It was hard to remain silent. I tried. I really did, but my breathing kept getting louder as I gasped for clean air. My body was trembling, adding noise to the silence. Mum pulled me closer to her, holding tight. Dad cuddled us both. Three spoons under one duvet. With the summer heat and us huddled together the smell wasn’t amusing. I shifted about.
‘Shhh,’ Dad whispered. ‘Try not to make a sound.’
Mum kissed the back of my neck. Her wheezing chest blew out little puffs of air on to my head. ‘It’s OK, Charlie, everything’s going to be all right,’ she said.
‘Promise?’ I said.
‘Promise,’ Mum said.
‘Shhh,’ Dad said again, firmer, like an annoyed schoolteacher.
‘Mum, I’m really scared.’
‘I know you are, sweetheart, I know you are.’ Mum squeezed my bones.
‘We’re all scared, Charlie,’ Dad said. ‘But we need to hold it together. It’ll be over soon.’
Dad was scared, which increased my own terror levels. Dads aren’t meant to get scared. Dads protect. Dads make things better. But I guess there are some things in life even dads can’t affect. Bombs, for one.
The first pangs of nerves had begun as soon as the newsreader on the television stared out at us: We expect this criminal act to be catastrophic for some of our residents. The poor guy had looked stricken.
In Little Town, where I live, people know that something dreadful might happen to them one day; they realise that our Regime has infuriated some other Government, and that Government – specifically, the one over the border in Old Country – don’t like how certain things are done here: the way of life, the beliefs, the strangleholding … They think it’s all wrong, undemocratic. Inhumane. Pot and kettle springs to mind! Let’s call a spade a spade: Old Country’s Government thinks Little Town is just plain bad. Funny thing is we’ve heard that things over there aren’t much better (they don’t exactly welcome people speaking out either), but no one really knows for sure, because no one ventures across the border. Ever! In school everyone is told that many moons ago Little Town belonged to Old Country and that it was inevitable that they’d come knocking – or bombing – to demand it back. But who knows for sure? What we do know, however, is that our Regime isn’t liked, even by us.
I know Little Town isn’t exactly a barrel of laughs, and we did expect some repercussions for various disagreements, but not this. Never this.
We were under that duvet for a whole twenty minutes before the first explosion. It was far away yet made my entire insides bounce. Mum’s body tensed. I heard Dad’s teeth grind together.
There was another crack; it seemed closer. A third quickly followed. It was closer. BOOM! The house rattled. I heard screams and cries from outside. Curfew breakers? People who hadn’t seen the news? Who hadn’t heeded the warnings?
These bombs sounded like a fireworks and thunder combination; human squeals echoed, cries became howls. Another bomb.
Then another.
And another.
‘I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die.’ I turned to face my parents. No duvet could save us. What was Dad thinking when he said, Well, I suppose we best do something about these bloody bombs then? Why didn’t he have a bunker or a shelter? What good was a duvet?
‘I’m not ready to die,’ I cried.
‘We’re not going to die, Charlie.’ Dad’s voice sounded unconvincing, wavering a bit. I fought for air. Mum wheezed. Here we were, the Law family, waiting for the ceiling to cave in on us. Waiting for the great leap into the unknown. These bombs that had brought the Law family together were about to blast us apart.
I glanced at my watch. Six minutes of relentless bombing.
A declaration of war? No army as such existed in Little Town – just some Rascals running around in military boots – so what was the point?
It’s funny the things you think about when you’re frozen with fear. I kept hoping that our shed wouldn’t be damaged. I had big plans for that shed. But the main thing, I suppose, was at least we weren’t dead.
Well, not yet anyway.