

“Right, all onto the bus, come on now” Mr Edwards called as he herded us
onto the Mayhill’s red school coach. “We don’t want to be late for the staff at
the Swansea 1940s Museum.
“The museum’s not going anywhere, its history!” Charlie’s joking voice
whispered in my ear. I rolled my eyes and pushed him in front of me. My other
friend, Libby, was behind me when we jostled onto the bus. We took a row of
three seats somewhere near the middle of the coach and sat in excited silence
for the twenty minutes it took to get to the WW2 museum in Swansea.
Waving the bus into a parking space, a man with a little ginger beard
and bald head welcomed us at the front doors.
“I am Sam, your museum guide for this afternoon” He told us happily.
“You will learn all about the 40s!” He led us to a tin tunnel with one
entrance.
“Let’s start here. These were called Anderson Shelters and people dug
them into their garden to run to when the bombs started falling” He then let us
go round a model WW2 street answering questions on a worksheet. Me, Libby and
Charlie went round in a group. Libby grew increasingly annoying when she
squealed and ran away at any plastic dummy positioned in the fake buildings, and
then blushed at Charlie’s easy laugh.
Mr Edwards thanked the curator for his hospitality at the end of the
day.
“Our pleasure” a voice croaked from behind Sam and a few people
screamed, including Libby.
“It’s a moving dummy!” Someone yelled.
Hunched behind our museum guide was an old woman. She had gnarled
fingers and white-grey straggly hair that hung around her shoulders.
“It is not a moving dummy, dummies don’t move.
They are made of plastic, which is constructed by moulding extracted raw
materials and-” Walter, the smartest boy in the whole school began.
“Anyway, this is Greta, the museum’s caretaker.” Sam interrupted “She is
old enough to be part of it too” he chuckled. Greta gave him a glare and told
him that she was only eighty three.
Charlie whispered something in Libby’s ear and she burst out in proper
laughter, not giggles for a nice change.
“WW2 is not something to joke about” Greta told us sternly. She bustled
away, and as she passed me, Charlie and Libby she whispered something: “…as you
soon will see”.
We looked at each other puzzled. Libby suddenly realised that she had
left her water bottle behind and went back to retrieve it, with us following
behind.
Getting to the seats, Charlie turned to a plastic box holding WW2
costumes. He took a gasmask out, and pulled it over his head and while making
Darth Vader sounds he also tried on a helmet.
“Let’s go!” I cried, but now Libby was digging though the clothes and
had pulled out a flowery hat. I had to plead for five minutes more, before they
finally put everything away, giggling. We ran down the corridor and skidded to
a halt when we saw the bus leaving. Greta turned around, and gave us a
toothless grin. I was feeling very worried now. She closed the museum door and
turned the key with a click. As she walked away down the concrete yard, I
realised that she had locked us in!
Suddenly, the sky seemed to burst open and a heavenly, dazzling white
light streamed down. There was an eerie silence, and then I could see hundreds
of bombs being dropped around us. Incendiary bombs set fire to the museum while
others took huge chunks out of the earth. We pushed the now half broken door
open and ran out of the burning building. People dressed in military uniform
ran past clutching gas masks to their faces. Libby screamed and in the chaos, I
couldn’t see her. Firefighters sweated as they tried to control all the
flames, but as soon as they put out one fire, another one demanded attention.
The air raid siren had been wailing spookily for a while now and constant ringing
was coming from the bells on top of the fire engines. I reached out in the
smoke and grabbed Libby’s hand, dragging her towards me and she pulled Charlie
with her.
“What the hell is going on?” Charlie yelled. I shrugged with my mouth
agape.
I shouted “Are the bombs real?” Libby pulled her leggings up to
show her bleeding, bruised knee; yes they were real alright.
Jogging urgently towards us was a man I had never seen before. I
couldn’t make him out properly in all the smog. Yet as he came closer, I caught
a glimpse of an amiable face.
“Into the shelter, quick quick!” He hauled us into an Anderson shelter.
Closing the door, he turned towards us. With a tin helmet on his head, gun by
his side and military uniform buttoned up to his neck, he looked very intimidating,
even though his face appeared kind. Charlie wasn’t intimidated though.
“What on earth is happening?” Charlie demanded “One minute we’re locked
in a museum in 2020, and then we are in the middle of an air raid
and everyone is in fancy dress!”
The man stared at him.
“My god son, do you need a doctor? It’s 1941 during the Swansea blitz.
The bloody Luftwaffe is targeting our docks to cripple coal supplies going
out.”
It was our turn to stare at him. “But we’re just ten year olds from
Mayhill Grammar School!”
“What? The boy’s school up on that hill? What are you doing there? It’s
got unexploded bombs hiding in its depths from when it was hit! Everyone
sensible stays away from it.”
Charlie looked gobsmacked. He glanced round at me and then urgently asked
the man if he knew where the bombs were.
“Yes, bloody hell, you’re behind on your war homework. Yes one is
underneath the floor of the gym, and the other in the bike shed on the left of
the school” He answered.
“Bike shed? But no one rides bikes to school anymore!” I said confused.
Charlie’s eyes suddenly widened. “That’s why nobody’s found the bomb!”
I grinned at him, and then my face fell. I asked them how we
were going to get back.
Libby hopefully said that maybe Greta could turn everything back to normal.
I explained to her that we had no access to the present time and
we could not communicate with Greta. It was very hard not to roll my eyes.
“Greta? I know someone of that name…” The man said, interrupting our
conversation. Charlie asked him where she could be.
“Definitely in the public shelter, she doesn’t have room for one in her
garden. In fact, here she is now!” The museum’s caretaker was the same age in
1941 as she was in 2020 and panting as she struggled inside the shelter. She
grinned at us and asked matter of factly whether we had found out anything
interesting.
Libby burst into tears and screamed that she wanted to go home right
now.
“Blooming heck, that’s why I never bothered with kids!” The old man
said, looking horrified. Greta pulled out a key and beckoned to us. We followed
her out into the chaos, and helped her avoid danger. She got to the front doors
of the crumbling museum and we saw that the keyhole was untouched, shiny and
gleaming, as it was when we got off the Mayhill Grammar School bus. She
wriggled the key round till it went click, and suddenly the world froze. The
sounds of the bombs got fainter and the people were being slowly sucked up into
the heavens. The man who had talked to us in the shelter was frozen in his last
act of being speechless.
Suddenly, our school coach was travelling towards us, and Mr
Edwards looked worried and then relieved when he saw us at the museum’s double
doors.
He waved for the driver to stop and jumped off.
“Thank goodness you’re here!” He gabbled. “We counted the class when we
got back to school, and you three were missing.
“Sir, SIR!” Charlie said “When you left us here, locked in, we had a
better look around the museum and found out, because of an old newspaper
display, that there are two unexploded bombs in our school! One is in the floor
of the gym, and the other in the bike shed!”
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