The FitzOsbornes at War (The Montmaray Journals, Band 3) - Softcover

Buch 3 von 3: The Montmaray Journals

Cooper, Michelle

 
9780307930583: The FitzOsbornes at War (The Montmaray Journals, Band 3)
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0307930580 ISBN 13: 9780307930583
Verlag: Random House Children's Books, 2013

Inhaltsangabe

Michelle Cooper completes her heart-stealing epic drama of history and romance with The FitzOsbornes at War.

Sophie FitzOsborne and the royal family of Montmaray escaped their remote island home when the Nazis attacked. But as war breaks out in England and around the world, nowhere is safe. Sophie fills her journal with tales of a life during wartime. Blackouts and the Blitz. Dancing in nightclubs with soliders on leave. And endlessly waiting for news of her brother Toby, whose plane was shot down over enemy territory.

But even as bombs rain down on London, hope springs up, and love blooms for this most endearing princess. And when the Allies begin to drive their way across Europe, the FitzOsbornes take heart—maybe, just maybe, there will be a way to liberate Montmaray as well.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

MICHELLE COOPER works as a speech pathologist. She specializes in learning disabilities and reluctant readers, so she's passionate about getting children and teenagers interested in books.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

3rd September 1939
I’m quite sure that, in twenty or thirty years’ time, people will say about this morning, “I’ll never forget where I was when I heard the news.” They’ll say, “I was sitting in church and the vicar was halfway through his sermon,” or, “We were washing up after breakfast and my sister decided to turn on the wireless,” or, “I’d just come back from a long ride through the woods and I handed my horse over to the groom and he told me.”
But the thing is, we could all be dead in twenty years’ time, or even twenty days’ time, the way the world is going, and so, for the record: when the British Prime Minister announced that the country was at war with Germany, I was in the breakfast room at Milford Park. My cousin Veronica was perched on the edge of the window seat, and my brother, Toby, was sprawled across the rest of it. Veronica was rigid with barely suppressed fury; Toby appeared to be asleep, although the tiny, unfamiliar dent between his eyebrows suggested he was listening as hard as anyone. My little sister, Henry, was kneeling at their feet, spreading anchovy paste on bread crusts and silently handing them, one by one, to our dog, Carlos, who’d been allowed upstairs due to the significance of the occasion. And Simon, my other cousin, was hunched over the wireless (which tended to lapse into static unless someone stood beside it, twiddling the knobs). Simon’s face was utterly blank--impossible to read, despite all the years I’d spent studying him.
“Now, may God bless you all,” the Prime Minister quavered.
(Veronica gave a derisive snort.)
“It is the evil things we shall be fighting against,” went on Mr. Chamberlain. “Brute force, bad faith, injustice, oppression and persecution. And, against them, I am certain that the right will prevail.”
There was a moment of crackling quiet, then “God Save the King” began wheezing out of the wireless. Simon switched it off.
“What a hypocrite that man is!” Veronica burst out, jumping to her feet. “He didn’t consider them ‘evil things’ last year, when he was hobnobbing with Hitler in Munich and handing over entire countries to the Nazis!”
“Toby,” said Henry urgently, twisting round to look at him, “Toby, do you have to go back to your squadron now, this very minute?”
“I don’t have a squadron, Hen, not yet,” said Toby, easing himself up on his elbows. “The air force won’t assign me to one till I’ve finished advanced training.”
“If Chamberlain had any decency, he’d resign!” said Veronica, still glaring at the wireless.
“But Toby, when do you have to go back?” Henry persisted.
“Tomorrow,” said Toby.
“Oh,” Henry said, blinking. Her face was easy to read. I saw, in rapid succession: dismay that he’d be leaving so soon, patriotic pride at having a brother already in the services, and burgeoning curiosity about what might happen to her now. “I suppose,” she added, almost wistfully, “that the war will be over by the time I’m old enough to fight.”
“Let’s hope so,” I said shortly. I was having trouble making my lips work, because a cold numbness had settled upon me the moment Mr. Chamberlain had begun to speak. As inevitable as this announcement was to everyone else, I realized I’d been praying all along for a last-minute miracle. For Stalin to change his mind, for the Americans to intervene, for Hitler to fall under a train . . . anything, anything at all. Now I understood how stupid I’d been.
“Don’t worry, Soph, it’ll be over by Christmas,” said Toby, flashing me a smile. “Isn’t that what they said last time?”
“And that went on four whole years,” I said bleakly.
“Besides, Henry, you couldn’t fight, even if you were old enough,” Veronica said, frowning down at her. “You’re a girl.”
“So what?” retorted Henry. “Girls can join the air force. Julia told me! And the army, and the navy, too! It’s just that the women’s services have silly names, like ‘Wrens’ for the navy. Wrens, how idiotic. It ought to be ‘Albatrosses’ or ‘Razorbills’ or something like that. But that’s the one I want to join, ’cause I can sail and row and--”
Carlos placed a paw on her arm and gave her a meaningful look.
“Oh, sorry, Carlos,” she said, handing him the piece of bread she’d been waving around.
Toby sighed and slumped back against the window frame. “It’s so odd, isn’t it?” he remarked to no one in particular. “I mean, all those times when it seemed about to start, and then everything went back to normal. And now . . . Oh Lord, to think of old Ribbentrop being responsible for this! I met him, you know, I actually had dinner with the man who got the Soviets to join up with the Nazis. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, isn’t that what it’s being called?”
Everyone’s a political expert, these days. Even I knew that if that pact hadn’t been signed, Germany wouldn’t have invaded Poland and we wouldn’t be at war now.
“And he seemed such a joke back then!” Toby continued. “Simon, don’t you remember, that party at the Bosworths’? When he was still the German Ambassador and all the girls were calling him ‘von Ribbensnob’ and you spent ages chatting to him about--”
Simon shot Toby a withering look.
“Oh, right,” said Toby. “Sorry.” That dinner party had been the beginning of the end, for Montmaray. If Ribbentrop hadn’t passed Simon’s information on to those Nazi Grail hunters, then perhaps our home would never have been invaded . . . But what did it matter, now that the whole of Europe was at war? Which reminded me of something else.
“Do we have to declare war on Germany ourselves?” I asked. “On behalf of Montmaray, I mean?”
“Oh,” said Veronica, her frown digging further into her forehead. “Yes, we’d better send a letter to the German Embassy straightaway. And another one to the Foreign Office, reminding the British that we’re their allies. Otherwise, we might get interned as enemy aliens. They’ve already started rounding up Germans in London, Daniel was saying yesterday. Anyone who isn’t a British subject--”
Carlos suddenly tilted his head towards the window and crinkled his brow.
“What’s that noise?” asked Henry.
Veronica turned to stare in the direction of the village. “Surely it couldn’t be--”
“Air-raid siren,” said Toby, scrambling to his feet as Carlos added his howl to the rising cacophony. “Grab your gas masks and let’s go!”
“Mine’s upstairs,” said Henry. “Or hang on-- did I leave it in the stables?”
“Henry!” snapped Veronica. “I told you to keep it with you!”
There were thumps and shouts from the corridor, and a couple of maids rushed past the open door, trailing mops and dusters. I stood where I was, frozen with horror.
“You see, I took Lightning out for a ride before breakfast,” said Henry. “Or maybe it’s--”
“What’s that under the table? Isn’t that yours?”
“Oh, right. But, you know, it really isn’t fair, Carlos doesn’t have a gas mask. Nobody ever thinks about the poor animals--”
Harkness, our intimidating butler, loomed in the doorway,...

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Verlag
Random House Children's Books
Erscheinungsdatum
2013
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0307930580
ISBN 13 
9780307930583
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
560
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Nicht verfügbar

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