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

“I thought he’s a drummer,” Laura said.

“He’s a joiner, and a drummer.”

“Billy Waddle can shove his head up his big bass drum,” Bernadette said fiercely. “He’ll take you out if he thinks he’s got a chance of pulling. But he’s so tight he wouldn’t give you last week’s wet Echo.”

“Ah,” Joel said. “The great love story is over.”

“Cobblers, Joel,” she snapped. “I don’t need Billy’s help. Or anybody’s. Anyhow I was sick this morning. Nearly spewed up my ring. Old Arthur next door complained about the stink in the bog.”

So they shared a toilet with the neighbours, Laura realised.

“You should tell somebody at school,” Laura said. “That you have to bunk off because your mum can’t cope.”

“Don’t be a div,” Joel said. “She can’t tell the teachers. She and her sister would just be put into a corpy home. Better this way, at least they’re together. I think the teachers turn a blind eye. Except Miss Wells, who’s a headcase.”

Laura jumped at something else to talk about. “Miss Wells called me in this morning. She said she wants to be my friend.”

They both laughed at that.

Bernadette snorted. “I still think she’s a muncher.”

Laura asked, “A what?”

“She means, Miss Wells fancies you,” Joel said.

“Not that.”

“Then maybe she’s just needy,” Bernadette said. “One of my dad’s sisters lost her own baby, and then couldn’t have any more. She was around here all the time when I was small. Wouldn’t leave me alone. Maybe Miss Wells is like that.”

“She really could be your long-lost auntie, Laura,” Joel said. “She does look like you.”

“I think it’s more than that.” Laura struggled to put her thoughts in order. She didn’t want to seem weird, or stupid. “She doesn’t feel like an auntie, or a mother, or a sister. We’re connected somehow. But not in any way I’ve felt before.”

Bernadette rolled her eyes. “You’re one brick short of a full hod, girl.”

In the face of her common sense, the strange fantasies Laura had been building up about Miss Wells popped like a soap bubble.

“All right,” she said. “I’ll tell you something real, though. Somebody went through my desk.” She told them about the missing hair.

Bernadette just laughed. “I can’t believe you did the business with the hair. What do you think, that Miss Wells is a spy?”

“Well—”

“Oh, come off it. They search my desk all the time.”

“What for?”

“I don’t know. Condoms. The pill. Whatever they think girls like me shouldn’t have. You can always tell when they’ve had their mucky paws in there. These are teachers, remember. They aren’t exactly the CID.”

Laura nodded. “Maybe it’s just something like that.”

“Yes,” said Joel. “Maybe.”

They sipped their tea, hot and sweet, in silence.

In a room upstairs, a baby cried.

Chapter 7

When she got home that afternoon, she found Dad sitting on the hall carpet, with his ear glued to the phone. He had a military radio beside him, and there were papers and maps of the American east coast scattered over the floor. He just glanced up at Laura, then went back to work.

Deep voices boomed in the parlour. Laura glanced inside.

Mort was standing there, silhouetted in the dusty light cast through the net curtains. Mum perched on the edge of the settee, legs crossed at the ankles, nervous as ever. And there was another man, sitting in what looked like an upright chair. Laura saw medals on his chest.

Laura tried to hurry past and get to her room. But Mum spotted her and came bustling out. “Laura,” she called in a loud, fake voice, and she grabbed Laura’s hands. “Come and meet our visitor. Or rather it’s Mort’s visitor…” All that ever mattered to Mum was not to have a scene, not to have anybody think badly of her.

She had Laura’s hands locked tight. Laura didn’t have a choice. She dropped her satchel in the hall, and let Mum draw her into the parlour.

There was a mechanical whir. The stranger’s chair came rolling towards her. It was a wheelchair, she saw now, with some kind of motor built into it. Sitting in it was a big square man, as big as Mort. But he was old, maybe eighty or more, his stubble of hair white. He wore a suit, not a uniform, though he had that row of medals pinned to his breast pocket.

And he was stuck in that chair, she could see. His legs and torso didn’t move at all. All that moved was one hand that worked a joystick to push the chair around. The hand was a red claw. Maybe it had been burned.

He smiled at her, showing gleaming teeth, surely false. “Laura, isn’t it? Mort told me all about you.” His voice was a croak, but his accent was just like Mort’s. “You’re the flower of England we’re over here to shelter from the atomic fire of the Soviets. Right?”

“Darn right, sir,” Mort said.

When Mort spoke, Laura saw how alike they were, the same worn-away faces, the same flat noses and deep eyes and square chins, though the old man’s right cheek was marred by a long, livid scar.

She felt a bit dizzy. It had already been a strange day. “Well, well,” she said. “More lookalikes. More family resemblances. What a coincidence.”

The Americans exchanged glances.

Mum looked shocked. “Laura, what are you talking about?”

“Let me guess. You must be Giuseppe Mortinelli the Second.”

The old man said, “No, the Third—”

Mort shut him up by kicking his wheelchair.

The old man nodded shrewdly. “You’re a smart girl. Just call me the Minuteman. Everybody else does.”

Mum said, “He’s here to speak to your father, and to Mort. There’s an international crisis. Your father and Mort are going to have to work on resolving it.”

“There’s always an international crisis,” Laura said. “Boring.”

“Laura.” That was Dad coming in the door, a sheaf of papers gathered up under his arm. “I think you ought to apologise.”

The Minuteman’s face creased, though he didn’t move a muscle of his body. “Oh, no need for that. Just joshing. Weren’t we, girly?”

Mort tried to take