Читать книгу Favourite Cat Stories: The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips, Kaspar and The Butterfly Lion - Michael Morpurgo, Michael Morpurgo - Страница 18

Today was a day that will change my life for ever. Grandfather was right when he said something was up. And it is something big too, something very big – I have to keep pinching myself to believe it’s true, that it’s really going to happen. Yesterday was just like any other day. Rain. School. Long division. Spelling test. Barry picking his nose. Barry smiling at me from across the classroom with his big round eyes. I just wish he wouldn’t smile at me so. He’s always so smiley.

Then today it happened. I knew all day there was going to be some kind of meeting in the church in the evening, that someone from every house had to go and it was important. I knew that, because Mum and Grandfather were arguing about it over breakfast before I went off to school. Grandfather was being a grumpy old goat. He’s been getting crotchety a lot just lately. (Mum says it’s because of his rheumatism – it gets worse in damp weather.) He kept saying he had too much to do on the farm to be bothered with meetings and such. And besides, he said, women were better at talking because they did more of it. Of course that made Mum really mad, so they had a fair old dingdong about it. Anyway in the end Mum gave in and said she’d go, and she asked me to go along with her for company. I didn’t want to go but now I’m glad I did, really glad.

The place was packed out. There was standing room only by the time we got there. Then this bigwig, Lord Somethingorother, got up and started talking. I didn’t pay much attention at first because he had this droning-on hoity-toity (I like that word) sort of voice that almost put me to sleep. But suddenly I felt a strange stillness and silence all around me. It was almost as if everyone had stopped breathing. Everyone was listening, so I listened too. I can’t remember his exact words, but I think it went something like this.

“I know it’s asking a lot of you,” the bigwig was saying, “but I promise we wouldn’t be asking you if we didn’t have to, if it wasn’t absolutely necessary. They’ll be needing the beach at Slapton Sands and the whole area behind it, including this village. They need it because they have to practise landings from the sea for the invasion of France when it comes. That’s all I can tell you. Everything else is top secret. No point in asking me anything about it, because I don’t know any more than you do. What I do know is that you have seven weeks from today to move out, lock, stock and barrel – and I mean that. You have to take everything with you: furniture, food, coal, all your animals, farm machinery, fuel, and all fodder and crops that can be carried. Nothing you value must be left behind. After the seven weeks is up, no one will be allowed back – and I mean no one. There’ll be a barbed-wire perimeter fence and guards everywhere to keep you out. Besides which, it will be dangerous. There’ll be live firing going on: real shells, real bullets. I know it’s hard, but don’t imagine it’s just Slapton, that you’re the only ones. Torcross, East Allington, Stokenham, Sherford, Chillington, Strete, Blackawton: 3000 people have got to move out; 750 families, 30,000 acres of land have got to be cleared in seven weeks.”

Some people tried to stand up and ask questions, but it was no use. He just waved them down.

“I’ve told you. It’s no good asking me the whys and wherefores. All I know is what I’ve told you. They need it for the war effort, for training purposes. That’s all you need to know.”

“Yes, but for how long?” asked the vicar from the back of the hall.

“About six months, nine months, maybe longer. We can’t be sure. And don’t worry. We’ll make sure everyone has a place to live, and of course there’ll be proper compensation paid to everyone, to all the farms and businesses for any loss or damage. And I have to be honest with you here, I have to warn you that there will be damage, lots of it.”

You could have heard a pin drop. I was expecting lots of protests and questions, but everyone seemed to be struck dumb. I looked up at Mum. She was staring ahead of her, her mouth half open, her face pale. All the way home in the dark, I kept asking her questions, but she never said a word till we reached the farmyard.

“It’ll kill him,” she whispered. “Your grandfather. It’ll kill him.”

Once back home she came straight out with it. Grandfather was in his chair warming his toes in the oven as usual. “We’ve got to clear out,” she said, and she told him the whole thing. Grandfather was silent for a moment or two. Then he just said, “They’ll have to carry me out first. I was born here and I’ll die here. I’m not moving, not for they ruddy Yanks, not for no one.” Mum’s still downstairs with him, trying to persuade him. But he won’t listen. I know he won’t. Grandfather doesn’t say all that much, but what he says he means. What he says, he sticks to. Tips has jumped up on my bed and walked all over my diary with her muddy paws! She’s lucky I love her as much as I do.