“Thank you. I’ll wear it always.” Edie’s eyes prickled and her nose tingled. But she took a deep breath. “I am not going to cry,” she said in a croaky voice. “Not even after you have flown away tonight and I have waved to the last glimpse of you disappearing on the horizon. It has been a wonderful day and I am not going to spoil it with any more tears.”
She held the tiny silver train between her fingers knowing no medal could ever mean more to her than her mother’s gift and the love she would always feel when she wore it.
But, all too soon, it was time for Fliss to leave. They gathered together in the meadow to see her off.
“I’m sorry I can’t stay the night. I’ve already taken a bit of a detour. They’ll be wondering where this old girl has got to,” said Fliss, patting the Spitfire as if it were a faithful horse. She pulled on her flying helmet. “I’ll be back at the end of August for two whole weeks. I’ve booked in for a long leave and they can’t change that.”
“We’ll look forward to it,” said Uncle Peter, hugging Fliss tightly.
“Goodbye,” said Gus and Perky. They both looked suddenly awkward, as if meeting a real-live Spitfire pilot – especially one who was a woman – had all been a bit too much excitement for one day.
“Take care, won’t you?” said Aunt Roberta, stepping forward. “Just promise me that.” The two sisters held each other for a moment, before Aunt Roberta broke away, quickly wiping her eyes on her sleeve.
“Come along, now. You’ll want to get to the airbase before dark,” she said briskly.
“Goodbye!” said Greta, clinging to Friedrich’s hand. “I’m going to fly aeroplanes when I’m a grown-up lady too!”
“I bet you will!” said Uncle Peter and everybody laughed and cheered.
Edie dashed forward and flung her arms around Fliss one last time. “I’m so proud of you,” she whispered. And in that moment, she knew that nothing else mattered. It didn’t matter if she didn’t know who her father was – or if people wanted to judge her for it. There was her and Fliss – just as there had always been. And, even if they were separated by miles of railway track or acres of endless sky, it was enough to know that her mother was out there, somewhere, waiting to return.
And the war had brought Edie a bigger family now too – Aunt Roberta and Uncle Peter, Gus and Greta, even Perky.
My railway family, she thought as Fliss climbed into the spitfire.
The propellers whirred into life and, with a final wave, Fliss was away. The plane bumped across the meadow and rose up, flying over the rooftops of Three Chimneys and off into the cloudless sky.
“Goodbye!” they all cried, clapping and cheering.
“Goodbye!” Edie ran to the edge of the meadow alone. She watched as the plane disappeared, growing smaller and smaller, until it was just a tiny dot on the horizon.
“Stay safe!” she whispered. “Please, stay safe.”
Then the plane was gone.
As she turned towards the house, she saw that the grown-ups had already gone back inside. But Gus and Greta and Perky were standing a little way off, waiting for her.
Without another word, they all set off and started to walk in the direction of the railway.
“I’m so pleased we’ll still be here together – for a while longer, at least,” said Edie.
“Until the war is over,” agreed Gus.
“We’ll be like real sisters by then,” cheered Greta, waving Mr Churchill in the air.
“We will!” agreed Edie. And she made a silent promise never to fall out with Greta like Fliss and Aunt Roberta had fallen out with each other for all those years.
Perky grinned. “You lot will have to go back to school in September, mind,” he said. “Then you’ll have to do some proper work.”
“I know,” Edie sighed. “But not yet. We’ve still got weeks of summer ahead of us.” She glanced over her shoulder towards Three Chimneys and touched the little silver train hanging around her neck.
“Whatever happens, we’ll always be the Railway Children,” she said. “Nothing can ever change that.”
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to my agent Claire Wilson at RCW and the whole team at Scholastic, especially my wonderful editors, Gen Herr and Sophie Cashell, and copy-editor Pete Matthews, for all your fantastic wisdom, hard work and support. I would also like to thank Keighley and Worth Valley Railway for answering so many of my questions over the phone and in person, either on the smoke-filled platforms or at your museums. But most especially, of course, I’d like to thank everyone at the railway for keeping those magnificent steam trains running, so that any of us can still hop aboard and imagine we might be “Railway Children” too!
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