an ear-shredding whistle.
‘Story time’s starting!’
The women around them looked up curiously and gradually started pushing their children towards them.
‘That’s it, come closer,’ Adela called. ‘Plenty of room for the kiddies. Let them through.’
Before long a crowd of fifty-plus grubby-faced children were sitting round cross-legged. Joyce spotted poor Jean Farley. She was attempting to change her baby on the floor, while her exhausted toddler son grizzled next to her. Her mind spun at their predicament. How did one cope with one hour in this place, never mind a whole night! She pointed her out to Adela. ‘See if you can persuade her son to come and listen.’
Adela wove her way through the crowds, while Joyce thought of what to read to transport these poor children away from the bomb-battered East End.
Think, Joyce. We need magic.
With boys and girls of all ages, she needed a book that spoke to everybody here.
She sifted nervously through the stack of books on her lap.
‘Who wishes they could fly?’ she asked finally.
‘Meeee,’ came back a chorus.
‘I actually can,’ said one small boy confidently, getting to his feet.
‘Sit down, Johnny,’ said his mother, clamping a hand on his shoulder.
‘Put your hand up if you want to go to a magical island called Neverland?’
‘I do!’ cried one girl, flinging her hand up so fast she was in danger of a dislocation.
‘Are we sitting comfortably? Then I shall begin.’
