Stay Where You Are and Then Leave by John Boyne Page B

school every day, which Margie said was a sign that he was growing up.
    â€œYou’ll be a fine man one day, Alfie Summerfield,” she told him, kissing him on the top of his forehead. “Just like your father. He’d be proud of you if he were here with us now.”
    But he wasn’t with them, of course. He didn’t write, he didn’t send telegrams; he didn’t come home on leave like Jack Tamorin from number twenty or Arthur Morris from number eighteen. Margie insisted that his dad’s secret mission would bring the war to an end more quickly, but Alfie didn’t believe a word of it.
    He knew that his father was dead.
    *   *   *
    Alfie stole Mr. Janá č ek’s shoeshine box for one reason only: so that he could go out to work like Leonard Hopkins had and help his mother out. She was doing her bit; it was time he did his bit too.
    The next morning was a Wednesday so there was no need to go to school. (It wasn’t reading or history that day, after all.) Alfie waited until Margie left for her first week’s training at the hospital and then took the box out of the wardrobe, opened it to make sure that everything was still in place, had a wash, got dressed, ate some breakfast, and left the house.
    Damley Road was only a short walk from King’s Cross, and Alfie made his way along the familiar streets, switching the box from his right hand to his left whenever it grew too heavy. He felt like a man of the world, a working man just like his dad had once been, getting up early to ride the milk float. When he passed other working men on the street, he felt an urge to tip his cap to them, but didn’t do so in case it made him look stupid.
    As he stepped inside the station, he felt a great wave of emotion overtake him. The last time he’d been here—the only time he’d been here—was when Georgie had taken him a few days after he’d signed up. The station had been very busy then. Newspaper boys were everywhere—it was said that during July 1914, circulation increased sixfold as everyone wanted to find out what might happen to them next—and there were hundreds of people boarding and leaving the trains. The noise of the steam engines was deafening and the station itself was filled with a smog as bad as any of the London pea-soupers. Georgie wasn’t wearing his soldier’s uniform that day. It was hanging in his wardrobe at home. He hadn’t put it on again since he’d stepped into the front parlor and surprised them all.
    â€œDo you know,” said Georgie, standing in the concourse and looking around at the platforms, staring at the height of the station ceiling and listening to the sound of the conductors’ whistles, “I used to think I might like to be a train driver. I tried for a job on the London-to-Edinburgh line, but I didn’t get it.”
    â€œWhy not?” asked Alfie, looking up at his dad.
    â€œThey said I wasn’t a good fit,” he replied with a shrug. “Whatever that meant. They’re a posh old lot, them train drivers. They think they’re better than everyone else on account of how they get to wear a uniform all the time. But they’re not.”
    â€œYou’re going to wear a uniform now too,” said Alfie, and Georgie laughed a little and tousled the boy’s hair even though Alfie hadn’t meant it as a joke.
    â€œYes, I expect I am,” he said. “Hold on now—since we’re here there’s a bit of business I need to take care of.”
    They walked over toward the ticket counter, where lots of people were queuing up for tickets, but at the end of the row were three desks lined up on the platform without railings in front of them, each one manned by an officer, leaning over ledgers and making notes alongside some of the entries.
    â€œAfternoon,” said Georgie, lighting up a cigarette and taking a drag from it as he approached the