Chapter 1: Departure

Susannah Blackett was a normal girl, who lived on a normal street, in a normal city, that is, until the War began.

Susannah, who preferred to be called Zanna, was, like many other children, being evacuated from the city into the country, to be safe from the air raids that were expected to happen, and to get away from the War. She, like so many others, didn’t want to leave her parents, and was sure she was going to hate being away from them. Unfortunately, this left the adults in the centre of all the danger, and no one knew when the war would end, and many children didn't know if they were ever going to see their parents again. Her parents, on the other hand, told her that she had to leave, so that she could be safe, but Zanna already knew all this. Eventually, she was taken to King’s Cross station, suitcase in hand and gas-mask by her side.

Zanna stood with her mother on the platform of King's Cross station, waiting for the train that would separate the two for an undetermined length of time. She fiddled with the skirt she wore. Zanna didn't like wearing skirts at all, in fact, she hated them with a passion, and she was itching to get into the shorts and shirts she had been given by her older brother when he had grown out of them.
“Oh mother,” she said, on the verge of tears. “I'll miss you ever so much. Promise me you'll write often. I can't bear to think that I won't see you for so long.”

“Don’t worry dear,” he mother said softly, hugging her daughter tightly. “It’ll only be for a short time, and you’ll be back home soon. I promise you,” she said, unsure that her promise could be kept.

The steam train pulled into the station and every child on the platform of King's Cross knew what was coming soon. The train conductor came down onto the steps from a carriage and put a hand to his mouth and shouted out to the station, “All aboard!”
Zanna drew a shuddering breath as she tried to not cry as she felt her mother's arms fall from her shoulders.

“Farewell, Susannah,” her mother said softly to her.

“G-g--g- goodbye, m-m-m-mother,” she stuttered as tears burst forth from her eyes.
She climbed up onto the steps of the carriage and took one last glance at her mother.
Zanna couldn't bear to live without her mother and didn't want to leave at all. She ran to a compartment in the carriage and leaned out the window and hugged her mother tightly.

“I'll m-m-miss you.”

“I’ll miss you too, darling,” her mother said as she pulled away from the hug and stood back from the edge of the platform, waving to her daughter.

Zanna pressed her face to the window of the carriage, looking at her Mother with tears in her eyes. Soon, she couldn’t see her mother at all, for people had crowded in front of her and were also waving at their children.

Sobbing quietly to herself Zanna felt her heart breaking as she left her Mother. She stared out of the window, trying to catch a glimpse of her mother in the crowd. But, her mother had already left, not wanting to prolong the suffering. Zanna stared at all the other people on the platform, and tried to pick out familiar faces. There were none. She saw a boy with short, orange hair and blue eyes shove his hands into his pockets as he looked around at everyone. The boy then sighed and picked up his suitcase and went onto the train. It seemed as though he had just been dropped off at the station and left there, no one to see him off, no one to give him a farewell hug as he boarded the train. Zanna felt pity towards the boy. It must be absolutely horrid to have to leave for an unknown length of time and have no one come to see you off, she thought to herself as she lost sight of him.

Turning her head, Zanna picked out a girl among many, saying farewell to her mother. The girl had long, waist-length mouse-brown hair, which hung freely from her head, unlike Zanna’s shoulder-length, raven black hair, which she kept tightly in a ponytail to keep it out of her eyes. She saw the girl get onto the train too, and with a loud sigh, the train started to move, puffing smoke and blocking the station from view as they pulled out.

Zanna’s first and foremost thing to do, as soon as the station was no longer anything more than an unintelligible smudge through the thick smoke from the locomotive’s funnel, was to change out of the dress that her mother had forced her to wear. Zanna, who had grown up with an older brother, was quite the tomboy, and despised dresses and skirts, especially dresses. She found them impractical, especially when tree-climbing or sailing, among other things. And, seeing as she had an older brother, Zanna had taken to wearing the clothing that he had grown out of, such as his shirts, jumpers and shorts. She often wore his old shoes too, but that was only when she was out sailing or tree climbing.

Opening her case on the seat, Zanna pulled out one of many shirts and a pair of shorts from many and selected a sleeveless jumper that she favoured. Poking her head out of the compartment, Zanna checked that no one was coming down the corridor yet and she retreated back into the compartment, pausing momentarily to lock the door and pull down the blind on the glass window set into the sliding door. She turned and did the same to the blind on the window.

Almost as soon as she had done so, Zanna was out of the dreaded dress and back into the comfortable apparel of shorts, a shirt and her favourite sleeveless jumper. She pulled her socks up and tied the laced of her shoes up, making sure she couldn’t trip over, as was her wont to do. Satisfied that she was comfortable, Zanna then unlocked the compartment door and released the blinds.

Now that she was comfortable, Zanna now realized that she was completely and utterly bored. Zanna closed her eyes and leant back in the seat in the empty compartment, already bored out of her mind. She didn’t want to read, because she didn’t feel like she could concentrate on it, and she didn’t want to draw, so it seemed pointless to even try.

Trying to block out the noise of the train, Zanna was left to her own thoughts as people rushed past the compartment, not going in, as they already had their own seats.

Upon hearing a commotion outside, Zanna opened her eyes and saw that the boy with orange hair had tripped and fallen over in the corridor, bringing down the girl with the long, mouse-brown hair. They were both laughing at their clumsiness and got up and dusted themselves off. The two looked at each other and then past the other person and at the rest of the compartments in the carriage. The girl spoke, but Zanna couldn’t what she said, for the compartment door was closed. The boy nodded and the girl then nodded too. The girl then gestured towards the compartment and the boy smiled and shrugged, picking up his suitcase and the girl’s too. The girl then opened the compartment door and poked her head in.

“Hello,” the girl said, addressing Zanna, smiling nervously. “Er, we were just wondering if there were any free seats in this compartment… everywhere else is full…” she said as she pushed the door slightly.

“Of course you can come sit in here. After all, I am on my own, and I’m bored senseless!” Zanna said, smiling broadly as the girl and the boy came in and closed the door. “Anyway, I’m Zanna Blackett,” she said, holding her hand out to the girl and then the boy, introducing herself.

“Emily Brown,” Emily said, shaking Zanna’s hand.

“James Anderson,” said the boy, shaking Zanna’s hand and smiling.

“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Emily and James,” Zanna said brightly as she stowed her suitcase in the holder above the seats, then doing the same for Emily and James. She took off her gas-mask box and put it next to her on the seat and leant back. “So, where are you two from?” she asked, eager to get to know these two new people. “I’m from Bloomsbury. I lived on Great Russell Street,” she said, rambling on a bit.

“Great Russell Street?” Emily asked, thinking a bit. “I knew someone from Great Russell Street. Clara Allen. Did you know her? She was sent off to Scotland ---”

“Two months ago,” Zanna finished Emily’s sentence. “Yes, I knew Clara. She and I were neighbours for three years.” Zanna laughed a bit. “We used to be inseparable. She was a hoot and no mistake…” Here, Zanna paused, lost in thought about one of her closest and dearest friends. “Well, this is going to be exciting, isn’t it? I reckon it will be fun!” she said in a conversational tone.

“So, where are you headed to, Zanna?” Emily asked her.

“Well…” Zanna said, looking at her tag. “My tag says that I’m Zanna Blackett, aged 14 and that I am headed to Keswick in the Lake District, to live with someone called Meredith, who owns a Manor house on the water’s edge of Derwent Water in Cumbria.” She said, hoping one of them would be with her if she were lucky, that is.

“Well, my tag says that I am Emily Brown and that I’m 16 and I’m going to Keswick too!”

“Me too!” James said, joining in the conversation at last. “Mine says I’m 15 and that I am staying with a bloke called George Meredith,” James said, not checking his tag. “He’s a friend of the family and my Father, I mean,” he said, coughing to cover up that he had called his Father by the term. “The General, arranged it.”

For a moment, Zanna eyed James curiously, wondering why he had behaved like that. There was evidently some sort of familial tension there between Father and Son.

“How serendipitous! We’re going to be together for this!” Zanna said, growing increasingly brighter with each word. “Anyway, I wonder what this Mr. Meredith is like. He sounds like some rich toff that won’t let us have any fun or make any noise; after all, he lives in a Manor House on the water’s edge of a huge lake! Well, at least there will be lots of grounds and we can play cricket and go exploring and ----”

“Find a magical land in a wardrobe!” Emily said, chipping in excitedly.

“Don’t get your hopes up, dear,” James said, teasing Emily. “At least we can do some stuff. George is a recluse at the best of times and we can do pretty much anything, as long as we don’t get on the wrong side of Nanny, his housekeeper.”

“This is going to be great fun! You’ve got to teach me how to do…er…. Stuff!” Emily said, smiling and laughing.

“Of course we will!” James and Zanna said at exactly the same time.

“I’ll teach you how to bowl the perfect spinner in cricket!” Zanna said, falling off her seat from being so excited.

There was a long pause, in which Zanna sucked on a sweet that she had popped into her mouth earlier on. James was the first to break the silence.

“Do you want to play twenty questions? We could get to know each other better! I’ll start! Zanna,” he said, looking at the raven-haired girl. “How old are you?” he asked, evidently forgetting that they had already told each other their ages.

Zanna decided to humour him, but she decided to play it up a bit first.

“Why sir!” she said, putting on an outraged tone and acting angry, in typical Zanna fashion. “How dare you ask a woman her age? It’s downright rude!” she then grinned from ear to ear at James’ shocked face. “Nah, don’t worry, I’m only pulling your leg, James. I’m 14, like I told you only a while back!”

The girls both laughed very hard at James’ shock and teased him about it for a while. The game went on and eventually they just chatted randomly about whatever came to mind. At some point during this time, Emily was overcome by a bout of sadness, and tears welled in her eyes. To hide this, she turned so that she was facing the window, where she feigned looking at the retreating buildings of London, welcoming the sight of the countryside.

The three had been chatting for some while, when a second boy came along the corridor, trying to go along as best he could, heaving his oversized suitcase over people’s heads, trying to find a seat. Zanna thought that they might as well let him into their compartment, so she went over to the door, smiling at the boy and let him in, another girl following behind him.

“Hullo!” he said cheerily, putting his suitcase into the rack and sitting down next to Zanna, the girl sitting on the other side, next to a now crying Emily. “I’m Eric Jolson,” he said as he settled himself into the seat. “And you are?”

“I’m Zanna Blackett and these are Emily Brown and James Anderson,” she said, gesturing to the others.

“Nice to meet you,” Eric said in his very cheery voice. “Oh, and that’s Carrie Melchett,” he said, pointing to the girl next to Emily. She smiled half-heartedly. Her eyes were red and swollen as if she had been crying a lot. “We’re headed to somewhere in North Yorkshire. Where’re you going?”

“We’re going to… uh… crikey, I‘ve already forgotten. James, do you know?” Zanna said, still puzzling over what she had already managed to forget.

“We’re going to live with Mr. George Meredith in Keswick in The Lake District.” James said, laughing slightly at Zanna’s forgetfulness. He turned to Emily, who was now in tears again, and started to ask if she was ok, wondering why she was crying. “Why is it that girls cry so much?” he said, a little tactlessly. “I mean, we’re only leaving our parents for a while,” he said, honestly confused as to why Emily was crying. The last sentence he said brought forth a new wave of tears from Emily. James reached out an arm to comfort Emily, but Carrie beat him to it and put an arm around her and tried to comfort her.

“Look what you’ve done,” she said, more than a little irritated with James; she didn’t seem to have taken very well to the red-haired boy at all. “You’ve only gone and made it worse!” Her grey eyes flashing coldly like shards of ice in winter.

James scowled and turned to look out the window, pretending to stare at the countryside, when he was actually sneaking glances at Emily from the corner of his eye, genuinely sorry for what he had accidentally done. It wasn’t his fault that James hadn’t understood why Emily was so emotional at leaving her family. James’ family wasn’t the happiest and so he was, if anything, glad to be getting shot of his Father for a while. The one person he truly missed, however, was his Mother, who had left his Father quite some time back.

The compartment fell silent for a while until Zanna decided to lighten it up a bit.

“So… do any of you play Cricket?” she asked, hoping to find another cricket fan to talk with.

“Oh, I do! I jolly well love the game! Playing it, that is. Watching it is as dull as ditchwater!” Eric said to the group’s amusement. “My whole family is Cricket mad and we used to go to Hyde Park and play it every weekend!” Eric said, producing a cricket ball from his gas-mask box, where it had been nestled in the eye socket of an untouched gasmask. He started chucking it up in the air slightly. “If only we were all staying together, then we could really have had some fun!” he said as he chucked the ball to Zanna, who caught it deftly and chucked it back to him.

“I play a bit of cricket,” James said, finally breaking his gaze from the window and turning to the others. “We can play cricket in the local park in Keswick with the other kids around there,” he said as he brushed some of his hair out of his face.

“I play a bit of cricket too,” Emily piped up too, cheering up a bit when they had a topic of conversation. “Not well, might I add… My friends and I used to play it all the time on the school field. We often ended up breaking windows more than actually scoring any runs,” she said, giggling, the rest of the group joining in the laughter too.

The conversation turned from cricket to families to hobbies and the group found out all about the others. Funny thing was that they were all from Bloomsbury, and not one of them had ever met each other. It wasn’t the biggest area in London, but evidently it was bigger than they had thought. The conversation continued on the subject of hobbies and soon, all eyes were on James, wondering what he liked to do, everyone else already having talked about themselves far too much, in their opinions, at least.

“I like target shooting. It’s the thing that I like the most,” he said, looking uneasily at the floor. An uncomfortable silence followed after what he said, which was inexplicable, as target shooting was a good sport, but the silence was most likely brought on by the thought of toting a rifle and firing it, much in the same way as the brave men on the front lines, fighting for King and Country. “So, Zanna, what are your hobbies?”

“Well…” Zanna said, pausing for thought. “My brother taught me how to swim and sail when I was young. Those are my two favourite things to do. I do hope that there is somewhere to swim where we’re going.”

“Oh, there is,” James said, smiling at Zanna. “The lake is literally at the end of the grounds. It’s absolutely beautiful and there is a boathouse with a useable boat in it.”

The group talked long and loud for many hours, talking about all sorts of things, but mostly exchanging funny stories of past antics that they had gotten up to with their friends from school, when Zanna remembered a bag of sweets that she had in her cardigan pocket which she fished out of her suitcase from the rack, standing on the seat, trying not to get her feet tangled in Eric’s or Carrie’s legs. Once her searching hand closed around the paper sweet bag, she closed the suitcase and attempted to sit down on the seat, landing rather awkwardly in Eric’s lap, which earned a nervous giggle from Zanna who then budged off of Eric’s knees and back into her own place. After regaining her composure, Zanna proffered the bag of sweets to the group.

“ Would anyone like some?” she asked, grinning at the incredulous looks that the others wore.

“You lucky person, you! How did you get these?” Emily said, brightening up as she took a sweet from the bag, popping it in her mouth, sucking delightedly at the bonbon.

“Yes, yes I am lucky. However, that isn’t why I got them! No sir! My mother owns a sweet shop where we live and she gave me this bag of sweets for the journey… and to share with whoever I made friends with…” she said with a timid smile. She took a sherbet lemon from the bag and sucked on it as she looked out of the window.

The evening light outside gave way to darkness as day turned to night, however, how late it was, Zanna could only guess, seeing as she had left her watch in her cardigan pocket when she had undressed earlier to change into her brother’s clothing.

“I’m sorry if I sound rude for asking,” Eric said as he looked at Zanna’s attire. “But why, may I ask, are you wearing boy’s clothing?”

Zanna grinned at this. Most people asked her this question, but evidently this group of fantastic children were all too well mannered to ask such a question, and Eric was merely voicing everyone’s thoughts, it seemed.

“Well, Eric, I wear boy’s clothing because it is by far more comfortable than anything that girls have to wear, plus, it is far more practical to wear when sailing or tree-climbing and whatnot.” At the end of the sentence, Zanna let out an almighty yawn, causing a chain reaction, making everyone yawn in turn, stretching their arms out above their heads. The five children were all much more tired than they appeared. However, there wasn’t very much space in the compartment, and it was rather squished, what with five people in there.

The group settled themselves to go to sleep, most people ending up leaning on the others, their heads lolling on their shoulders, as they travelled through the English Countryside.

Several hours passed as the train whizzed through the English Countryside, passing endless fields of sheep and many forests, but not one of the children saw these, as they were all so deeply asleep that it seemed as though they could have slept through an air raid.

Zanna was the first to wake, being woken with a jolt as the train’s whistle sounded long and loud, telling the travellers that they had stopped at a station.

“No more gravy!” Zanna yelled as she woke from an incredibly odd dream as another jolt racked the train causing her to tumble from her seat. She then realized where she was and looked out the window. Bleary eyed and tousle-haired, she stared out at the rainy station, Zanna saw the sign saying ‘Keswick Station’.

An immense sadness suddenly filled Zanna at the prospect of leaving Carrie and Eric behind when she woke everyone up, announcing that they had arrived in Keswick.

“Zanna,” Eric said to her as she fished her suitcase down from the rack. “May I please have the address of where you will be living? I would so love to write to you, after all, we are kindred spirits.”

Smiling, Zanna quickly scrawled the address that was written on her identity tag onto a piece of paper and handed it to Eric, who did the same and gave her his address.

“Promise me you’ll write, after all, it’s not every day that people meet people who are so similar,” she said, as she pocketed his address.

“Don’t worry, I will,” he said. He noticed the tears filling Zanna’s eyes as they looked at each other. “Buck up, old chap. It’s not as if we’ll never see one another again. After all, we both come from Bloomsbury, so when this blasted war is over, we shall see each other once more, if not sooner.” Eric said, hugging Zanna tightly. She returned the hug, sadly having to let go, wishing that she didn’t have to part from Eric. The two had grown close in the few hours they had spent together in the train.

She hugged Carrie and said farewell to Eric one last time and waited for Emily and James as they said their goodbyes; James shaking their hands and Emily hugging them.

The train pulled out of the station after the group had descended from the train and onto the platform, with one last shriek from the whistle. The figures of Eric Jolson and Carrie Melchett waving quickly faded from their vision as they were engulfed in a puff of smoke.