Read Online The Lights Go On Again by Kit Pearson - Free Book Online Page B

looked up to find Aunt Florence staring at him. Not with sorrow, which he would have expected, but with a kind of triumph. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
    â€œNothing’s wrong, pet,” she smiled. She kissed the top of his head. “Nothing’s wrong at all.”
    A FTER THAT Norah acted more and more strangely. She alternated between profound sleepiness and bursts of anger. Hanny kept tempting her with her favourite food, but she scarcely ate. She yawned through meals and dozed on the chesterfield when they were all in the den.
    â€œHow is she ever going to get through her studies?” whispered Aunt Mary, as they looked at Norah curled up like a little girl in the cushions.
    â€œI’ve written a note to her teacher to excuse her from homework for a week or so,” said Aunt Florence. “He agrees with me that this is just a reaction to help her get over the shock.”
    Gavin tried to think up ways to make Norah feel better. He suggested they go to see House of Frankenstein but she refused. She never left the house except to go to school, and whenever Paige called on her she made up some excuse not to see her.
    One afternoon Gavin was sent up to the tower to wake Norah for dinner. He sat on her bed while she got ready, chatting to her about school and normal things.
    â€œHow can you act as if nothing has happened?” she snapped.
    She hadn’t spoken to him like this since that long ago time when they’d first arrived.
    â€œI’m sorry, Norah,” whispered Gavin. “But I keep forgetting about it.”
    â€œForgetting about it!” Norah glared at him. “How could you?”
    â€œI guess … because … I don’t feel as sad as you do. Because I don’t remember Mum and Dad very well.”
    â€œ Try to remember. It was only four and a half years ago that you saw them. I remember them perfectly! If only you remembered, we could talk about them. You’re the only other person in this whole country who knew them!”
    â€œI’m sorry, Norah. I’ll try harder.”
    That night in bed he tried to envision his parents’ faces and voices: nothing. What was the matter with him? Roger hadn’t seen his father since he was seven, and he often talked about things they had done together.
    When Gavin tried to remember, a wall seemed to rise up between England and Canada. On one side was danger; on the other side, safety. The danger was worse than before: a bomb could smash a house and kill your relatives. That made the safety even more precious.
    On Saturday Gavin borrowed his parents’ letters and photographs from Norah. Surely if he studied these as intently as he studied for a social studies test it would force him to remember.
    He began with the six photographs. The whole family before the war—Gavin smiled at Norah as a skinny little girl and himself as a solemn baby. Mum and Dad standing in front of “Little Whitebull,” the house that was now demolished. Dad in his Home Guard uniform. Tibby in her A.T.S. uniform. Muriel and Barry holding their baby—Richard, the first grandchild. My nephew! thought Gavin. He’d forgotten about Richard. Mum and Dad and Grandad last summer.
    His parents looked older than other people’s parents. That was because there was such a gap between Norah and Gavin and their older sisters. Mum wore a kind of turban in all the pictures, so he couldn’t tell what her hair was like. Her face was pretty but tired-looking. Dad’s dark hair was streaked with grey. His beaky face was a lot like Norah’s. Norah often told Gavin that he looked like Mum, but he couldn’t see the resemblance.
    He would have recognized them if he saw them, because he’d had their faces pointed out in each new photograph as “Mum and Dad.” But he recognized them the same way he did a picture of a famous actor or hockey star: someone familiar but not intimate.
    Norah had