ORIGINAL FICTION: "Climbers" (Chapter Fourteen)

Down the sidewalk past the smoldering hole, he couldn't help but look down in. Looked to be about twenty feet deep in the center. Maybe forty feet wide- almost the entire width of this street. So, he thought: What if it hit our building? Arthur decided it wouldn't reach their lower level, but it would certainly make a mess of their escape. Fifteen minutes later, Arthur Crutchfield was sitting in the Charring Cross Hospital cafeteria having breakfast. Everyone there was talking about the closeness of that last buzz bomb, but Arthur failed to mention how close it had been to him. He was hungry, and the food was good. Time to eat.
Sitting there in the hospital cafeteria hall, windows blacked out and voices muffled, Arthur had time to think. It was midnight. The night shift was filtering in, ready for their mid-day (or mid-night) meal. Everyone there knew little Arty, and still didn't know about The Stoat. In all those years, no one had missed any supplies or wondered what he was up to. He was their messenger, wasn't he? Fine by him. Just let me eat in peace. Too much to think about tonight to bother with conversation.
Arthur knew if he kept his head down while he ate, no one would bother him. As the war dragged on and the bombings took their horrible toll of civilians in town, there were fewer and fewer talkative people. Seemed like everybody lost somebody. Arthur was very lucky. His parents were still with him. Or were thirty minutes ago. Who knows now? He had no close friends and no one else to worry about, but plenty to think about. Like moving. Why would they be moving when they had a bombproof room? Arthur decided that he didn't like the sound of it, even if there wasn't much he could do about it. He'd just have to wait and see. Maybe the war would be over by New Year's.
What an odd thought. The war? Over? It was all he had known for the last five years. Seemed like it was all he knew for his entire life. No, that couldn't be true. Just five years. That's all. He had a life before the war, but he couldn't remember much about it. They had lived in a nice flat above ground. He did remember that. But where? Somewhere further away. He had his own room then. He remembered having to cross bridges a lot. Must have been south of the Thames. He'd have to go back and find it some day. If it was still there. Then he thought about something else he'd like to go back and find. He forgot all about homes and wars. What about those kids in the trees? What was that all about? Arthur tried to reconstruct the events in the park, and what really happened.
He had been asleep. That much he knew for sure. Definitely asleep. Then what? He woke up. Easy enough. But when? And how much of what he thought he saw was really a dream? He remembered hearing the music. How odd. Music in the middle of a war. That didn't help separate the dream from reality. He had heard the music in his dream as well. Alright, what about the children in the trees? Real or dream? Arthur remembered standing up, and seeing at least one person above him in the tree limbs after he stood up. Didn't he? That was real. Wasn't it? So maybe it's a compromise. There was only one person up there, not two. Fair enough. One small child, alone, in a big tree in the middle of the park late at night in the midst of a war. Wait a minute. That left more questions: Who? Why were they there, and not safe at home or in one of the children’s homes out in the country? How did they get there? Who was that up there?
Arthur didn't like what he knew he had to do next. He had to go back and find that child. Maybe they were dazed. Shell shocked. Close hits do that. Scrambles you up a bit so you forget things. Like where you are and who you are and what you were supposed to be doing before the bomb went off. Where you live. He had seen the cases at both Blackfriars and Charring Cross. People that looked perfectly healthy,