Chapter 82
Frankie sat at the kitchen table looking at the postcard. He’d never got post before, but here it was, delivered by Mr Smith, on his bicycle.
Cook’s mum was watching him. She’d been tip-toeing around him since the funeral, but Frankie didn’t mind.
She was a nice lady. Uncle Nob was in his armchair, same as ever.
It had taken Frankie a long time to get used to the old man, with his shaking hands.
He’d thought the not talking was a trick, some kind of test, but in the end he’d got used to it.
Nob was nice too. Even Cook was, in the end.
‘It’s from Ruby,’ Frankie said. His head was spinning. One minute he’d been thinking about Ruby being blown up, the next minute all that was changed.
‘She’s met a fella,’ he said. ‘Gone to the seaside.’
He knew Cook’s mum must have read the card too, but she’d let him find out for himself. She was good like that.
There wasn’t much else on the card, but Frankie pored over it.
The postmark was blurry, but he could see the date.
Two days ago. Would have got here yesterday, Cook’s mum had said, but they hadn’t got the address perfect.
It had been made out to Frankie Reynolds, Mr Cook’s farm, Uckfield, Sussex.
Other than that there was the message, and a picture she’d drawn.
A little joke. A couple of birds and a tree.
Frankie had sent a card to Ruby once, and he’d drawn the same picture.
The only other time he’d been outside London, before all of this.
All the children had been driven out to the countryside, stayed in an old barn.
They’d played games in the long grass and got sunburnt, and all of them were given a postcard to write and send home, even though they’d be home themselves before the cards arrived.
Frankie hadn’t liked the place. It was all sky and trees and those awful squawking birds.
He’d missed the gloomy canyon of the high street, and the smell of the river.
When he’d written his card, he’d written it to Ruby.
‘Come and get me,’ he’d written, and drawn the picture, hoping it would help her find the place.
He’d only been small, of course, so the picture wasn’t much good.
Now he was a year older. Now he’d draw a map, or at least a better picture.