Uprooted - A Canadian War Story
From the author of The Indian in the Cupboard and The L-Shaped Room comes a fascinating story of a wartime childhood, heavily influenced by her own experience.In 1940 as war rages across Europe, ten-year-old Lindy, waves goodbye to England and makes the long journey to Saskatoon, Canada, along with her Mother and her cousin Cameron. They may be far from the war but they are also far from home and everyone they know and love. Life in Canada is very different but it is also full of exciting new adventures…This captivating story is inspired by Lynne Reid Banks’ own childhood experience and her time in Canada.
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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2014
HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers
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Hammersmith, London W6 8JB
Copyright © Lynne Reid Banks 2014
Cover credit: Design © www.beckyglibbery.co.uk
Cover photographs: Figures © Mark Owen/Trevillion, Ship © Getty Images, Suitcases and tree branch © Shutterstock
Lynne Reid Banks asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780007589432
Ebook Edition © 2014 ISBN: 9780007589449
Version: 2014-07-21
To Glady who read and liked it first.
To ‘Cameron’ who wouldn’t read it at all!
And in memory of ‘Alex’ – Pat Reid Banks, my mother.
Table of Contents
Copyright
Prologue
Chapter One: The Voyage
Chapter Two: Montreal
Chapter Three: On the Train
Chapter Four: We Arrive
Chapter Five: Freedom
Chapter Six: School
Chapter Seven: Willie and the Crescent Club
Chapter Eight: Fall (OK, Cameron – Autumn)
Chapter Nine: Snow
Chapter Ten: Changes
Chapter Eleven: Across the Tracks
Chapter Twelve: Our New Life
Chapter Thirteen: The End of Winter
Chapter Fourteen: Penny Wise and Other Dramas
Chapter Fifteen: New York, New York!
Chapter Sixteen: Fairyland
Chapter Seventeen: Back to the Real World
Chapter Eighteen: All Change
Chapter Nineteen: Worries
Chapter Twenty: Emma Lake
Chapter Twenty-one: Wooding
Chapter Twenty-two: Music Hath Charms (Even For Me)
Chapter Twenty-three: Laddie’s Adventure
Chapter Twenty-four: The Menace Returns
Chapter Twenty-five: The Muskeg
Chapter Twenty-six: Bad News
Chapter Twenty-seven: Cameron’s Adventure
Chapter Twenty-eight: Benjy
Postscript
Also by Lynne Reid Banks
About the Publisher
Our families travelled to Liverpool from London, where I lived, and Cheltenham, where Cameron lived, to see us off.
My mother and father, two aunties, an uncle – even Grampy, our mothers’ father, made the journey, although Grampy was old and not well, but he would come. And Shott, his dog. He wouldn’t leave Shott behind in case he got bombed.
Travelling by train was crowded and very uncomfortable in wartime, with all the soldiers and people being moved around the country on war work. But Shott was popular. Grampy had to stop the soldiers feeding him. I’d never liked him much – he sometimes growled and even snapped – but now, for some reason, I wanted him on my knee. I stroked and stroked his curly fur and for once he let me. He was quivering. Dogs sense things. And there was a lot to sense. The whole carriage was crackling with feelings.
Cameron kept looking at Shott, but he didn’t touch him. I didn’t always know what Cameron was thinking because he kept his feelings shut in. But I knew then – he was thinking of Bubbles, his dog. The ‘Bulgarian bulldog’. Leaving Bubbles must have been awful. Not as bad as leaving both his parents, but awful just the same.
I kept my eyes down a lot of the way. I didn’t want to look at my beautiful daddy, grim-faced, holding my mother’s hand. Hardly talking. Or at my Auntie Millie, Cameron’s mother, keeping Cameron close to her. Uncle Jack, reading a medical journal. And Grampy. He only spoke to Shott. I think he was struggling not to cry. My mother was his favourite, and she was going away.
Mummy didn’t say much, either, except to ask me every now and then if I was all right, if I wanted anything. Only the aunts chatted, brightly, trying to keep up our spirits. Auntie Millie, who was the liveliest of us all and could always cheer us up, had her work cut out this time. Mummy, Cameron and I were going to get on a ship and sail far away. Who knew when, if ever, we’d all be together again?
I didn’t know how I felt. I think I just didn’t know how to feel. There was too much feeling all around me. If I thought anything on that long train journey, it was, I wish this was over. I wish we could be on the ship. Did I not mind leaving Daddy, leaving the aunts, leaving England? I couldn’t get to grips with that. I had Mummy. I had Cameron – though not then; he just sat by the window watching England go by. Auntie’s arm was round his shoulders but once I saw him twitch as if he simply wanted to be left alone.
