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

crammed with families, with baggage and furniture piled up on their roof racks.

“If you’ve got any petrol left,” Joel said, “you get out of the city.”

There was a phone box in the street, a red kiosk, standing empty. Laura stared at it. Joel said most private phones had probably been disconnected by now, but the public ones might still work.

She probably ought to make the call Dad had told her to make. To the Regional Director of Civil Defence, to tell him about the Key.

But were things bad enough yet? It would seem like giving up. She didn’t want to distract her dad, who surely had enough on his plate this morning. And besides, she had Mum to think about. She couldn’t just disappear down a hole and forget her.

“I can cope, Dad,” she said to the phone box.

Bernadette said, “What?”

“Nothing.”

They heard shouting. Laura saw people marching past a block away, hundreds of them, a river of people heading for the city centre. They had banners and placards. They were flanked by police and soldiers. All the police seemed to have guns. The shouts and whistles of the crowd sounded like the cries of seagulls.

Bernadette pointed up. “Look. A scally spotter.” A helicopter clattered overhead.

“Wouldn’t like to be in the middle of that mob when it all kicks off,” Nick said.

Laura asked, “What do you think it is?”

Joel shrugged. “A strike? An anti-war demonstration? A rationing riot? There are plenty of people who just get angry when their lives are turned upside down.”

Laura tried to stay in the shadows, and she kept an eye on the soldiers for any signs of blue uniforms, any signs of Mort or the Minuteman.

Joel said, “I wish we knew what was going on.” Even Joel, stuck down a hole in the ground, was out of touch with his CND networks now.

“Soon fix that,” Nick muttered.

He led them to an electrical store. It was shut up, but it still had stock in the window, fridges and electric irons. He took off his coat and wrapped it around his hand.

Joel saw what he was going to do. “Don’t. They’re probably shooting looters by now.”

Nick grinned. “Got to catch me first.” He slammed his arm through the window. The plate glass shattered and flew everywhere. They all had to jump back out of the way.

Nick scraped away the glass, and grabbed a transistor radio. It was a brick-shaped Bush model. He switched it on and there was a hiss of static. “Good,” he said, grinning. “Haven’t got to rob the batteries. Let’s leg it.”

“No,” Joel said. “Walk. Let’s not look shifty.”

Bernadette mocked him. “A real master criminal, you, aren’t you?”

But they all followed his advice.

As they walked, Nick turned the radio’s tuning knob. A glass panel was marked with the three BBC stations, the Light Service, Home Service and Third Programme. None of them had anything but a recorded message in a posh, plummy man’s voice. “This is a test of the Emergency Broadcasting System. In case of a civil emergency, this system will bring you news, advice and government instructions. This is a test of the Emergency Broadcasting System…”

Nick twisted the dial, flitting past bands of static and a few scratchy foreign voices, French and German. Then he came to an American-sounding voice.

“This is Radio Free Luxembourg. Here on Lucky Luxie we’re going to continue to bring you all the hits from the toppermost of the poppermost. But we’re also bringing you all the news and views they don’t want you to hear. I’m Tony Dixie. Here are the headlines at 8.30 a.m.…”

“I know him,” Nick said. “The DJ. Met him in Hamburg.”

“Shut up,” Joel said.

“That Yank accent is a total fake. Comes from a council estate in Rotherham.”

“Shut up,” Laura said.

Kennedy’s “quarantine” of Cuba had started yesterday, Wednesday 24th. Some Russian ships had turned back peacefully enough. Today the Americans were going to raise the crisis at the United Nations. Maybe there could be some more diplomacy there. Nobody had got shot yet. But the tension was still rising.

“They’re talking with the ships,” Joel said. “That’s what they’re really doing. Kennedy and Khrushchev. Testing each other out. The ships are like chips on a poker table.”

“I hope the soldiers and sailors understand that,” Nick said.

That was it for the news. The DJ said, “Time for Tricky Dixie to spin another platter.” It was “Wonderful Land” by the Shadows.

Nick threw the radio against the wall. It broke open and fell silent.

Joel was shocked. “What did you do that for?”

Nick shrugged. “I hate the Shadows.”

They neared Laura’s home. Nobody could see any scuffers or squaddies about. That wasn’t to say they weren’t peering out of neighbours’ windows.

“We can’t just go in the front door,” Laura said. “We might be seen. And Mort might be sitting there waiting for me.”

“Can we get in that way?” Bernadette pointed. It was a narrow alley between Laura’s house and the one next door. “There’s a window.”

“That’s our kitchen window,” Laura said.

“Windows are there to be broken,” Nick said.

Bernadette said, “If we sneak in we might make it without this Mort spotting us, even if he’s there.”

They looked at each other. Joel shrugged. “Worth a try.”

Nick had a tougher time than with the electrical store’s plate glass, because this was a small window of thick frosted glass. When it was broken he pulled the jagged bits out of the wooden frame.

Then Joel wriggled through, followed by Laura. Bernadette came next, moving stiffly. When he tried to climb through, Nick was like a little old man, very fragile, and he complained in a whisper as they helped him through.

Agatha just slid through head first, pulled through her legs, and dropped to the kitchen floor. If she had grown up in tunnels and caves and cellars, Laura thought, she would be used to tight squeezes like that.

Laura led the way to the parlour.

Mum was sitting in an armchair, staring at the blank screen of a turned-off telly. She had her arms folded before