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matter who serves you, once you get your cakes?’
    Was she annoyed with him? Barry hadn’t meant his comment about the cakes to sound blunt, but surely it wasn’t that bad? He thought back to a couple of days ago when he had listened to records with Grace. He had had mixed feelings then about her. She seemed like she was good fun in some ways, but she had been a bit narky too. Though maybe that was because – like himself – she didn’t like grown-ups trying to decide who her friends should be. Or was she just a difficult person? He looked at her now, not sure what to think.
    Suddenly she smiled. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said, ‘you’ll get your cakes.’
    Barry found himself smiling back, relieved that his awkward-sounding comment hadn’t caused a problem after all.
    ‘I can recommend the gur cake,’ she said. ‘It’s gorgeous.’
    Barry looked at the thick slabs of gur cake with their juicy dark brown filling, and he was tempted, but he shook his head. ‘My grandma sent me to get an apple tart. I better not buy anything else.’
    ‘Fair enough,’ said Grace, taking his money and giving him back a wrapped apple tart and his change. ‘Do you like jam slices?’ she asked.
    ‘Yeah, but like I said…’
    ‘Your grandma told you to buy a tart – I know.’
    Grace took up a sharp-looking carving knife, and Barry wondered what she was up to.
    ‘I get to sample all the cakes,’ she continued. ‘So, fancy sampling half a jam slice?’
    ‘Well…’
    ‘Of course you do!’ laughed Grace, then she swiftly cut a jam slice in two and handed him one portion.
    ‘Thanks.’
    ‘You’re grand. Sure all you’re doing is helping me learn our range of cakes, right?’ She winked, then popped half her piece into her mouth.
    ‘Right,’ said Barry, with a grin. Then he happily followed Grace’s example, bit into the jam slice, and thought that maybe they could be friends after all.

CHAPTER FOUR
    G race tossed and turned in feverish sleep, reliving the events of last week in a vivid dream. Once more she heard the bomber flying over the North Strand and her heart pounded. She pressed her face anxiously up to the window pane and scanned the night sky. She couldn’t see anything, but the droning of the plane became louder, and she felt her pulses racing.
    Grace wanted the comfort of her mother, but she was too proud to call out. Ma had gone into the kitchen, and Grace thought that she was too old now to be calling for her mammy. It would have been good to still share the bedroom with her older sisters, but there was just herself and Ma living in the cottage now, what with Da dead and her older brothers and sisters all left home.
    Suddenly there was a deafening explosion. The next thing Grace knew she was coming to in the gutter outside her house, not knowing for a few seconds where she was. She tried moving her arms and legs. They felt sore, but apart from some grazes and scratches she seemed uninjured.
    She looked around in horror and saw that many of her neighbours’ houses had been wrecked. There were clouds of dust in the air and she saw bloodied bodies lying further down the roadway. A dead dog lay in the middle of the street and the tattered remains of someone’s wedding dress had been blown into the far gutter.She could hear young children screaming in terror and injured adults moaning and crying out in pain. The realisation of injured people suddenly clarified her muddled thoughts and her stomach tightened in fear.
Ma! Where was Ma?
    Grace rose and ran towards the house. The doorway was completely collapsed, so she climbed over the rubble of the threshold and was able to pick her way across what used to be their livingroom. There was dust everywhere, making it hard to see, but part of the wall of the kitchen was still standing, and she made her way as quickly as she could towards it.
    She went through what was left of the doorway, then stopped in her tracks. A body lay on the floor. Grace recognised the fawn