a whole lot less interesting to him. I think he did feel responsible for us in his fashion, but we were way down his list of Things to Worry About what with having the responsibility for saving the world on his shoulders.
By noon the house was starting to fill up with army types and at first we were outraged to see them putting all their stuff into OUR rooms and setting up radio equipment in the barn and moving the animals out without even asking and then we decided the better part of valor was discretion and if we made ourselves scarce they might not get the feeling that we were the sort of kids who needed to be Taken Care Of elsewhere.
We even went so far as to offer them lunch which I'm sure is what the collaborators in France did to the Nazis to keep them happy and I felt pretty much like a pathetic groveling turncoat even though we were supposedly on the same side. But they said No Thank You we've brought Our Mess with us and I wondered why anyone would think it was a good idea to call food Mess. Piper said their food was better than ours, which hardly surprised me given that we'd reached the limit of the number of edible meals you can make with rice and they were eating chicken and dumplings.
So there were Piper and Isaac and Edmond and me Making Ourselves Scarce and just considering whether we should move up to the lambing barn and make ourselves even scarcer when Osbert came out looking guilty and told Piper and me to pack a bag with our things because we were going to be rehoused and I just looked at him and shouted there is NO WAY I'm going to be sent off to some REFUGEE HOME in the BACK OF BEYOND especially BY YOU and Osbert looked pretty miserable and stared at the ground and said Orders Are Orders and I thought It's lucky they didn't tell him to shoot us.
Piper looked from me to her brother like a rat in a trap and then Edmond put his hand on my arm just when I was thinking that maybe if I slugged Osbert it would help him understand I was serious and very very softly Edmond said Don't worry and I said I AM NOT WORRIED because THERE IS NO WAY I AM GOING. And looking at all those miserable faces I wondered whether this was a cultural thing or what, that no one in this country says You've got to be kidding when told to vacate their home and abandon their newly discovered loved ones by a bunch of jumped-up reject army guys playing war games for a lark.
Osbert slid off like a sorry snake and I figured that was the end of it until about five minutes later when some guy who said he was Left Tennant something or other came out and was Awfully Apologetic in an awfully unapologetic way and the gist of it was we were out of here whether we liked it or not. He made it extremely clear that the army was not in any mood to hang around watching some Female American National have a tantrum at this Vital Juncture in History so I took Piper and we went upstairs and packed all the stuff we could think of for a week including some books in case we got stuck with a bunch of local hillbillies, and all I could do was stare at Edmond and Isaac and even Osbert and try to keep from crying and then Edmond kissed me and said Take Jet in a way that no one else except maybe Isaac could hear and I said back I'll find you and he nodded as if to say Likewise.
Our chauffeur wasn't exactly thrilled at me dragging a dog along but I wasn't budging on this question and he rolled his eyes and said Get In and then with almost everyone I had left in the world standing nearby looking sad and young and helpless, we were off. Given how things turned out you might wonder why we didn't make more of a scene about staying together but at the time we figured we could survive a week or two apart.
That's how totally in the dark we were about our situation.
Anyway, we bundled into this open van and as we started off I thought about Ding but I didn't say anything in case Piper got more worried than she looked right now and I tried to pull myself together
By noon the house was starting to fill up with army types and at first we were outraged to see them putting all their stuff into OUR rooms and setting up radio equipment in the barn and moving the animals out without even asking and then we decided the better part of valor was discretion and if we made ourselves scarce they might not get the feeling that we were the sort of kids who needed to be Taken Care Of elsewhere.
We even went so far as to offer them lunch which I'm sure is what the collaborators in France did to the Nazis to keep them happy and I felt pretty much like a pathetic groveling turncoat even though we were supposedly on the same side. But they said No Thank You we've brought Our Mess with us and I wondered why anyone would think it was a good idea to call food Mess. Piper said their food was better than ours, which hardly surprised me given that we'd reached the limit of the number of edible meals you can make with rice and they were eating chicken and dumplings.
So there were Piper and Isaac and Edmond and me Making Ourselves Scarce and just considering whether we should move up to the lambing barn and make ourselves even scarcer when Osbert came out looking guilty and told Piper and me to pack a bag with our things because we were going to be rehoused and I just looked at him and shouted there is NO WAY I'm going to be sent off to some REFUGEE HOME in the BACK OF BEYOND especially BY YOU and Osbert looked pretty miserable and stared at the ground and said Orders Are Orders and I thought It's lucky they didn't tell him to shoot us.
Piper looked from me to her brother like a rat in a trap and then Edmond put his hand on my arm just when I was thinking that maybe if I slugged Osbert it would help him understand I was serious and very very softly Edmond said Don't worry and I said I AM NOT WORRIED because THERE IS NO WAY I AM GOING. And looking at all those miserable faces I wondered whether this was a cultural thing or what, that no one in this country says You've got to be kidding when told to vacate their home and abandon their newly discovered loved ones by a bunch of jumped-up reject army guys playing war games for a lark.
Osbert slid off like a sorry snake and I figured that was the end of it until about five minutes later when some guy who said he was Left Tennant something or other came out and was Awfully Apologetic in an awfully unapologetic way and the gist of it was we were out of here whether we liked it or not. He made it extremely clear that the army was not in any mood to hang around watching some Female American National have a tantrum at this Vital Juncture in History so I took Piper and we went upstairs and packed all the stuff we could think of for a week including some books in case we got stuck with a bunch of local hillbillies, and all I could do was stare at Edmond and Isaac and even Osbert and try to keep from crying and then Edmond kissed me and said Take Jet in a way that no one else except maybe Isaac could hear and I said back I'll find you and he nodded as if to say Likewise.
Our chauffeur wasn't exactly thrilled at me dragging a dog along but I wasn't budging on this question and he rolled his eyes and said Get In and then with almost everyone I had left in the world standing nearby looking sad and young and helpless, we were off. Given how things turned out you might wonder why we didn't make more of a scene about staying together but at the time we figured we could survive a week or two apart.
That's how totally in the dark we were about our situation.
Anyway, we bundled into this open van and as we started off I thought about Ding but I didn't say anything in case Piper got more worried than she looked right now and I tried to pull myself together
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