Kim M Russell

Joe and Nelly: A World War Two ghost story Kim M Russell

'Huge haphazard piles of shattered furniture covered in glass and brick dust leaned towards the sky like mountains of Welsh slate - little pieces of his life were hidden underneath.'Seven-year-old Joe sits on a train Paddington Station waiting to depart, with just a cardboard suitcase and a gas mask. On the platform, he sees Nelly from next door, who doesn't get on the train. It pulls away from the station before Joe can wave goodbye. Five years later, Joe returns, looking forward to getting back to normal with his parents, but his house has been bombed, his mum has moved in with his grandparents and she's working as a clippie on the buses, while his dad, a soldier, is away fighting in Belgium.. Feeling the pinch of rationing, and lonely in a house full of adults, he visits the bombsite where his home used to be and finds Nelly sitting on the remains of the front steps. They spend every day together: Joe tells Nelly about his evacuation to Wales and Nelly helps him find things in the rubble. Overhearing his grandparents talking about Nelly, which turns his already broken world upside-down, he puts himself in danger in a quest to help her find her parents, who were killed when their house was hit by a bomb. He learns some difficult lessons about life and death in the aftermath of the Blitz.