The Sky is Falling

Praise for Kit Pearson

“Kit Pearson is a great talent in Canadian children's literature.”

—
The Guardian
(Charlottetown)

“One of Canada's best junior fiction writers.”

—
The StarPhoenix
(Saskatoon)

“Pearson is a strong writer whose work puts to shame most of the books that kids spend so much time reading these days.”

—
Ottawa Citizen

“Kit Pearson gives young readers a strong testament of the interlocking nature and power of reading, writing and living.”

—
The Vancouver Sun

“Another magical tale from the master.”

—
Toronto Star

“Dazzle. It's not the right word for what Kit Pearson manages to do … but it's close. Closer would be a word that catches the irregular glint of light reflected on water, street lights suspended in fog, an opalescent fracturing of time and genre to create something with its own unique glow.”

—
Edmonton Journal

“Through the vivid observation of two summers, Pearson weaves a summer out of time and weaves as well a spell over her readers.”

—
The Globe and Mail

“The very best in fiction for young adults. Kit Pearson does herself proud.”

—
The Windsor Star

“Kit Pearson's careful and exact research brings the period vividly before us.”

—
The London Free Press

“The woman is a brilliant writer.”

—
Kingston This Week

“Pearson superbly and gently captures the welter of emotions that beset a young teen who is experiencing the onset of adolescence and having to cope with its physical and emotional demands.”

—
CM

“This is a writer at the top of her craft.”

—
Quill & Quire

“Pearson's real strength … lies in her ability to convey the texture of a specific time and place…. So vividly and lovingly evoked that it is almost possible to smell the pine trees.”

—
Publishers Weekly

PUFFIN CANADA

THE SKY IS FALLING

KIT PEARSON
was born in Edmonton and grew up there and in Vancouver. Her previous seven novels (six of which have been published by Penguin) have been published in Canada, in English and French, and in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, the Netherlands, Germany, Great Britain, China, and Korea. She has received fourteen awards for her writing, including the Vicky Metcalf Award for her body of work. She presently lives in Victoria.

Visit her website:
www.kitpearson.com
.

Also by Kit Pearson

The Daring Game

A Handful of Time

Looking at the Moon

The Lights Go On Again

Awake and Dreaming

This Land: An Anthology of Canadian Stories for Young Readers

(as editor)

Whispers of War:

The War of 1812 Diary of Susanna Merritt

A Perfect Gentle Knight

The Sky is Falling

GUESTS OF WAR BOOK ONE

KIT PEARSON

PUFFIN CANADA

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3
(a division of Pearson Canada Inc.)

Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen's Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)

Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia
(a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)

Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India

Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, Auckland, New Zealand
(a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)

Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

First published in a Puffin Canada hardcover by Penguin Group (Canada),
a division of Pearson Canada Inc., 1989

Published in Puffin Canada paperback by Penguin Group (Canada),
a division of Pearson Canada Inc., 1990

Published in this edition, 2007

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (OPM)

Copyright © Kathleen Pearson, 1989

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

Publisher's note: This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Manufactured in the U.S.A.

ISBN-13: 978-0-14-305634-8

ISBN-10: 0-14-305634-4

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication data available upon request.

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

Visit the Penguin Group (Canada) website at
www.penguin.ca

Special and corporate bulk purchase rates available; please see
www.penguin.ca/corporatesales
or call 1-800-810-3104, ext. 477 or 474

For my parents

It was a long journey they set out on,

and they did not think of any end to it …

“
ALENOUSHKA AND HER BROTHER
”

(RUSSIAN FOLK TALE)

PART 1

1

The Plane

N
orah, armed to the teeth, slithered on her stomach through the underbrush. She gripped her bow in her right hand and bit on a kitchen knife. A quiver of arrows made from sharpened twigs and decorated with chicken feathers slid sideways on her back, getting tangled with the string of her gas mask case. Pulling herself forward by her elbows, she finally reached the clearing.

There she stopped to wait for Tom's signal. The knife had an unpleasantly metallic taste. Spitting it out, she looked up and gaped in wonder.

In front of her, glittering in the August sunlight, was a shot-down German aeroplane—a Messerschmitt 109. Norah recognized its square-cut wing tips and streamlined fuselage. But it looked more like a squashed dragonfly than a plane. Its wings stretched lifelessly over the ground and its split body exposed its innards. One propeller blade was bent back and twisted. Bullet holes spotted the metal corpse and a burnt, sour smell like vinegar rose from it.

The mangled machine looked alien and out of place in Mr. Coomber's peaceful field. Most sinister of all was the bold black swastika on the plane's tail. When the war had begun a year ago, the Nazis had been safely on the other side of the Channel. Then they had started flying over England. And now, here was one of their planes only a few hundred yards away. A choking fear filled Norah, as if there were a weight on her chest.

She took a deep breath and pulled herself to a sitting position, careful to stay concealed. In front of the aircraft, puffed with importance, stood Mr. Willis from the village, his crisp new Home Guard emblem around his sleeve.

Across the field, Tom waved his arm. Norah waved back and watched the answering signals from Harry and Jasper. Tom pointed to Norah. Good, they were going to assemble here. Maybe if she weren't alone this strange new fear would leave her.

“Isn't it
smashing
?” whispered Tom a few minutes later. He and the younger two crept up to join her, dropping their weapons.

With three warm bodies pressing close to hers, Norah breathed easily again. They all stared greedily at the plane's parts: its instrument panel, machine guns, fuel caps and hanging shards of aluminum. Harry and Jasper were too awed to speak.

“The tailfin's completely undamaged,” said Tom softly. “If only Mr. Willis wasn't there and we had a hacksaw, we could cut it off.”

Several older boys broke through the trees on the
opposite side of the field and hurried towards the plane, halting with frustration when they saw Mr. Willis.

“Get away!” he called. “This plane will be guarded until the lorry comes, so there's no use hanging about.”

One of the boys darted behind the plane, snatched up some metal from the ground and bolted with his companions. Mr. Willis shouted helplessly after them.

“I wonder where the pilot is?” mused Tom. “See his gear?” He pointed to the parachute pack, leather helmet and goggles abandoned in front of the wreck. “He could be lurking somewhere!”

Norah had trouble breathing again as she took this in. One of Hitler's men! The Enemy, the Hun, who wanted to conquer Britain, except Britain would never give up.

“He'll probably surrender,” said Tom, “or they'll capture him. Or
we
will,” he added. Norah glanced doubtfully at her fragile arrows and the dull knife lying in the dirt.

They watched the plane for an hour, until their arms and legs were cramped and Jasper complained he was thirsty. Finally, when it became obvious that Mr. Willis was not going to leave his post, they crept through the trees to their waiting bicycles. Slowly they rode back to Ringden, squeezing through the side of the barbed-wire roadblock. The guards knew them well and didn't bother asking for their identity cards.

As they neared the edge of the village, they waved to old Mrs. Chandler, who had had her noon meal in her front garden every day this week so she could watch the
fighting planes in the sky. They parked their bicycles and crossed the lumpy grass behind her house to their tree fort.

Tom handed around weak lemonade. The four children sat in companionable, exhausted silence, each intoxicated with the thrilling danger of the plane.

2

The Skywatchers

O
ld Mrs. Chandler didn't know there was a secret society in her orchard. Her house was the largest and highest in Ringden and looked out over the Weald. Last summer Tom and Norah had discovered the old tree fort hidden in an apple tree; it must have been built by one of her sons. They had reinforced it with scraps of wood and added a rope ladder to get in and out quickly.

At first, the fort had been a good place in which to play Cops and Robbers. But this spring it had been named the Lookout when the Secret Society of Skywatchers was formed. Now they were on the alert for real enemies: the Good Guys were the English and the Bad Guys the Germans.

Pinned on the walls of the Lookout were pictures cut out of the newspaper of the troop-carrying aircraft to look out for. They especially hoped to catch sight of a Junkers 52, the enemy plane most commonly used for parachute dropping. They owned a copy of
Friend or Foe? A Young Spotter's Guide to Allied and German Aircraft,
but Tom and Norah were such experts, they no longer needed it.

The Skywatchers looked at strangers suspiciously and longed to meet nuns, monks or nurses who might be Nazis in disguise with collapsible bicycles under their loose clothes. In the Lookout was a supply of grey, lumpy sugar, painstakingly saved from their rations, to pour into enemies' petrol tanks and neutralize them.

Norah sipped her sour lemonade and looked around the cluttered fort with satisfaction. Ranged along a shelf were their war souvenirs: twisted bits of shrapnel, uniform badges and tins of cartridge cases. It was too bad they hadn't been able to get anything new from the Messerschmitt.