He awoke in the night to a confused noise of Daddy shouting and Mum crying, but he fell asleep almost immediately and wondered in the morning if it had all been a dream. But somehow from then onward things seemed to go from bad to worse at home. Dad was nearly always out, and Mum seemed to have gone to pieces. She would scream at Wendy and slap Debby when they had not been particularly naughty, and kiss and hug them when they had not been particularly good. It was more than Francis could cope with, and he kept out of the way as much as possible.
But school was wonderful that Monday morning. Not that Tyke took any notice of him, or that he so much as glanced in Tyke’s direction. He knew his place and played with his own friends, but there was an invisible sense of comradeship, and it seemed glorious even to be sharing the same playground. Besides, it was only six days to next Sunday.
On Tuesday evening he dared to saunter round and look at the damage—the glass was shattered, the receiver broken, and the connection cut through with wirecutters. The place looked a shambles, and he was feeling a glow of pride at his own part in such a satisfactory job, when Ram, whose house was just opposite, saw him and came hurrying out. He thought Francis had come to visit him, and his small brown face was alight with joy. Francis, who liked chapati, let the mistake pass and followed him into his living room.
Ram’s father was there, and he too seemed pleased to see Francis. He spoke English quite well. “We are going to a parent-teacher meeting at the school from seven thirty to eight thirty,” he explained. “Tara is in bed, and Ram will be all alone. Could you not come and play with him, and you can buy fish and chips for supper at the corner shop? I will take you home about nine.”
Francis thought that a very good idea, although he did wonder for a moment why his own parents were not going to the school meeting. He quite liked Ram when there was no one more interesting about, and he had some really good toys. Also, Francis loved fish and chips.
“I’ll ask my mother,” he said and darted off, and his mother, as he expected, was quite relieved to know for once where he was and to have him safely out of the way. He was getting more and more quarrelsome and difficult at home, and the little girls became quite unmanageable when he was about. Besides, she had a headache coming on.
Once the parents had left, he and Ram settled down to a complicated game of armies on the rug. They arranged regiments all over the room and knocked them down with marbles. It was nice and warm with the gas fire on, and they pushed the sofa towards the wall to make more room for their game. After a while they felt hungry and set out for the fish-and-chips shop at the corner.
It was only a few minutes away, but there was a line, and they took some time deciding whether they wanted fish or hot pies. They trotted home under the stars, chatting and eating chips, but as they opened the front door they recoiled in horror. Clouds of gray smoke billowed from the house, knocking them backwards.
Ram grasped the situation first. “It’s the sofa,” he screamed. “Too near the fire. Francis, phone the police and fire engine—999. My father told me, always 999—I get Tara.”
He dashed for the staircase but was driven back, blind and choking. Three times he tried and then knew it was impossible. He gazed at the window; it was shut. As yet he could see no flames, only suffocating smoke. He must call the neighbors, and surely the fire engine would be here in a moment! He looked round wildly and realized that the telephone booth was wrecked and the city, as yet, had done nothing about it.
Francis too had remembered as he turned, and the thought had struck him like lightning: So this is the price of wrecking a phone booth—little Tara’s life, perhaps. And he had been so proud of his part in it. But it was only a passing thought, for there was no time to lose. He banged on the door of the nearest house, but the occupants were out. He knocked at the next, but they had no telephone, although they ran out to help. It was clearly no good wasting time. Perhaps none of these little houses had telephones. He had better run home. His mother would know what to do.
Never before had he run so fast. Last time he had run, Tyke had been watching him, but now it was little Tara’s life at stake. He ran under that glorious street light, but the glory had departed. He arrived home completely out of breath, but his mother smelled the smoke at once and rushed to the telephone as he gasped out a few words. “Fire engine and ambulance, seventy-five Draper Street,” she shouted, “and there’s a child in an upstairs bedroom that they can’t reach.”
She suddenly seemed immensely strong, swift, and capable, and Francis wondered if he had ever really known his mother before tonight. “The ladder, Francis,” she cried. “It’s in the garage. Take one end and I’ll take the other—don’t talk—run—no Wendy, you can’t come. Go back to bed at once.”
He had certainly never known that his mother could run so fast. He could hardly keep up with her. This was a wonderful run, he and his mother together, to save a life. But as they turned the corner they saw that the neighbors were already coping and had turned their garden hoses onto the blaze. Only their ladders were too short, and already flames were leaping in the house. The smoldering sofa was ablaze, and the curtains had caught. One neighbor in particular seemed to have taken charge.
“Hurry up,” he shouted. “Keep the hoses on. The ceiling will go in a minute. Give me your belts or suspenders—anything to tie these ladders together—the girl’s in the front room, he says—got a hammer and a wet towel, mate? I’ll have to break the glass.”
Everyone was running in and out of houses, helping, bringing what was needed, and the joined ladders were just being hoisted when Francis and his mother appeared. The neighbor shinned up, and there was a crash of falling glass. He fumbled for the catch but drew back, blinded by the smoke.
“I can’t see the bed,” he shouted down. “Where is it?”
“I show you,” shrieked Ram. He clambered up the ladder like a monkey and pitched himself through the window after the man. Holding his breath and with eyes shut, he guided him to the bed where Tara lay, huddled under the bedclothes, limp and helpless. The man picked her up and slung her over his shoulder. Now that the window was open the smoke was less dense.
“Get her into the fresh air first,” gasped the man, clambering out. “Now come on, son, keep it up. You can take a breath now.”
They all seemed to slide down the ladder together and collapse on the ground. Eager hands took Tara and laid her on a rug on the pavement. Ram was covered with blood for he had fallen onto the broken glass, and his face and hands were badly cut, but he hardly seemed to notice. He took some great breaths of fresh air and struggled over to where Tara lay, with a little group of women kneeling round her. One of them was giving her artificial respiration.
“She alive?” gasped Ram.
“I don’t know, dear,” said Francis’s mother, putting her arms round the sooty, bloody little figure. “I think so—I hope so. The engine and the ambulance should be here by now, but of course there was that delay in phoning.”
“It was wicked, messing up the phone booth like that,” murmured another woman. “May have cost the kiddie her life.”
At that point they heard the blessed sound, the high, sirenlike wails of the fire engine and the ambulance, and everybody stood back as the men rushed into action.
But Francis hardly noticed the fire fighters. His eyes were fixed on the limp little figure that was Tara, and just as they were lifting her into the ambulance and fixing up the oxygen mask, her parents came walking down the street from the bus stop.
Francis’s mother ran to meet them and steered Tara’s dazed mother in beside the stretcher. “You’d better take Ram too,” she said. “He’s dreadfully cut.”
She turned to the father, who was weeping and beating his breast. “Who has a car,” she asked, “and could take Tara’s dad to the hospital?”
Several volunteers stepped forward, eager to help, and as the bewildered man climbed into a car, she laid her hand on his shoulder. “When you come back,” she said, “come straight to our house for a meal. Twenty-three Graham Avenue. We’ll expect you any time of the day or night.”
“What’ll Dad say about them coming?” asked Francis as they walked home with the ladder. “He doesn’t like immigrants.”
“He can say what he likes,” said his mother shortly. “That was a very, very brave little boy, Francis. You ought to be proud to have such a friend.”
They put the ladder away and made themselves tea and sandwiches at the kitchen table. They had stayed to watch the firemen get the blaze under control, and it was quite late. The little girls were asleep, and Dad was still out. Francis, shaken more deeply than he realized by his part in what had happened, sat very close to his mother.
“How did it start, Francis?” she asked, sipping her tea.
“I don’t know. We were at the fish-and-chip shop. I think Ram pushed the sofa too near the gas fire, ’cause we were playing a game. Mum, d’you think Tara’s dead?”
“I don’t think so. Her heart was beating. Pray God, she’ll be all right!”
“What good does praying do, Mum?”
“I’m not sure. I used to think it helped—nothing seems to help anymore. I wish you went to Sunday school, Francis—I wish you could all grow up good—I don’t know what to do!”
Her tears were falling into her teacup, and Francis flung his arms round her and clung to her. Without knowing it, he had learned many new things that night: the price of destruction, the beauty of courage, the value of life. And now, held close in his mother’s arms, he suddenly knew where he really belonged. “I’ll try to be good,” he whispered, “but Wendy does pinch first.”
Tyke’s rule was tottering.