Bombs on Aunt Dainty by Judith Kerr

bits of wood all over again. It was difficult to remember, with his old-maidish ways, that he was barely thirty.
    “Well, just give Max lots of love and ask him to write,” said Mama.
    “And wish him luck for his exams,” said Anna.
    “Oh, I forgot,” cried Mama. “The exams must be quite soon. Tell him not to write – he’ll be too busy.”
    Papa said, “Would you give Max a message from me?”
    “Certainly,” said Cousin Otto.
    “Would you tell him –” Papa hesitated. Then he said, “I think that now the Germans have attacked, Max may want to volunteer for one of the fighting forces. And of course he must do whatever he thinks right. But would you ask him, please, to discuss it with the University authorities first, before he makes up his mind?”
    “But he’s only eighteen!” cried Mama.
    “It’s not too young,” said Cousin Otto. He nodded at Papa. “I promise I’ll tell him. And when I get back to London I’ll ring you up and tell you how he is.”
    “That would be most kind,” said Papa.
    Cousin Otto stayed a little longer, chatting and drinking tea, and then it was time for him to catch his train. Soon afterwards Anna went back to the Bartholomew’s. She hadarranged to spend Saturday with Judy and Jinny. She had hardly seen them since their return from school and they had such a good time playing tennis and sunning themselves in the garden that they decided to spend Sunday the same way.
    Most of the Sunday papers carried pictures of Winston Churchill, who had become Prime Minister instead of Chamberlain, and there were several eye-witness accounts of the German invasion of Holland. Huge numbers of Nazi parachutists had been dropped from aeroplanes, disguised as Dutch and British soldiers. To add to the confusion, Germans who had been living in Holland for years and whom no one suspected of being Nazis, had immediately rushed to their aid. The Dutch were fighting back and the French and the British were on their way to help them, but clearly the Germans had a strong foothold. There was a map of Holland with thick arrows breaking into it from Germany and an article headed “If Germany Captures Dutch And Belgian Coasts”, but, said Jinny, the Sunday papers always exaggerated and it was no use minding them.
    Monday was hotter and sunnier than ever and when Anna arrived at the Hotel Continental to spend the day with Mama and Papa it seemed a pity to waste such lovely weather indoors.
    “Couldn’t we go to the Zoo?” she asked on a sudden inspiration.
    “Why not?” said Papa. He was feeling cheerful because Winston Churchill had been made Prime Minister – theonly man who understood the situation, he said.
    Mama was worried about how much it would cost, but then she too found the sunshine irresistible and they decided to be extravagant and go.
    It was an extraordinary day. Anna had not been to the Zoo for years and she walked round in a daze, looking. The sand-coloured and orange tigers with their black stripes which seemed to have been poured over them, peacocks with unbelievable embroidered tails, monkeys with elegant beige fur and tragic eyes – it was as though she had never seen any of them before. And giraffes! she thought. How could anyone have invented giraffes!
    She looked and looked, and all the time some other part of her mind was being careful not to think of the map on the Sunday papers and of the Nazi horror seeping out of Germany into other parts of Europe which had, until now, been safe.
    They stayed until late afternoon and, by then, Anna’s mind was so full of all she had seen that it no longer needed any effort to forget about the war. It was as though those long hours in the sun had changed something, as though everything were suddenly more hopeful. Mama and Papa, too, were more light-hearted. Papa had discovered a creature in the Small Cat House which looked, he said, exactly like Goebbels, and all the way home in the bus he imagined it making speeches in German to