The popular girls huddle around Bea at lunch. They ask her questions about taping windows, about rations, about living without meat. Bea tries to answer their questions, the best she can, but as always now, the way things felt in London and the girl she was there seem very far away.
She has longed for these girls to bring her into their circle. The girls who’ve befriended her up until now have been the quiet girls, the nice girls, not really the group she wants to be with, although, she suspects, that’s where she belongs. These girls are the exciting girls, the ones who laugh loud and exchange glances that mean something. The girls who include her only when they need to understand the Latin homework or when they want to know something about William. One day Lucy Emery sidled up to her after lunch. Is your room next to William’s, she asked. Do you ever see him in his skivvies? Bea didn’t know how to respond. Down the hall, she said, feeling dull. His room is down the hall. That is true, but the two rooms share a wall. Sometimes she puts her hand on that wall, knowing he is just on the other side, before she gets into bed.
Everyone’s focus has turned toward the war. The school builds a hastily constructed viewing platform on top of the chapel, which is on a bit of a rise, and sets up a schedule for the faculty and the older boys to take shifts looking for enemy aircraft. To Bea’s surprise, William is one of the first to volunteer, and he even signs up for the six-thirty shift, before classes begin.
Every morning, Bea listens to him getting ready in the room next door and then crashing down the stairs. Moments later, she hears the back door swing open and his footsteps as he runs toward the chapel. For two weeks she lies in bed each morning, and then, one morning in January, she is dressed and down in the kitchen at six fifteen. He bursts into the kitchen, wrapping a scarf around his neck. What are you doing, he asks, grabbing a muffin and an apple. I’m going with you, she says. No, he replies. No, you’re not. Bea shrugs. Why not? No girls allowed, he says. Well, that’s stupid, she says. I’ve lived through more war than you have. Why can’t I be there, too?
William shakes his head and runs out the door. I’m going to be late, he calls back, and she follows him down the path, knowing that he can hear her footsteps, but he doesn’t look back. He’s faster than she is, but not by much, and he’s still taking out the gear from the storage box when she emerges onto the roof from the narrow circular stairs.
I’ll get in trouble, he says, not looking at her, sticking a pen behind his ear, and with clipboard in hand, he begins to scan the sky. William Gregory, she says, laughing, when have you ever cared about getting in trouble. You just don’t want me here. I don’t care if you’re here, he replies, but don’t get in my way. This is important work.
A month earlier, she would have laughed in his face. He, too, would have mocked someone who said this. Important work, he would have said with a sneer. But William has changed. Bea knows this shift. She saw it in her father in ’39, although she was too young to understand it then. But she gets it now. It’s fear, made real. Before the declaration of war, it looms over everything, a heavy weight, a constant worry. But once your country is at war, it’s a concrete thing that bores its way in, that never leaves. There will be consequences. People you know and love will die. She’d heard her parents arguing the night before she left London. I don’t want her to grow up so fast, Dad said. I want her to be a child as long as she can. She rolled under her covers, blocking her ears with her fists. I stopped being a child on the day war was declared, she wanted to scream. And you both disappeared even as you stayed by my side.
She sits down next to William and scans the dark gray sky just as he’s doing, remembering how the sky looked from the ship so long ago. Hard to see anything, isn’t it, she says. Right now, he says, and nods. But sunrise will be in—he checks his watch—eleven minutes. Then it’ll be beautiful. She nods back. What are we looking for? she asks. He explains and shows her how to fill out the form.
Later, on their way down the stairs, he stops at the bottom and faces her. He’s taller, suddenly, his face more angular. Don’t tell anyone you were here, okay? Bea shrugs. She won’t agree to anything, although she’s happy to keep this between them. I don’t mind you being here, he says, and she knows how hard it is for him to say something like that. She touches his arm in thanks. They run down the side of the hill, and she peels off, heading for the Girls School. See you, William, she calls. She feels happier than she has felt since war was declared.