“Hurry up child!” Teddy’s mother exploded as they ran like mice through a claustrophobic sea of people. She seemed to be in a rush to get rid of him. He sighed.

“I’m trying to mother, but there is far too many people here.” For a thirteen year old he had a lot of guts to answer back to his mother, who was an angry beast of a woman. She snarled, well as best as an overweight person who was trying their best to run could. She reminded Teddy of a ferocious snowman, she was cold, pale and melting from running and the unusual warmth. Mrs Miller and her son couldn’t have been anymore different if they tried. She was podgy, he was skinny. She was dumpy, he was lofty. She had fair hair scraped back into a bun that resembled a donut, whilst he had a messy mop of cocoa brown curls attached to his head. She had cold, lifeless blue eyes and although his were almost the exact same shade of pale blueberry, his were warm, inviting and full of life. Teddy had always hoped he had been adopted, but sadly, it was not true. He sighed again. The combination of the barbaric sun and running through a clustered London street had caused little trickles of sweat to dribble down his back. He was exhausted but he didn’t stop running, he really did not want to miss the train; he could not bear to spend much more time with his so called mother.

He heaved his bag and gas mask through the compact door of the majestic station. He felt like an anchovy stuck in a tin, but this tin was rather magnificent, Teddy had never seen anything like it. The walls were made out of tatty but somehow beautiful red bricks that reached the sky and the ceiling arched itself like a startled cat’s back. The train was still there, so they weren’t as late as they thought. They scuttled over to platform three and paused outside a raspberry red train. Many children were already on board waving and crying to their mothers. Teddy was certain that he was not going to do that. The silence between himself and his mother was horrific. He didn’t really know what to do or say, he certainly didn’t want to hug the beast. He spoke first,

“Well, er, I best be getting onto the train then mother.” Should he hug her? She looked strangely sad.

“Ok then poppet,” she said forlornly. Poppet? Since when had his mother called him silly little pet names like that? Her eyes were either filled with tears of watering, he couldn’t tell. It was very peculiar. She shuffled forward, stretched her arms out and embraced him in a very unnatural, awkward hug. Teddy had to refrain himself from gasping, however, his mouth did form a perfect ‘o’ shape.

“Um, bye mother,” he stuttered as he scampered away to casually board the train.

As Teddy clambered onto the train, he was surprised to see so many little scallywags running around him. They were all heading for various different destinations, but they still, in essence, had the same fate. He looked around for the emptiest compartment and settled on one with two of the raggiest, dirtiest children he had ever seen. He cleared his throat and slided the door open.

“Um, hello, may I sit in here please?” he stuttered, he was rather nervous; he hated talking to new people. The two ragamuffins blinked and faced each other, they looked startling alike; they were both as dirty as two pigs (they even had pig-like noses) and their hair reminded him of bird’s nests. Their clothes must have been hand-me-downs and they looked as withered and as old as a wilted flower. Teddy supposed they were twins; they were basically clones except for the fact that one had a multitude of freckles and one did not. They both stared at him like two hawks eyeing their prey. The freckly one spoke for the both of them,

“Alrighttttttt mate, me ‘nd Jimmy ‘ere me twin din’t mind much. Sit diwn there mate ‘nd make yerself com fort able.” His cockney accent stunk out the train, Teddy could barely understand him.

“Um, okay,” he muttered. He thought the twins looked rather rough, so he sat down opposite them and decided to keep himself to himself.

The rain came down in long knitting needles as Teddy gazed out of the window subdued with his thoughts. He supposed the train had left a while ago, but he knew he had quite a bit to go until he finally reached his new life to escape his mother (and the bombs too of course). He was essentially beginning to get exceedingly bored, so he rummaged through his pockets and tore out his late Grandfather’s pocket watch. It still managed to be beautiful even though it was centuries old; it was even more golden than the sun and it was encrusted in tiny oriental inscriptions. It was like an old man, even though it was elderly and fatigued, it kept going and living. The spindly little hands never seemed to stop. Teddy noticed the twins eyeing it, so him nimbly stuffed it back into his pocket and vowed to keep it safe.

The last few hours had jaded Teddy, so the sound of the train grumbling as it lugged itself into Puddington station was heaven. He almost, but not quite, skipped off the train due to his delightfulness of finally escaping from the beast. He didn’t exactly know what to with himself or where to go, so he followed the other children like a sheep and they led him to the village hall.

The village hall was as dull as the drizzly grey weather. The evacuee children had been ordered to stand against the wall and to patiently wait for their new ‘family’ to select them. Teddy sighed. He knew that he would be the leftovers to be picked last. Who would want a gangly, gawky, pre-adolescent boy? However, to his great surprise, Teddy was not left until last, but until third last (the twins had been left pouting in the corner). Mrs. Jones, a woman somewhere in-between being middle aged and elderly, had chosen him. Her hair was wavy and the colour of a mature, almost grey, field mouse and her eyes were a brilliant, enthralling green. Her wrinkles were etched into her skin like the grooves and lines in an oak tree, a few of them near her eyes resembled crow’s feet, which made Teddy assume she smiled often. She seemed nice enough, but why on earth had she chosen him?

It was a gloriously sunny September day; the streets were a furnace and the sun an executioner. Teddy hesitantly waited in line in the school play ground, clutching his rationed packed lunch that Mrs. Jones had lovingly made him. He also had his golden pocket watch with him for comfort, but also for luck as he really needed it. He paid no attention when the head teacher exclaimed his speech about welcoming the evacuees and the new school year and he was abruptly pushed when it was time to go to class. He was fairly anxious; he had been in Puddington for a few weeks now and hadn’t managed to make any friends (except for Mrs. Jones and her cats). He was feeling out of place, he didn’t know if he belonged here. He was desolate. The dread of walking into the class room without knowing anyone and the prospect of attempting to make friends was filling him up and eating him from the inside out. He sighed; they were only tear drops in an ocean of worries. He dragged his body into the class room and perched himself in the seat that Mrs. Wall, who was a fountain of knowledge, had told him was his own. A few minutes later, a boy who strangely resembled a stick insect strolled into the room like he owned the place. Teddy instantly took a dislike to him.

“Blimey, I really hate that kid,” the boy sitting next to Teddy mumbled whilst shaking his head. Teddy looked around, was the boy talking to him?

“Um, yeah, same. He doesn’t look very nice,” Teddy replied uncertainly.

“Yeah, he’s an idiot, anyways I’m Tommy, who are you?”

Teddy smiled; maybe making friends wasn’t as hard as he thought. They way him and Tommy had just briefly bonded over a mutual hate for a fellow class member was simply brilliant.

By the summer of 1943, Teddy had made a total of two friends, which was quite an achievement. He and Tommy had bonded even more over mutual hate for various other scallywags and ragamuffins; Teddy had also befriended Tommy’s younger sister Maggie. The three of them were literally inseparable. They spent most of their time either lounging in the meadow with a very limited picnic, or sitting in their little row boat. They had healed it to its glorious form the previous summer, but its duck egg blue paint was now flaking and peeling as the three of them sat inside it gazing across the snaking river. Teddy and Tommy exchanged looks; they had something important to tell Maggie. Teddy flicked the lid of his pocket watch open and closed multiple times, he always fiddled with it when he didn’t know what to do. He looked at her; she was daydreaming in a little world of her own. She tucked her golden, sandy hair behind her ear and looked back at him with her dazzling, turtle shell green eyes.

“What is it?” she demanded, she knew something was up, she always did. Teddy swore that she had some sort of sixth sense. He and Tommy sighed at the exact same time.

“Well...” Teddy began, he wanted to tell her kindly, he cared about her very much but he also knew what she was like when she was angry. However, Tommy interrupted him.

“We’re leaving in a week Mags. We’re joining the army.”

If their news was a plaster, Tommy had just ripped it off painfully and swiftly, whereas Teddy had wanted to do it as tenderly as possible. Maggie’s eyes widened with the prospect of her brother and best friend leaving her. Leaving her for the bloody army where they could quite easily get themselves killed. She felt cold. What would she do if the worst did happen? But why had they only just told her now? Why leave it until a week before they left? How could they even leave her in the first place? She felt angry. She didn’t even want to look at them. Her fifteen year old hormones were building up inside her causing a storm of emotions. The sky had turned a nasty, pigeon shade of grey. She couldn’t even look at them, so she turned around, jumped into the lukewarm water and doggie-paddled to the shore. She tore away in her soggy clothes and marched home.

During Tommy and Teddy’s final week in Puddington, Maggie barely even acknowledged them. She still felt angry, after all, they were deserting her, so how did they expect her to feel? However, when they finally did bid their farewells to the whole village, she wasn’t even there. She was laying in the meadow, when the sudden realisation that her brother and best friend were leaving and she could quite possibly never see them again hit her. She heaved herself up and stole away to the centre of Puddington. But sadly, when she reached the leaving party, Tommy and Teddy had already left. Mrs. Jones wiped her tear stained cheeks and told Maggie that the boys had lingered around for as long as they could, but unfortunately they had to leave. Lamentation hit Maggie like a wave crashing over cliffs. It engulfed her, and she wept.

Maggie put on a fake smile as she embraced her mother goodbye at the station; it had been a year since Teddy and Tommy had left Puddington and now it was her turn. Her hair glistened in the rain like the morning’s dew. A tear fell down her face, but she just pretended that it was the horrific weather. She was sad to leave Puddington and her mother, but she had to go. She felt a bird leaving the nest for the very first time. She boarded the train which was to take her to the docks from there she would sail a ship to France. Once in France, she was to help out in the north with the soldiers. Whilst being a trainee nurse, she was hoping to bump into Tommy or Teddy, she had wrote to her brother but she hadn’t heard from Teddy in such a long time; she longed to hear the sound of one of their voices. She missed them terribly, but she didn’t even know if they were still alive.

A variety of different medicines serenaded the room with their scent, it was 1945 and Maggie was writing a letter to her brother, who was in Belgium, when one of the other nurses screeched for her help. Whilst running to their aid, she heard an incredibly familiar voice.

“Oh God, oh God, it hurts so much.” The voice whimpered in pain.

She couldn’t quite place who owned that particularly recognisable voice, so she looked at his bruised and battered face instead. It was slightly more weather-beaten than when she had last seen it, but the somehow warm, pale blueberry eyes were staring back at her.

“Teddy?” she smiled, with tears cramming up her eyes. A sudden wave of nostalgia crashed upon her. In a spilt image, she was that carefree thirteen year old girl again in the meadow, counting the stars with her brother and her friend. She snapped back to reality.

Teddy studied her; she didn’t look much older than when they had last seen each other, but somehow, she had blossomed like a flower that was usually succumbed by others. She was beautiful.

“Yes? Oh gosh I don’t quite believe it, is that you? Maggie?” he spoke slowly, it was quite obvious that he was in pain. But he still managed to look well and truly baffled. Bewilderment had spread all over his face. Maggie nodded her head and smiled at him amorously, she helped the other nurse to stitch up but to also clean his wounds from the war with the tenderist touch she could do. He had lost a lot of blood rendering him as pale as a snowdrop, but he still mustered the energy to smile.

“I’ve missed you,” he whispered. She had missed him and told him so as she tenderly squeezed his hand. Maggie and the other nurses tried their best to fix him (he was like a broken doll), but unfortunately their best wasn’t quite good enough.

Teddy’s heart was a lonely hunter who hunted on a lonely hill. Since he and Tommy had been separated, everyone else just seemed to emphasize his loneliness. Well, except for Maggie. He sighed, she was sitting on the edge of his bed engrossed in a novel, he was pretty sure he loved her, in fact he was pretty sure that he had always loved her. He had just never realised it. But Maggie’s heart was a secret garden, and the walls were tremendously high. He was certain she had no feelings for him. Why should she? If people were weather, he would be drizzle and she would be the sun. He desperately wanted to hold her, to hug her; he just wanted to feel the warmth of someone else against his skin. But he lacked the courage and she was his best friend’s sister and he was gawky and she was beautiful and he was hopelessly dreary and she was endlessly fascinating. He felt weak and a sluggish, his wounds were still bleeding and he was in pain, so much pain. He pulled out his pocket watch. Apart from Maggie, it was his only reminder of home. Surprisingly, its appearance hadn’t matured over the years; it still shined like the sun. He flipped the lid and gazed into the gloriously familiar depths of its face. The spindly little hands were faltering; they flickered between 12 and 1, but nowhere else. Teddy knew something was wrong, he knew the end was near for both of them. To feel nothing would be beautiful, his body was almost to the point of complete exhaustion. He glanced at Maggie again.

“I...” - the clock had finally stopped.

tess smith-roberts

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