Read Rosie Goes to War for Free Online

granddaughter, and your creepy house has kidnapped me? I can see the distrust in Nelly’s face. If I said something like that, she’d kick me out for sure. Or get me locked up. Then I’ll never get back.
    It’s got to be safer to stay here with them. Surely I’ll have more chance of getting back to my old Gran if I’m not running around London like an idiot. It was dangerous enough in normal circumstances, but now I’m apparently in the middle of a war zone. Can you believe it? How did that happen? Calm. I have to keep calm.
    From the expressions on their faces, the girls think I’m a complete nut. ‘I … er … need the toilet. I won’t be a minute.’ I walk out of the kitchen.
    â€˜God help us, you really are posh, ain’t you?’ Nelly shouts after me. ‘It won’t do you no good looking for the lav in here, Queenie. It’s out the back.’
    I turn round and walk back into kitchen. Nelly sniggers at my expression. Yeah, she actually sniggers. You know – like giggling but with a condescending smirk?
    â€˜Come on,’ says May. ‘I’ll show you. Don’t want you getting lost in the dark.’ She opens the outside door and holds it for me, bobbing into a curtsey as I walk out into the back garden. This is just so embarrassing.
    Gran’s flowers and patio furniture are gone. So has all that fancy decking Dad put down for her last year. Instead of the lush green summer garden I’d seen out the kitchen window last time I looked, the moon lights a path across a patch of dirt, bare except for some stalks of Brussels sprouts and some cabbages and overshadowed by the hulk of an Anderson shelter. Beyond them, against the back wall of the garden, is the outside lavatory. I shiver in the cold, tempted to turn around and go back into the warm kitchen, but May is right behind me.
    â€˜Hurry up, it’s freezing out here,’ she says. ‘If you leave the door open a bit you’ll be able to see what you’re doing so long as the moon’s out. We’ve run out of proper paper so Nelly’s cut up some old magazines to use. They’re hanging from a bit of string on the left-hand side. Will you be all right if I leave you to it?’
    I nod, just wanting to be left alone for a minute.
    â€˜Right. I’ll nip back in then. If the sirens start, don’t bother coming back into the house, just go straight in the shelter and we’ll see you there.’
    Just as I reach the toilet door, May calls out. ‘Watch out for spiders in there, Queenie. Oh, and next door’s cat likes to sleep on the seat, so make sure you look before you sit down. My friend Elsie got a terrible shock the other night, sitting on Tiddles.’ I can hear May’s laughter as she goes back inside the house.
    I open the door and look inside. Sure enough, a large tabby cat is curled up on the closed toilet seat. I’m tempted to give up and leave it alone, but now I’m out in the cold, I realise I really do need to use the loo.
    â€˜OK, Tiddles, time to go home,’ I say loudly. The cat shoots outside, yeowling, and disappears over the fence into next door’s garden. I can’t help laughing. It looked just like a cartoon cat, streaking away like that. If I had my mobile phone with me I could’ve filmed it and it might’ve gone viral on YouTube. But I haven’t got my phone, worse luck. I wonder if it would work here anyway? The Doctor’s friends always seem to manage to get through to him on Dr Who , no matter what time or planet he’s on. I will not panic. Deep breath.
    I won’t stay out here too long: it’s seriously freezing and creepy too. But a few minutes alone give me the chance to think more clearly. This is so totally weird, but I’m not completely lost, am I? I mean at least I’m at Gran’s house, even if it is the wrong time. It is a bit like an episode of Doctor