Read Bombs on Aunt Dainty Online
Authors: Judith Kerr
Bombs on Aunt Dainty (24 page)
The crowd had thickened and they stopped for a moment to let a man with a child on his shoulder pass them. Someone saluted Max and he had to salute back.
“You remember,” he said, “what you used to say in Paris? That as long as you were with Mama and Papa you wouldn’t feel like a refugee?”
She nodded.
“Well, now I suppose it’s the other way round.”
“How, the other way round?”
Max sighed. “Nowadays,” he said, “I think that the only times
they
don’t feel like refugees is when they’re with us.”
Anna stared at the scene around her – the flags, the noise, the relaxed, contented faces – and thought of Mama and Papa travelling back to Putney on the tube.
“We’ll just have to do the best we can,” she said.
At Piccadilly Circus Max left her, and she walked into the crowd. The square was swarming with people, they were all around her, old men, people in uniform, couples holding hands, women with children. Some danced or sang, some were drinking, but most of them, like herself, were just walking about. No processions, she thought. No waving of banners. A sailor had climbed to the top of a lamppost. A small boy shouted, “Wheee…” and then made a crunching noise like an explosion. “No,” said the woman with him. “No more bombs.”
As she reached the centre of the square, the sun came out and everything suddenly leapt into colour. Water flashed in the fountain. An airman, his uniform changed from grey to blue, splashed some on a laughing girl in a pink dress. A bottle blazed momentarily, passed from hand to hand. Two women singing “Roll Out The Barrel” in printed blouses
seemed to burst into flower. Pigeons wheeled. The sky shone.
At the foot of the fountain a soldier leaned, fast asleep. He was half-sitting, half-lying, his head supported by the stone. The sun lit up the top of his face, one hand clutched a kitbag, the other trailed, open, on the pavement. The legs sprawled exhausted. There was something triumphant about the way he slept. If only he doesn’t wake up, thought Anna.
She got out her sketch-book and began to draw.
Bombs on Aunt Dainty
Judith Kerr was born in Berlin of German Jewish parents. Her father, Alfred Kerr, a distinguished writer, fiercely attacked the Nazis long before they came to power and the family had to flee the country in 1933 when Judith was nine years old.
Bombs on Aunt Dainty
is the second title in a trilogy of books based on Judith’s own experiences. The first,
When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit,
tells the story of the last-minute escape from Germany, village life in Switzerland, the family’s refugee existence in Paris and their final arrival in England. The trilogy continues with
Bombs on Aunt Dainty
and
A Small Person Far Away,
which deal with her growing up in wartime London, her time at art school and her marriage to the writer, Nigel Kneale.
Judith is also well known as the author and illustrator of picture books of which the best-known are the hugely popular Mog stories and
The Tiger Who Came to Tea,
which has now been in print for over thirty years. She lives in London with her husband. They have a film designer daughter, a novelist son – and a cat, called Posy.
When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit
(also available as a Collins Modern Classic)
A Small Person Far Away
Out of the Hitler Time
William Collins Sons & Co Ltd in 1975
First published in Collins in 1998
This edition published as
Bombs on Aunt Dainty
by
HarperCollins
Children’s Books
in 2002
HarperCollins
Children’s Books
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HarperCollins
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Ltd,
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Text copyright © Kerr-Kneale Productions Ltd 1975
The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of the work.
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EPub Edition © MAY 2012 ISBN: 9780007375714
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