And so had her chances of getting the map. She would have to admit defeat, go to Charing Cross Road, and hope she could find a map in a travel guide.

She began walking toward Mile End Road, hoping the journey back wouldn’t be as—

“Eileen!” Alf called, running up to her, Binnie at his heels. “You was s’posed to wait,” he said accusingly, and handed Eileen the map.

“You needn’t bring it back,” Binnie said. “You can keep it. He don’t do planespotting no more. Now he collects shrapnel.”

“And UXBs,” Alf said.

Of course, Eileen thought.

“So you needn’t come back,” Binnie finished.

Eileen needn’t have worried about them following her back to Mrs. Rickett’s. On the contrary, they couldn’t wait to be rid of her. Why? What were they up to now? Alf had turned pale when she’d mentioned calling a constable. Had he “collected” a UXB and taken it home? But surely not even Mrs. Hodbin would have let them keep—

“ ’Ad’nt you better be goin’?” Binnie said. “It’s gettin’ late.”

She was right, and whatever mischief they were up to, it was no longer her responsibility. “Yes,” Eileen said. “Thank you for the map, Alf. Goodbye, Binnie.”

“Dolores.”

I’ll almost miss you, Eileen thought. Almost.

“Goodbye, Dolores,” she said and pulled the film magazine from her bag and held it out to Binnie. “Here.”

Binnie clutched it to her chest and ran off, as if she expected Eileen to change her mind and snatch it away from her.

Alf still stood there.

“It’s all right,” Eileen said. “I know you need your map for your planespotting. I’ll bring it back to you.”

“You don’t hafta if you don’t want to. It’s like Binnie said, I don’t need it.”

They definitely did not want her coming around. “I could send it back to you by post,” she suggested.

“That’d be ’eaps better,” he said, looking relieved, but he continued to stand there. “You ain’t gonna tell the constable, are you?”

“Not if you promise me you’ll keep out of the rubble,” she said, with no hope of his actually obeying her. “And that you won’t collect any more UXBs.”

“I only collect little ones.”

“No bombs,” she said firmly.

“I can still collect shrapnel, can’t I?”

“Yes,” she said, “but no watching raids. I want you to promise me you and Binnie will go to a shelter as soon as the sirens go.”

Amazingly, he nodded. “Do you want I should show you where to catch the bus?”

“No, that’s all right. I know the way home.” It’s somewhere on this map, and had to fight the impulse to open the map and look for the name of the airfield then and there, but it was growing late. It would have to wait till she got on the bus.

But the bus was filled to capacity, and ten minutes after Eileen got on, it drove over a piece of shrapnel that Alf hadn’t collected and burst a tire, and she had to walk several streets over to catch another one, which was even more crammed. She had to stand, hanging on to a strap, the entire way, and there were so many barricades and diversions that by the time the bus reached Bank Station, it was so late she was afraid if she went to Townsend Brothers, she’d miss Polly.