Skip to main content

Excerpt

Excerpt

Digging Out

Prologue
Aberfan, Wales
October 21, 1972

"'Come on now, Arthur, 'tis an absolutely miserable day out. Look there, the mist gathering so low in the valley. When I went out to fetch the milk bottles, I couldn't see my own steps back, and it's cold, like, too. Go on then, have a look if you don't believe me. You can't make Alys go to school in this weather. She doesn't feel right, Arthur, she's still feverish."

"She's going Rita. I've made up my mind."

The door bangs shut behind us. The hard drizzle, pin-pricks against my face. And the dark quiet is too cold and damp even for birds. I trail Da, slow, hoping he will change his mind and let me go home. It's not fair.

"Come along then, Alys. Don't dawdle now. You don't want to be late."

"Da…"

"Come now, it's the last day before half term. You'll have a whole week to get better in," he says.

And then I'll play with Hallie everyday I will. No one to stop me.

"Button up, now Alys. Your Mam's right, 'tis bitter. You don't want to catch your death, like."

At Hallie's, Da lets me go knock and we wait on the steps. Mr. Ames, who lives just down the road, appears.

"Trouble today?" he asks.

"Expecting some, hope not, but I'm prepared if there is," Da says.

I want to turn home. Why is Da making me go? My head hurts. My neck hurts. I wish Parry was walking me to school. He'd let me go home. He's a good brother like that.

Mr. Ames looks at his watch.

"It's half-past the hour, man. We're late for the shift."

"Know it. You go, Ames. I'll be along," Da says, giving him a slap on the back.

Hallie comes out then, her yellow hair in pigtails and the red ribbons Beti just gave her when she turned eight a few weeks ago. I am nine months older. I hug her, her lunch pail digs into my side. "What you got there, Hallie?"

"It's a ham roll Mam made. Where's yours, then?"

"I was staying home again, but Da made me come out and I forgot it."

"I'll share mine," Hallie says, taking my hand.

Da reaches into his pocket and gives me a shilling for milk.

Here comes Evan.

"On my way to the mine," he shouts, waving at Da, looking like a ghost walking toward us in the mist. "There's my girl. Pretty as a picture." I look up quickly and smile at Evan, Parry's best friend. It doesn't seem like he is mad at Da, like Parry is. They shake hands.

I ask to see Hallie's ham roll, whispering in her ear, "Parry said yesterday Auntie Beryl was holding a sign telling people to take their children home."

"I saw it. What's it mean?"

I shrug.

"My Da calls your Auntie Beryl, a 'do-gooder.'" Hallie laughs. "Says she's always getting into the middle of things, stirring things up, like."

"Well, she's not. She's just, well, she's Auntie Beryl, that's all. Gram says she's trying to make the world a safer place for us," I argue.

No matter what Hallie's Da or anyone else says about her, I love Auntie Beryl, wild skirts, red hair and all.

But just now there is no one wild around or anyone we don't know. No signs. Just Mams and Das dropping off. Billy and Bonnie Sykes, Peter Davies, Sarah Keane, Lola Finnian making their way through the school doors.

"It seems quiet enough," Da says, pushing his cap back on his head, sounding pleased. I look up at him, a last try. He can tell I don't want to go in. "Remember now, 'tis the last day, today is, before break. And 'tisn't even a full day. You can do it. Off you go, now, Alys. Be a good girl, then."

His soft lips and rough cheek against mine as he kisses it, make me feel better.

"You and Hallie walk straight home from school, hear."

In the playground everyone is talking about the fog. Mrs. Morgan rings the hand bell, saying she thinks with all this fog it is as beautiful as it gets in the valley. We queue up in class order and the girls go through the side entrance straight to Assembly, me marching behind Hallie. It's Friday; we have Assembly Hall on Friday. We sing "All Things Bright and Beautiful," and then we go back to our classes.

Mrs. Morgan gives paints out to each of us. Bobby and Dai go out for the rain gauge. That's my favorite job. I did it Monday before I took ill when there had been three inches of rain. This morning, the gauge registers one and a half.

A call comes for 'dinner children' from the corridor and I stand to give my shilling to the dinner lady for milk, asking Hallie for hers.

"I'll do my own," she says.

"No, I'll do it for you, I will. You're sharing your ham roll."

"But, I want to do my own," Hallie says. "I want to queue up. I'll do yours. You're the one's ill, like."

I try to grab Hallie's shilling from her. I want to fetch her milk to show how much I love her. I hold onto the edge of the coin pulling hard as Mrs. Morgan calls out our names, marking the register.

"Come along now, one of you's enough," the dinner lady says, putting her arm around my shoulder. "No need for your squabbling, then."

In the hallway, everyone is talking. When Hallie looks away I pull her shilling so hard it falls to the ground.

"Look what you've done, now, Alys!"

Hallie is down on her knees searching when a terrible roar starts, screaming low over us, the roar swooping low to swallow me. Windows crash in, rush of black water, mud, a tidal wave. It comes and comes higher, higher, till I lose sight of Hallie.

I hear screaming, then all around is black and still.

Digging Out
by by Katherine Leiner

  • Genres: Fiction
  • paperback: 304 pages
  • Publisher: NAL Trade
  • ISBN-10: 045121160X
  • ISBN-13: 9780451211606