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

at Wycombe. You know that. I have a senior command position regarding Britain’s own nuclear weapons, which would have to be deployed—I mean, launched against the Russians—if the worst came to the worst.”

“The V-bombers.”

“The Vulcans, yes. Even with our weapons alone we could wipe out thirty or forty Russian cities. Say eight million citizens. That firepower makes my base a prime target for Russian missiles. And, if the balloon does go up—” He looked right into her eyes. “I’m right in the front line. I would be dead, in minutes. That’s how fast the Russian missiles would come in. It’s a sure-fire certainty. So I wouldn’t be able to help you, or Mum, in whatever followed. And that’s why you must wear the Key. I know it sounds loopy, but it’s the best way I could come up with to be sure you’ll be taken somewhere safe, even if I can’t help you. Even if—”

She pulled back her hands. “You’re frightening me.”

“Well, I’m sorry. It’s a frightening world, unfortunately.”

“Dad—what’s going to happen on Saturday?”

“Which Saturday?”

“A week on Saturday. The 27th.”

He frowned. “I don’t know. Why do you ask?”

“No reason.”

Laura heard her mother in the kitchen, softly singing “Galway Bay.”

“Why don’t you give the Key to Mum? She’s the adult.”

Dad looked away. “Things are a bit tricky for your mother right now. The war was complicated for her. The evacuation. Growing up too fast in London. Coming home to Liverpool—Mort being here—has brought it all back, I think. And she’s taken our separation hard. She’ll get over it. But for now…”

For now, it was Laura who had to have the Key. Laura who would have to take charge, who would have to be the adult, if that great shining lid came slamming down.

Suddenly she couldn’t bear this conversation any more, or the sight of Dad on his knees before her. She pushed him away and ran out of the room.

She threw herself on her bed and tried to sort it all out in her head.

Dad loved her. But he was hard and unrelenting. It was like being loved by a slab of rock, by a mountain. And it was a love that took him away from her. She didn’t want to be loved that way.

And she didn’t want to be vapourised in a nuclear war either.

On top of that there was all the murky strangeness about her new life in Liverpool. Her parents’ peculiar relationship with Mort. The way Mort had suddenly grown a new interest in Laura after the Minuteman showed up. The way Mort looked like the Minuteman, as if the Minuteman was Mort’s dad, or uncle. And the way Miss Wells looked like Mum, like Auntie Eileen, like her.

It was going to be hard to concentrate on her English homework.

She still hadn’t washed properly since PE. She probably had time for a bath before dinner. Listless, she climbed off her bed and went to her chest of drawers to dig out new underwear.

The top drawer was open, just a little. She never left it like that.

She went through all the drawers. Nothing seemed to be missing.

She sat down on her bed. So what now? Mum, looking for contraceptives or suspenders?

Mort, stealing her knickers?

No, not that. Mort might have been in here, but not for that. But why else was he interested in her? What else did she have that he might possibly want?

The Key, the same as Miss Wells? Could he be another spy—right here in her own house?

Maybe she was going mad.

She sat on her bed for a while. Then, trembling slightly, she pulled the chair across so the door was blocked.

Chapter 8

Friday 19th October. 8 a.m.

Dad left on Wednesday.

He promised to write. Nothing’s come yet.

At school, Bernadette was almost late. She ran into the playground just as the teacher rang the bell. Her face was as pale as a ghost’s.

And then she had to duck out of the first lesson, maths, to throw up in the toilets. Laura was sent with her. “Dodgy curry,” was all Bernadette would say, but Laura didn’t believe her.

There was a special assembly at lunchtime that day, compulsory for everybody.

As they all sat on their hard benches the headmaster, Mr Britten, walked on to the stage. He said the school was honoured to greet a special guest. “Lieutenant-Colonel Giuseppe Mortinelli the Third, US Air Force.”

Laura was astonished when Mort walked in, beside Miss Wells. They all had to clap. Mort, in a sharp uniform, looked around the hall until he found Laura. He pointed at her, grinned and waved. Some of the girls turned around to look at her with envy.

Laura hissed to Bernadette, “I can’t believe he’s here.” For all Miss Wells’s strangeness, she had thought of school as somewhere safe from him. Now that sanctuary was broken down.

“He’s tall enough to wind the Liver clock,” Bernadette said. “Do you peek at him in the bathroom? Look at that jacksie.”

“Shut up.”

Mort launched into a brisk slide show. He said he was here to talk about Britain and America. “We have a Special Relationship, as your Prime Minister Macmillan calls it.” He showed slides of British and American troops fighting together in France during the war against Hitler.

Then Mort talked about the new atomic age. “Today Americans and British stand side by side around the world, toe to toe in nuc-ular combat with the Rooskies.” Mort said he reported to the 574th Bomber Wing of the Strategic Air Command of the US Air Force. He showed a slide of a B-52 bomber, a plane that circled the North Pole for ever, waiting for war. Just one of these planes, he said, carried more firepower than all the bombs and shells used in World War Two. He seemed proud of this. Laura thought that was horrible.

Mort showed a last slide. It was the shield of Strategic Air Command, with its motto:

PEACE IS OUR PROFESSION

Joel just laughed. “Fluff,” he muttered. “Propaganda.”

Miss Wells led the applause, then