Safe Harbour by Marita Conlon-Mckenna

shuffling papers, making up his mind whether to let her in or not.
    ‘Oh! All right then! Enter!’
    Sophie pushed the white-panelled door in. Her grandfather was sitting at a big old wooden desk, which was covered in papers and letters. Sophie’s eyes travelled around the book-cluttered room. It was like a small library, with shelves reaching almost to the ceiling. It would take years to read all these books. No wonder Grandfather spent almost all his time in here. There was so much knowledge and learning just in this one place.
    His half-eaten tea lay balanced on top of a pad of writing paper. Sophie almost tripped over a box on the floor.
    ‘Mind my files!’ he exclaimed. He had a pen in his hand and had obviously been writing. ‘Let me finish the rest of this page.’ He motioned to her to sit down. She sat in a smaller version of the green-winged leather chair he was sitting in, and watched as he wrote, muttering softly to himself.
    Sophie’s eyes suddenly noticed the high shelf of strange objects in glass jars. They shone with an incandescent dark green glow. What in heaven’s name were they? Then shealmost jumped out of her skin with fright when her eyes settled on the grimacing skull of a skeleton, hanging from a stand in the corner.
    ‘Oh!’ she screamed.
    Her grandfather looked up. ‘That’s only old Toby! My skeleton. All us medical students used to have our own skeletons. No need to be scared of him.’ He stood up and walked over to the bony figure. ‘I’ll cover it up if it upsets you.’ He draped a heavy piece of brown velvet over it, then turned back towards her, stiffly.
    ‘Well?’ He drew his pipe and pouch of tobacco out of his pocket and began to fill the bowl.
    ‘Grandfather, I’m sorry to interrupt you when you’re working, but I wanted to come and apologise properly for what Hugh and I did. I know it was very wrong.’
    He began to light the pipe, waiting for her to say more.
    ‘We would never jeer or laugh at anyone because of a war injury, and we’re sorry if we caused you any pain or upset. We appreciate very much what you’re doing for us.’
    He sucked in a draft of air as the pipe began to smoke. ‘I’m not used to having children round this place,’ he said at last. ‘Perhaps it was a mistake. Maybe you’d have been better off evacuated to Wales –’
    ‘But we love it here, Grandfather,’ Sophie blurted out, ‘we love Greystones.’
    But he made no reply, and his stern eyes simply stared at her as he puffed on his pipe, making her feel small and uncomfortable.
    ‘Anyway … we … we’re sorry,’ she mumbled.
    ‘Hmph!’ was his only response, which Sophie took to mean apology accepted. She didn’t know whether to stay in the room now or leave. Already her grandfather seemed to have lost interest in her and was looking at the papers on his desk. Then on a sort of inlaid sideboard Sophie spotted it – a wireless! It was a bigger version of the one they had at home, but it had the same brown casing and the dials and buttons at the bottom. There were papers and books piled on top of it.
    ‘A wireless!’ she gasped.
    Her grandfather looked up.
    ‘Grandfather! Does the wireless work?’ she asked.
    He nodded.
    ‘Can you receive the BBC on it?’ She was excited now.
    ‘Yes, of course I can, and the World Service too.’
    ‘Oh please, Grandfather, could we listen?’
    Sophie suddenly realised how far removed she felt from England and from the war effort. From everything that was going on at home. From the British army and navy and air force. From what Mr Churchill was saying. Just because she was in Ireland she shouldn’t forget about them all.
    Her grandfather looked at his watch. ‘The nine o’clock news should start in a few minutes,’ he said. ‘Are you really interested in the news, Sophie?’ he asked in surprise. He actually seemed curious about her now.
    ‘We always listened at home. Mum always wanted to know how the troops were getting on,’