The Escape - Robert Muchamore Page 0,40
exciting week of his life. He’d been to the cinema every afternoon, watching The Wizard of Oz four times, along with propaganda-packed news bulletins, American westerns and French detective movies. He’d ridden the Metro, visited the Champs Elysées and stood at the base of the Eiffel Tower. He would have gone to the top, but it was closed because of the air raids.
Charles Henderson’s home provided him with electric light, cooking gas and hot water. There was even a telephone and he’d briefly considered ringing the orphanage to tease Director Tomas about how he was spending his savings. But Marc didn’t know the orphanage number and wasn’t sure if the call might somehow give his location away.
He slept on a comfortable bed with Egyptian cotton sheets and after a dodgy start he’d even prepared a couple of reasonable meals. But with the north cut off by Germans and the roads south clogged with refugees and French troops, you had to queue for even the simplest items and armed police stood outside bakeries to stop bread queues from turning violent.
Marc had gradually gained a sense of how much things cost and had worked out that Director Tomas’ savings would last him for two to three months; as long as he didn’t have to worry about paying rent. Unlike the elderly and impoverished citizens who remained in Paris – the young and wealthy having mostly got out – Marc could afford to eat in cafés, which seemed to be suffering from a lack of customers rather than food.
Waiters also provided rare opportunities for conversation, because the biggest problem with Marc’s new lifestyle was loneliness. He never imagined that he’d miss the constant buzz of the orphanage, but he often found himself craving a friend and when he was alone in the house he voiced his most poignant thoughts to an imaginary Jae Morel.
The air raids were worst at night, but mostly concentrated on the city centre. Cafés and cinemas were forced to shut at six o’clock, so he spent most evenings reading in Henderson’s living room, with the bay window open and occasional interruptions from insects flying inside from the overgrown garden.
Marc had always enjoyed books, but there were none at the orphanage and even when he had a reading book from school he could only find peace to read in the fields out back. So far he’d got through two of Henderson’s French novels and struggled with an antique book of folk tales written in German.
Marc knew a fair amount of the language thanks to a half-German schoolmaster who’d given his brightest pupils after-school tuition. The passages Marc couldn’t understand were easily filled in by studying the beautiful illustrations, which came in full colour and were embossed with gold and silver leaf. Unfortunately, most of Henderson’s books were in English and Marc didn’t understand a word of it.
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Henderson’s bedroom contained a double bed that seemed impossibly luxurious compared to the dusty, pee-stained excuses for beds at the orphanage. But best of all was the fact that he didn’t have Director Tomas whacking him on the arse if he didn’t jump out of bed the instant he was told to.
Freedom was good, Paris was pretty special; but spending half a morning drooling on a pillow and knowing that you didn’t have to get up was the best thing of all. What’s more, the Germans had stopped bombing when the French announced the city’s surrender, so Marc was enjoying his most peaceful lie-in ever when the house shook with such violence that his skull thumped painfully against the headboard.
A great roar erupted over the brow of the hill and when Marc pulled the curtains he saw a vast, mushroom-shaped fireball towering into the sky. But there were no planes and the explosion was twenty times bigger than any bomb he’d seen up to now.
The heat on the glass was intense, and as Marc heard saucepans clattering downstairs in the kitchen and a glass cabinet toppling in the living room, he was astonished to see a dozen people gathered at the bottom of the hill near the church. They held hands over brows to shield the glare, but looked oddly calm – as if they were watching a firework display, rather than facing the random threat of an air raid.
Alarmed and mystified, Marc pulled on his trousers and boots before buttoning his shirt and bounding downstairs. More blasts erupted as he glanced into the living room and confirmed his worst fears about the cabinets.
Although