THE H-BOMB GIRL by Stephen Baxter (beach books txt) 📕

In her room she thought back over the events of the long day. She remembered the strange, pale woman in the coffee bar, Agatha, and the book in her pocket.

She had stuffed her diary at the back of her underwear drawer. She looked there now. The diary was intact, not scorched. But when she looked more closely, she saw that the bottom of the spine was slightly torn and folded down.

Just like Agatha’s.

Chapter 6

Monday 15th October. 6 p.m.

Another day got through.

Dad hasn’t gone yet.

*

Tuesday 16th October. 8 a.m.

Dad still here.

He definitely should have gone back to Wycombe by now. I think he spent the whole night on the phone. And at 5 a.m. this morning a motorbike courier brought him a packet of photos. Something is “brewing up,” as he would say. As if to the RAF the whole world is one big cup of tea.

Well, I’m glad he’s here. I feel a lot safer. I hope he’s still here when I get back from school.

PE again today. On Friday they let me off because I didn’t have the right kit. Today I’ll have to get changed. I’m worried about the Key.

And Miss Wells wants to have a “get-to-know-you chat” in my free period. Oh good.

Bernadette didn’t show up for school. Miss Wells seemed to think this wasn’t too uncommon, as she entered a big “O” in her register.

Laura could have done with Bernadette being around when it came to PE time. She would have to get changed into a singlet and short skirt. How was she supposed to hide the Key? Not in her desk, that was for sure.

As she closed the desk before PE she had an idea.

Then she thought it was stupid.

Then she decided to do it anyway.

Making sure nobody saw, she plucked a strand of hair from her head, licked it, and plastered it over the edge of her desk so it joined the lid to the main body of the desk. At first it didn’t stick. James Bond’s hair must have been coated with Brylcreem. There was some face cream in Bernadette’s desk, so she made the hair sticky with that.

Just like a spy. She was only playing, she told herself.

Then, as she made her way down to the changing room with her PE kit, she noticed a roll of duct tape, heavy silvery stuff, left sitting on a window ledge by some workman. She swiped it without anybody seeing and tucked it under her blazer.

In the unheated changing room there was nothing but benches and a peg to hang her clothes on. No lockers.

While the girls chattered, Laura went into a toilet cubicle and locked the door. She glanced around the cubicle. The wooden door and walls didn’t reach the floor or ceiling, but there was nobody peeking.

She opened her blouse. She took the Key off her neck, rolled up its chain, held the whole lot against her belly just below her bra, and wrapped two lengths of tape around her torso. It was uncomfortable. The tape pinched when she moved. But it ought to hold up for a period of PE.

Then she pulled on her singlet and hurried out of the cubicle.

PE wasn’t too bad. While the boys chased a football, the girls played hockey, which Laura had played before. Because she had started the term late she had missed the selection for the school teams, and she found herself playing with a bunch of no-hopers and layabouts, resentfully monitored by a teacher whose main interest was a ciggie or two.

But the game warmed up. There were one or two players who weren’t bad. As she ran around, her breath cold in her lungs, Laura managed to stop thinking about everything, just for a while.

In her free period she had to go to see Miss Wells.

The staffroom was a box of a room crammed with tatty chairs, an electric point with a kettle, and cupboards with stacks of newspapers and magazines on top. A metal cabinet of lockers, each no bigger than a shoebox, took up a lot of space. The air was stale with old ciggie smoke, and brimming ashtrays sat on the arms of the chairs.

Laura sat down on one of the grimy armchairs, facing Miss Wells. They were alone in here. Laura felt uncomfortable, sweaty in her uniform after the hockey.

And she didn’t want to be here at all, facing Miss Wells, with those cold blue eyes, and a face so like a reflection of her own, in a distorting fairground mirror that made her look sixty years old. It was truly weird, she thought.

Miss Wells said, “I suppose you’re wondering where the confiscated comics are. Or the pornography. Lady Chatterley’s Lover. The teachers take it all home. The men, anyway.”

Not an appropriate thing for a teacher to say, Laura thought uneasily. “Yes, Miss.”

“ ‘Yes, Miss.’ Funny little room this, isn’t it?”

“I wouldn’t know, Miss.”

“It’s actually a storeroom. A cupboard, really. As the kids of your generation keep swarming in, the authorities can’t expand the schools fast enough. The old staffroom was converted into a classroom, and the poor old teachers were evicted to this place. Hardly room to light your roll-up.” She smiled at Laura. “I told you, Laura. You’re a unique generation, you post-war kids.”

“Baby boomers, you said.”

“Yes. People will look back on this as an unusual time, you as an unusual cadre of kids. Making friends, are you?”

“I think so. Bernadette O’Brien. Joel Christmas.”

Miss Wells snorted, a soft, subtle breath through her nose. “Those drones. They don’t matter.” She leaned forward. “Only you matter, Laura.”

Laura tried not to flinch. Drones?

“How are you getting on at home? Is your father still here in Liverpool, or has he gone back to Strike Command?”

How did she know about Dad’s job? “He doesn’t like me talking about his work to strangers.”

Miss Wells laughed. “I’m your form teacher. I’m no stranger. And what about Mum?” Miss Wells’s voice seemed to catch for a