Secrets and Shadows by Brian Gallagher

said the boy in disgust. ‘But I’m having first pick,’ he insisted, in what Grace reckoned was an attempt to save some face.
    Everyone gathered round as the sides began to be picked. Grace looked up the road at Barry’s retreating form. She was glad that he had friends to play football with, and glad too that she had stood up for him. Most of all though she was glad to have a friend who had been willing to sacrifice so much of his own money to save her job. And if she had to spend the summer living with Granddad and Uncle Freddie, and without her old friends Joan and Kathleen, then it mightn’t be so bad if she could share some of it with Barry Malone.
    ‘I pick Grace!’ said May, breaking her reverie. ‘Come on, Grace!’
    ‘OK,’ she answered, then she turned and happily joined her team for Kick the Can.

    Barry felt excited as the countryside whistled by outside the train window. He was sitting opposite an animated Charlie Dawson, and the rest of the sunlit carriage was full of other excited schoolboys taking part in the sixth class school tour to Cobh in County Cork. The boys’ high spirits were infectious, and Barry was enjoying every minute of the fun, all the more so since it had looked at one stage like he wouldn’t be able to make the tour.
    When he had given the five shillings to Grace it had left him with a shortfall of two shillings. Grandma, however, gave him sixpence pocket money each Sunday – one week of which he had already saved – which meant that he was only a shilling short of the required seven shillings. And in a flash of inspiration he had decided to do a salvage drive around all the houses off Arbour Hill to raise the money.
    Salvage drives had been popular in wartime Liverpool –
Saucepans for Spitfires
was the name they gave to one where old metal items were recycled to make fighter planes – but other items were collected too, and there was a ready market for rags, wool, bottles, jam jars and waste paper. Barry had worked hard collecting sacks full of old newspapers and crates of sticky beer bottles and jam jars that he brought to the gloomy warehouse of a scrap merchant onChicken Lane. It had been worth all the effort, and now he even had a few pence left over to spend on today’s excursion.
    Everyone in the class wasn’t as lucky, and several boys whose fathers were out of work couldn’t afford the trip. One of these was Shay McGrath, and Barry had discovered that McGrath’s labourer father had been out of work for several months now. Barry had felt sorry for the other boys who were missing the trip, but it was a relief that McGrath was missing. The bullying had stopped since the magical day when Johnny Keogh had intervened, but it was obvious that McGrath still didn’t like him, so the trip would be more relaxed in McGrath’s absence.
    The train sped on through the summer countryside, the fields outside the window a blur of green, occasionally masked by the thick, black smoke spewed out by the massive steam locomotive that pulled the train. Brother Hogan and Mr Pawlek were sitting together at the end of the carriage, but their demeanour was more easy-going than when in school, and the boys were taking advantage of the holiday atmosphere.
    Suddenly Charlie clutched his stomach as though in pain. Barry looked at him anxiously, then realised it was a gag when Charlie cried out,
‘“I’ve a pain in me belly!”, said Dr Kelly.’
    The rest of the boys shouted out in unison.
‘“Rub it with oil!” said Doctor Doyle.’
    Charlie jumped up as though cured.
‘“A very good cure!”, said Doctor Moore,’
he cried.
    Barry had never heard the rhyme before and he laughed heartily,entertained by Charlie’s performance. He sat back contentedly, delighted to be off school, and sensing that this might be his best day since coming to Ireland.

    The sun shone brightly, bathing Cobh in warm golden light. Barry walked along the waterfront, the waves in the harbour sparkling in the