Almost immediately, the train ride became boring and monotonous.

Mr Martin tried to start up a game of I-Spy with the boys at the very back of the train trying to use inappropriate words without much success. After a few attempts, they grew bored and started to clamber over one another and fight for the window seat. Mark watched them with a smile on his face since he knew he would win the bet just by their behaviour on the train. He could smell a winning bet a mile away and enjoyed taking our money from us and spending it on sweets.

The younger ones up the front end of the train appeared to be having a lot more fun with the game then we were. We could hear them shouting out answers and giggling when they got it right and it was their turn to pick the next word. I didn't think there were that many rounds of I-Spy they could do before they ran out of words to shout out, I was wrong and the game just kept going.

For us, whilst Mr Martin continued to try and get everyone enthused about spotting things outside the window, Mark had dug out a pack of cards his Dad had given him. With Mr Martin distracted, we were able to get a small game going but we made sure that no money exchanged hands. None of us wanted to get Mr Marton's lecture on the perils of gambling and since no money was being used, it wasn't actually gambling. Just a friendly game of cards.

"How long are we supposed to be on this train again?" Enid asked, peering around Mark and placing her cards on her lap. She had never been very good at card games.

"A few hours at least," I said, looking at the watch Dad had given me before he left for the Navy.

"I don't think we're going to be able to keep ourselves occupied for that long. We've already been here for an hour and I'm bored."

"That's because you're awful at cards," Mark said, "but I still love you."

Beside me, Eva mined herself vomiting and I buried my head in my cards to keep them from seeing me laugh. Mark and Eva had only discovered they liked each other over the summer and just a few weeks before we were told we were to be evacuated. Since then, Eva and I had to put up with the two of them fawning over one another and ignoring us in favour of doing things together. More often than not, they preferred a walk in a small park near Mark's house and Eva and I would slip off to the Pictures when they weren't paying attention. We saw a lot of movies during the summer.

"We could always join in the game of I-Spy. Or, better yet, we can ask Mr Martin about his extensive pencil collection," Eva said jokingly.

"Don't even mention the word pencil. We won't hear the end of it." Mark gathered up the cards and started to shuffle them, but our card games had come to an end.

"There's an idea. I used to play a game with my dad. We'd take turns drawing a different part of a monster or a person. We couldn't see what the other person had drawn and had to fold the page over before drawing our next part. It could be fun, and it'll definitely pass the time," I said.

"Anything is better than I-Spy or a pencil collection that's about ten pencils too large."

"Coming from someone who has lost every single pencil they have ever owned, that doesn't mean anything."

I reached down and unlatched my suitcase, rooting through the clothes and endless stack of handkerchiefs until I found the paper and pencil I had managed to sneak in there. Mum had made me follow the requirements to the letter and that included not having paper or pencils with me. Of course, I broke that and stuffed some pencils and paper into my bag right before we left just in case I needed them. I might not have a large pencil collection, but I always made sure to have one on hand when I needed one.

From my suitcase, I pulled out four sheets of paper and a collection of various sized pencils which I handed around to the others. A smaller slip of paper fell out of my stack and I picked it up from the floor and stuffed it under my clothes without even checking what it was. I had my suspicions since Mum often left me little notes before I went to Eva's on a sleepover and I expected the bit of paper to be the same. I'd look at it when I unpacked my suitcases.

With the pencils and paper handed around, we all set about drawing the first stage of whatever it is that we had decided to draw. For a group of teenagers, it certainly was an odd game to be playing but anything would be better than I-Spy or staring at field after field just outside the window. Even teenagers resort to some stupid things to try and combat the plague of boredom, especially on a train with a school of screaming children and a really boring headteacher.

When we had all finished the head of whatever we had planned to draw, we passed them down the line until we had someone else's and kept drawing. Without any idea of what the other person had decided to draw, and knowing the minds of my friends, I started to wonder if it had been a good idea but it kept Mark quiet which is always a positive. Once we had all exchanged paper and the feet had been drawn, we handed them back to the original drawer and unfolded the paper to take a look at the monstrosity that had been created.

"Mine sort of looks like a chicken. If you tilt your head, close one eye and think of a chicken with a human head," Eva said. She stretched her arms out in front of her and looked at her drawing.

"Mine could be something out of Alice in Wonderland if it wasn't for the fact that it has Mr Martin's head. Not an image I wanted to see." Mark folded up his drawing and tucked it into his pocket.

"Why did you draw Mr Martin's head? I asked.

"He is right in my eye line! You try and draw something else when all you can see is that brown suit, and the extra-long eyebrow hair. That thing has a life all of its own, I'm telling you."

"Maybe we should wait for him to fall asleep and pluck it. It's enough to scare the locals away."

"I don't think he sleeps." Eva peered around the seats to look at Mr Martin who stood at the front of our section with his arms folded. "He lives off spite, pencil led and peaches."

I moved in my seat, just enough to watch Mr Martin. He walked over to the seat he should have been sitting in and appeared to start digging through his belongings. His head appeared a few seconds later and when he headed back to his spot in front of our section of the carriage, he had a tin can of peaches in one hand and a fork in the other. Eva curled up on her seat and lapsed into silent giggling whilst the rest of us tried to hide our smiles.

Perhaps the only good thing about travelling with our headteacher was being able to watch him and get to know all of his strange habits a little more. We knew he liked peaches and had an obsession with pencils but this trip would give us plenty of time to uncover the inner-workings of the man. Well, if we saw him that is. We knew none of us would likely be able to return to the classroom when we were away, we'd pass the age required to stay in school and with all the young men signing up to fight, we had to take their place.

"Did you hear from your dad before we left?" Eva asked, unfurling herself from her seat and raising a hand to block any view of Mr Martin.

"No, he hasn't written since he left for training. Mum said she'll write and tell him once I have the address of whoever I'm billeted with."

Dad had signed up to fight the first time war had been a possibility. He and the other men at the docks had joined up for the Navy and been shipped off to training within a matter of days. Mum said he was mad for even thinking of signing up, let alone doing it before an actual war started. Once the threat of war got closer and the rumours about my own evacuation became a possibility, she changed. Suddenly she wrote to him every day with news about where he was or when he might have to fight.

"Anthony said he was going to sign up to the infantry once war broke, Mum's trying to talk him out of it. He's only just turned nineteen and she thinks he's too young."

"Bet he loved that."

"Definitely. My bedroom floor was shaking."

"Dad said he wasn't going to volunteer. He reckons that if the army needs him, they'll ask. He also said that the Great War took his father's sanity and they sure as hell ain't taking his as well," Mark said.

Enid smacked in on the arm. "Language. Don't use that word."

"Trust me, that was paraphrasing."

I leant back against my seat and watched the fields roll by, counting how many of them contained animals or bales of hay. Further up the train, I could hear the teachers of the younger students trying to teach them the names of the animals but they were too busy talking to pay much attention. At least they had stopped crying. They had taken to the idea of a holiday rather quickly, although I could still hear the slight sniffing of one of them who had yet to accept that we had left the city.

The chair rocked and I could hear the sound of the wheels of the track as we moved through the fields and further away from home. I reached down into my suitcase and grabbed the bottle of dandelion and burdock cordial that Mum had bought me for the journey. After taking a sip, I placed the bottle in my lap and stared out the window, wondering just how far from London we had really come. It still felt like an extreme measure; uprooting thousands of children from their homes for a war that had yet to start.

With Dad already gone and me being moved across the country as a precaution for something that might not happen, Mum would be all on her own. Of course, I expected to be back within a week but that would be a week where Mum would be alone with nothing but our batty neighbour for company. Still, a week away without her fussing didn't seem all that bad and she did get on with Mrs Davis and her cats.

"Do you have any more sandwiches left?" Mark asked, fidgeting his seat and reaching down to root through his suitcase. That boy had a bottomless pit for a stomach.

"You're in luck." I picked up the paper bag and threw it at him. "They're marmite. Enjoy."

"I don't understand why you hate marmite, it's delicious."

"It's really not."

"You have no taste."

"If you're going to eat those, can you have a mint or something? I'm not sitting next to you for the next hour or two if you smell of marmite," Enid said, shuffling away from him to try and escape the smell.

"You're all just marmite haters. Just you wait, I'll show you what the superior sandwich spread is."

Enid groaned and perched right on the edge of her seat. Any sudden stop of the train and she would be flung forward. I took another sip of my drink and tried to ignore the smell of the sandwiches as best I could. To try and get rid of it, I opened the train window just a little and let the fresh air of the country around us flood into the train. City air had always been so dirty, with smoke everywhere and the smell of the Thames carrying on the breeze even though we were nowhere near it.

The smell of the marmite still lingered and I wondered why Mum would even bother packing marmite sandwiches when she knew I hated them. Still, it shut Mark up for a little while which would always be a plus.

"How long do you think we have left?" Eva asked, rolling her head to the side and looking at me.

"An hour? Maybe a little longer." I glanced at my watch.

She groaned. "I can't feel anything below the waist and I really need to use the toilet. Before you say anything, no, I am not going on a train."

"You might explode if you don't," Mark said, swallowing a large bite of sandwich.

"That can't really happen, you idiot."

"Just go, Eva. You'll be sitting there for at least another hour and you're already fidgeting."

"Sybil!" I looked over at Mark. "It's true isn't it, you can explode if you don't go to the bathroom."

I shook my head, took another swig of my drink and went back to staring out the window with a hope that the next hour passed by quickly, if not, I would be the one exploding. It was going to be a long week.

~~~

A/N - We are back with Chapter Two! I'm finishing up Chapter Seven as we speak so we have plenty of material for you to sink your teeth into and I can't wait for you to meet some of the other characters!

Second chapter thoughts? What do you think of the dynamic between the four of them? Are you getting any predictions from the opening two chapters?

Let me know in the comments and don't forget to vote if you enjoyed! You can add the story to your reading list so you never miss an update!

First Published - March 23rd, 2021