JOE AND NELLY A World War Two ghost story
CHAPTER 9

When Joe got up the next morning, he went downstairs to replace that Mum had already left for work. There was no sign of Uncle Bill or Granddad either. They must have popped out at the crack of dawn to catch Granddad’s warden friend.

He could hear Nan singing and clattering around in the kitchen, accompanied by Monty whistling away in his cage, where he basked in a ray of sunshine. The remains of breakfast were still on the table: plates with a few crumbs, smeary knives and cups patterned with tea leaves. Joe pulled the knitted cosy off the tea pot and pressed his fingers against the shiny china - it felt cold. He picked up a clean knife, scraped some marge across a slice of bread, which he gobbled up and washed down with the last of the milk straight from the jug.

Joe wiped his mouth on his sleeve and stuck his head round the kitchen door. Nan was at the sink, rinsing out a pair of Mum’s nylons under the cold tap. The running water glinted in the sun that streamed through the open back door.

‘I’m going out, Nan,’ he said.

‘Okey dokey,’ Nan replied without looking up. Why didn’t she ask where he was going? Joe wondered if Granddad had told her to keep an eye on him and she was pretending she wasn’t interested. Did she even believe in Nelly? She hadn’t seemed shocked when he told them about her that day in the Anderson shelter, but she hadn’t asked him any more about Nelly or the day of the explosion.

Pulling the front door shut behind him, Joe looked up and down the street. It was empty and quiet. He wondered when the other kids would be coming home. There were only him and Nelly on their street – actually, only him. Despite the brightness of the summer’s day, he couldn’t shake off a queasy feeling bubbling up in his stomach.

When Joe arrived at the steps, Nelly leaped up, beaming at him. He couldn’t look her in the eyes so he pretended he was looking for something. After about five minutes of strained silence, he picked up a smooth, white stone and hauled himself up the steps, one by one. He sat down next to Nelly and tossed the pebble from one hand to the other.

‘What’s wrong?’ Nelly asked.

‘Granddad’s on the case. He’s just like Sherlock Holmes,’ he said. ‘Knowing him, he’ll get all the information he needs and work out what to do next. Before we know it, we’ll be saying goodbye and I’ll be all on my own again.’

‘No you won’t,’ said Nelly. ‘You’ve got so many people who love you and care about you. You are so lucky.’

Joe shrugged. She was right. He was lucky.

‘We have to keep busy in the meantime,’ he said. ’I wish you could come home with me, but you have to stick around here - and we have to keep searching.’

‘What are we looking for?’ Nelly asked

‘The rest of my things.’

’What are you really looking for?’ She could be bossy sometimes.

‘A box. An old Crawford’s Bonny Mary shortbread box with a green and red tartan pattern, and a picture of a girl wearing a green hat and scarf.’

’What’s in the box?’ Nelly leaned towards him, her eyes bright with curiosity, and gripped his arm.

‘Something my dad made for me. I can’t tell you what it is. It’s a secret. If we replace it, then I know that Dad will come home soon.’

‘Will you show it to me when we replace it?’

Joe didn’t answer. Nelly picked at the hole in her dress. She could just about poke her finger through it. Seconds dragged past. When Joe finally opened his mouth to answer, Nelly put her finger on his lips to stop him.

‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘You don’t have to give me an answer now. Let’s see how you feel when we do replace it.’

‘Well I’m glad you’re so confident,’ replied Joe.

They spent over an hour in the dirt, digging and poking at every object, turning over bricks and pieces of wood. They found a few marbles and a page from an old copy of The Beano, but that was it. They stopped for a while to cool down in a small patch of shade by the steps and read the comic, giggling and chuckling at the jokes. Then they got to work again.

At mid-day, a siren began to wail. They jumped up together, their mouths open, eyebrows raised.

‘It’s only the dinner siren from the factory down the road,’ Joe said to Nelly. ‘Nan and Granddad don’t have dinner until one o’clock.’

Joe scrambled down another hole and set to work digging. Having been away in Wales for so long, he didn’t know that factories hadn’t been allowed to sound their sirens since the beginning of the war. He had just started to root around in a spot he hadn’t investigated yet, when Nelly yelled, ‘Joe! Get out of that hole - now!’

Before he could pull himself out, he slid on a pile of loose stones and bricks. He felt the ground fall away and then a sharp pain as his foot was trapped by a chunk of twisted metal sticking out of the bottom of the hole. It was heavy and sharp, and clamped him to the ground. Joe pulled and pushed at the lump of rusty iron. He tried to wriggle his ankle. It throbbed with pain and was already starting to swell. It was held fast. Blood seeped through his sock. He called out through lips caked with brick dust, ‘I can’t move, Nelly. I’m trapped. Can you go and get someone?’ As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he remembered that she was stuck in that place too.

Nelly’s face appeared above him, so pale she was almost transparent. She stretched out her hand to him but it was no good. The metal was a dead weight and clasped his foot like a sprung trap. Joe realised that the siren was still wailing. It must be a daytime raid. There was a new sound too – the rumble of approaching planes.

‘Cross your fingers that they don’t fly over here!’ he shouted to Nelly.

‘Don’t worry,’ Nelly said. ‘I’m coming down. I’ll stay with you.’

She climbed into the hole and held his hot, clammy hand. They sat, two petrified statues, listening to the planes. Then there was silence. Joe squeezed his eyes shut. His heart pounded and his burning lungs wheezed in the stillness. Although the sun was shining, Joe’s teeth chattered. Nothing happened. Everything was silent.

Just as he resigned himself to being stuck in the hole all afternoon, Joe heard the scrape of boots on stones. He couldn’t feel Nelly’s hand, he hadn’t noticed her slip away and, when he opened his eyes, she was no longer in the crater. The boots crunched closer until they reached the edge of the hole. Joe looked up into the haze of sunshine and could just make out Granddad’s head in silhouette - and then another head belonging to someone he didn’t recognise.

‘What the blazes are you doing down there, son?’ asked Granddad. ‘You could’ve been killed if that had been enemy planes! As it happens, it was a false alarm. They were our own.’

‘I’m stuck,’ said Joe in a small, quavering voice. ‘I was digging for treasure when I heard the siren. I slipped and my foot got caught. Can you help me out, please?’

Granddad and the stranger picked their way carefully down the other side of the hole, setting off a small landslide of loose dirt and stones, and surveyed the situation. Granddad’s friend shook his head.

‘Young Joe,’ he said sternly. ‘This has got to stop. As your local air raid warden, I forbid you to play on this bomb site. I’ve had a chat with your Granddad here, and I have agreed to help him replace out about your friend. But I can’t let you put yourself in danger. Your grandparents have been worrying themselves sick.’

Joe sat on the stony earth, shivering with shock and burning with shame. He couldn’t look Granddad in the face. Between them, Granddad and his friend removed the metal manacle. Joe tried to stand up, but as soon as he placed his foot on the ground, a pain shot through his ankle. He felt the sweaty heat of Granddad’s hands as he lifted him into the safety of his strong arms, climbed up the side of the hole and strode to the other end of the street to Nan, who was waiting to give Joe another ear-bashing – and ended up giving him a hug instead. Granddad carried him into the house.

‘We’ll have to send for the doctor,’ Nan said, as she cleaned his ankle and strapped it up with a bandage. ‘It’s already swollen to twice the size of the other one. I would never forgive myself – and neither would your mum – if it was broken and I did nothing about it.’

While they waited for the doctor, Granddad told Joe what he and his friend had found out.

‘It turns out that my pal Albert was there on the night your houses were blown up. He was attached to a team of Red Cross ambulance workers who searched the ruins and recovered only two adult bodies. They did check all the shelters in the area but everyone was accounted for and there was no little girl on her own.’

Joe’s face crumpled. Granddad explained that he and Uncle Bill had already been to the authorities and made enquiries about unclaimed children’s bodies, but there weren’t any and nobody had asked about Nelly or even mentioned her name since the blast. It was as if she had never existed.

‘So where’s Uncle Bill now?’ Joe asked.

‘He’s still investigating – he’s Watson to my Holmes,’ Granddad said. ‘But it’s going to be difficult. There was only Nelly and her parents, they’re both dead, and there’s nothing left of the house or the back yard to give us any clues.’

‘I’ll ask around the other wardens, see if they have any ideas,’ Albert promised before he left.

Granddad shrugged his shoulders. ‘For the time being, it looks as if it’s down to you, Joe. You’ll have to talk to Nelly again. But I really don’t want you going down to that bomb site. Is there any way you can get her closer to home?’

‘I don’t think so, Granddad. She can’t leave those ruins. Maybe her spirit has to stay close to where she died. I’ll make sure we only sit on the steps and then if you need me to come home, you can see me from halfway down the street, and I can see you too.’

Nan was not at all happy about that arrangement. She was certain there would be another air raid soon. ‘Why don’t you stay at home for a bit? At least until your ankle’s better and you can move about more easily.’

Nan and Granddad agreed that he shouldn’t go any farther than the back yard for the rest of the week and he would only be allowed to see Nelly when his ankle was well and truly mended.

Joe pictured Nelly alone on the steps, poking her finger in and out of the hole in her dress. He imagined her digging in the crater, rolling marbles back and forth, and reading that page of The Beano over and over again. She would think that he had given up on her. Then another thought crossed his mind. What if she found the biscuit box and he wasn’t there when she opened it?