Chapter VII – The Phantom Airman

The four friends met again in the afternoon. They had a lot to talk about.

‘That diary sounds interesting,’ Frankie said. ‘I’d like to see it.’

‘We could phone Mr Bowles,’ Jack said.

Regan had been very quiet. She suddenly stood up and began to speak.

‘I’ve got to go to the airfield,’ she said. ‘I’ve got to find our what Glen wants.’

‘When will you go?’ Jack asked.

‘Not at night,’ she replied.’I’m too scared to go at night. I’m going now.’

‘Then we’ll all go with you,’ Frankie said.

‘Well, thanks,’ Regan said.’But please remember this. Glen’s face is frightening. You haven’t seen it, I have.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Jack said. ‘We’ll all do this together.’

‘Come on,’ Frankie said. ‘We’ll all go on our bikes.’

But when they got to the airfield, everything there had changed. They got off their bikes by the old airfield gates.

‘What’s happening?’ Tom asked.

There was a big sign on the gates.

FACELIFT CONSTRUCTION is building Lychford Green Industrial Estate here. We’re building a new future for Lychford. PRIVATE – KEEP OUT

Some of the fence had gone. There were trucks and a big bulldozer standing by the ruins of the control tower. There were some mechanical diggers and a big roll of new fence wire. But there were no workmen anywhere.

‘What about our archeology project?’ Frankie said. ‘We won’t be able to get onto the airfield when these people start work.’

‘And what about Glen?’ Regan asked. ‘I’ve got to speak to him again. I’m going to do it now.’

Regan started to walk across the airfield.

‘Come on!’ she called to the others. ‘This is our last chance!’

Frankie, Jack and Tom followed her.

‘That little hill on the right is where the Ops Room was,’ Tom said. ‘We found out about it at the museum. The RAF built the Ops Room and some offices under the ground. Then they covered the roof with earth. They tried to make it safe. But the bomb hit it on the 28th of August, 1940, and several people were killed. We can’t get in now. The entrance was covered with earth years ago.’

Regan went on walking for a moment. Then she stopped and shouted into the air.

‘Glen! I’m here. I want to help you.’

There was silence. The four friends waited. Suddenly, a shape appeared in front of them.

‘Look!’ Regan whispered. ‘It’s Glen.’

Regan began to run towards the ghost.

Glen was wearing his leather jacket and helmet. But this time, this leather helmet covered is face.

‘He done that to help me’ Regan said to herself. ‘He doesn’t want to frighten me.’

The phantom airman pointed across the airfield.

‘Yes, that’s where it happened,’ Regan said. ‘What do you want me to do?’

The ghost began to fade away.

‘Glen! Don’t disappear!’ Regan shouted. ‘Please don’t go, Glen! What do you want? You must tell me!’

But the phantom airman had gone.

‘He wants you to look over there,’ Jack said. ‘He was pointing to the ruins of the old house.’

Regan walked on towards the ruins, looking down at the grass. She left a hand on her shoulder and she turned quickly. But there was no one there.

‘Glen?’ she said quietly.

Regan pushed at the earth with her foot. She could see a piece of metal in the ground. She bent down and pulled a piece of twisted metal from the earth. The metal was very, very cold.

‘Did you want me to find this, Glen?’ she asked.

‘Hey! You over there!’ a man’s voice shouted. Regan turned quickly. A fat man was walking towards her. He wasn’t a ghost! Jack, Frankie and Tom walked over to Regan. The four friends stood close together.

‘What are you doing here?’ the fat man shouted. ‘This land is private!’

The man was about forty. he had a round, red face and he looked very angry.

‘Can’t you children read the sign?’ the fat man shouted. ‘What do they teach you at the school these days?’

‘They teach us to find out about things. They teach us to think,’ Regan said, with a smile. ‘We are working on an important archeology project about the Second World War. We haven’t finished studying this airfield yet.’

‘Oh, yes, you have,’ the man said angrily. ‘This land belongs to Facelift Construction now.’

The man took a mobile phone out of his pocket.

‘Are you going to leave, or shall i call the police?’ he asked.

Regan opened her mouth, but Jack spoke quickly.

‘Please don’t do that,’ he said. ’We’re leaving now.’

The four friends walked slowly back to their bikes. The man stood and watched them.

CAN CALL ME

If one day, you feel like crying

Call me, i don’t promise you

that i will make you laugh

But i can cry with you.

 

If one day, you wanna run away

Don’t be afraid to call me

I don’t promise to ask you stop

But i can run with you

 

If one day you don’t want to listen to any body

Call me and i promise to be very quiet

 

But

If one day you call me

And there is no answer

Come fast to see me

Perhaps i need you.

Stone Age

The Stone Age was a period of history which began in approximately 2 million B.C and lasted until 3000 B.C. Its name was derived from the stone tools and weapons that modern scientists found. This period was divided into the Paleolithic, Mesolithic, and Neolithic Ages. During the first period, (2 million to 8000 B.C.) the fist hatchet and use of fire for heating and cooking were developed. As a result of the Ice Age, which evolved about 1 million years into the Paleolithic Age, people were forced to seek shelter in caves, wear clothing, and develop new tools.

During the Mesolithic Age (8000 to 6000 B.C.) people made crude pottery and the first fish hooks, took dogs hunting, and developed a bow and arow, which was used until the fourteenth century A.D.

The Neolithic Age (6000 to 3000 B.C.) saw humankind domesticating sheep, goats, pigs, and cattle, being less nomadic than in previous eras, establishing permanents, and creating governments.

Thời đại đồ đá là một giai đoạn lịch sử bắt đầu vào khoảng 2.000.000 năm trước Thiên Chúa và kéo dài đến năm 3000 trước Thiên Chúa. Tên của thời đại là do từ những dụng cụ và vũ khí bằng đá mà các nhà khoa học hiện nay tìm thấy được. Giai đoạn này được chia ra làm thời kỳ đồ đá cũ, thời kỳ đồ đá giữa và thời kỳ đồ đá mới. Trong giai đoạn đầu tiên (2 triệu năm đến 8.000 năm trước Thiên Chúa) chiếc rìu tay và việc dùng lửa để sưởi nóng và nấu ăn đã phát triển. Do hậu quả của thời đại băng hà phát triển khoảng 1 triệu năm tiến vào thời kỳ đồ đá cũ, con người bị bó buộc phải tìm chỗ cư trú trong hang động, mặc quần áo và làm ra các đồ dùng mới.

Vào tời kỳ đồi đá giữa (từ 8000 đến 6000 trước Thiên Chúa) con người đã làm được những đồ gốm và những lưỡi câu cá đầu tiên, đã biết dẫn chó đi săn và làm ra được cung, tên, loại vũ khí nầy đã được dùng cho đến thế kỷ 14 sau Thiên Chúa.

Thời kỳ đồ đá mới (6000 đến 3000 năm trước Thiên Chúa) đã chứng kiến nhân loại thuần hóa được cừu, dê, heo và trâu bò, và ít có tính chất du mục hơn những thời kỳ trước, đã thiết lập được những nơi định cư ổn định và tạo lập ra bộ máy chính quyền

Chapter VI – The Museum

Jack and Tom were standing the little museum at the Lychford Country Club. Outside, the members of the club were playing tennis and swimming in the pool.

And old gentleman with a big white moustache was smiling at the boys.

‘My name is George Ballard,’ he said ‘I worked at the airfield during the war. It was a Flight Sergeant in the Royal Air Force. Please look around the museum. Asked me the questions if you want to.’

‘Thanks,’ Tom said. ‘Look at these picture, Jack!’ He pointed to some photos which were hanging on a wall. ‘This is a Spitfire fighter plane. And this one is a Lancaster bomber.’

‘You’re quite right,'’ George Ballard said. ‘Now look at this ….. ‘

--------------------------

The old man was happy to talk to the boys. He wanted to show them everything in the museum. Jack wrote notes and Tom asked a lot of questions.

At the far end of he room, George Ballard stopped in front of a big photo of the airfield. The photo had been taken from the air.

‘This picture was given to us by some friends in Germany,’ George Ballard said. ‘It was taken by a German airman in a Dornier bomber, just after the Luftwaffe attacked the airfield on the 28th of August, 1940. Look, you can see the three runways very clearly.’

‘What are all those white marks?’ Tom asked.

‘Those are bomb craters – the big holes made by the German bombs,’ George Ballard replied, ‘The Operations Room – we called it the Ops Room – was hit by a bug bomb too. A lot of people died on the 28th of August. The Station Commander died too. His name was Squadron Leder Alfred Leighbridge-Smith. This is a photograph of him. ‘George Ballard pointed to a smaller picture. It showed a middle-aged man wearing RAF uniform.

‘So the Squadron Leader was in charge of the airfield when the Spitfire crashed onto the house by the fence,’ Tom said.

‘How do you know about that?’ he asked.

‘We found out about it for our school project,’ Jack said quickly.

‘It was sad,’ George Ballard said. ‘The pilot made a mistake. he was a young man and he’d only flown a Spitfire a few times. And the weather was terrible too. He was unlucky.’

Jack moved on. He looked down into a cabinet with a glass top. Inside it, there were more photos, an old watch, a leather flying helmet and then – an empty space! In the space was a small card with the words:

NOTEBOOK BORROWED BY MR TERRY BOWLES

Jack put this hand on the glass. It was very, very cold. Suddenly he knew something. The notebook that had been in the cabinet was very important.

‘What was here, Mr Ballard?’ he asked.

‘Squadron Leader Leighbridge- Smith’s diary,’ George Ballard replied. ‘The Squadron Leader’s grandson, Mr Terry Bowles, has borrowed it. He’s a businessman. He’s a very clever man too. The diary was written in a secret of the code. He’s going to write a book about his grandfather. The diary will help him with that. But he hasn’t told anyone what’s in the diary yet.

-----

Regan and Frankie were at the old people’s home, talking to Florrie Skinner. The old lady was blind – she could no longer see anything. But her mind was clear. She remembered many things about the War. She remembered the Luftwaffe’s attack on the airfield on the 28th of August, 1940.

‘I was working in the Ops Room when the bomb hit it,’ Florrie said. ‘I was lucky, but some of my friends were killed. That was a terrible day. I had bad dreams about it for years afterwards.’

‘You must have some very sad memories,’ Regan said.

The old lady smiled. ‘Yes. But they aren’t all sad.’ she replied. ‘I had a lovely boyfriend. He was Canadian and he was very good-looking. I’ll never forget him.’

‘A Canadian,’ Regan said. ‘What was his name?’

‘Was his name – Glen Loosthawk?’ Frankie asked quietly.

Florrie Skinner smiled again. ‘Glen,’ she said. ‘Yes, that’s right, Glen. I’ve got a photo of him. Would you like to see it?’

‘Oh, yes, please,’ the two girls said together.

The old lady walked slowly across the room. She sat down on her bed. Her fingers found an old red box on the small table beside it. She opened the box and took out a big envelope.

‘Here are my photos,’ she said. ‘Come here and sit on the bed. Find the picture of Glen.’

Frankie opened the envelope and looked through the old photos. The first ones showed Florrie as a little girl. Then there was one which showed her as pretty young woman in WAAF uniform. And next, there was a photo of a young airman. He was tall and very good-looking. Frankie turned the picture over. On the back were the words: GLEN – 21ST JULY, 1940.

Regan took the photograph and looked at it. The American girl’s eyes were full of tears.

‘Have you found the picture of Glen?’ Florrie Skinner asked.

‘Yes, we’ve found it,’ Regan said quietly.

‘That was the last picture that i took of him,’ Florrie said. ‘He was killed soon afterwards. And four children died the same day. They were evacuees. They were lovely children. Glen and i had become good friends with them. They died on the same day as Glen, but i saw them in the Ops Room, four days later. That was the day of the German attack.’

‘You saw the evacuees after they were dead?’ Frankie said.

‘Yes, they were wearing strange clothes, but i knew them,’ Florrie replied. ‘They looked like living children, but they were ghosts. Poor little ghosts!’

Chapter V - ‘What Do You Want Me To Do?’

Regan was asleep in her bed. She was dreaming. In her dream, she heard the roaring engines of planes and the thud of exploding bombs. The ground was shaking. She smelt smoke and she saw flames. She heard screams and the sounds of people running.

‘Stop! Stop! Come back! Don’t leave me!’ she shouted. The a dark shape was standing in front of the flames. It was a man. It was the dead pilot – Glen Loosthark! In her dream, Regan looked at his terrible, burnt face and she screamed.

Suddenly, she was awake. But the ground was till shaking. Regan got out of bed. She walked towards the window and pulled back the curtains. There was a red glow in the dark sky. The glow was over Lychford Green airfield.

Regan turned away from the window. She got dressed quickly and went downstairs. Ten minutes later, she was on her bike, cycling to the airfield. The night was fine and clear.

The American girl reached the airfield, and left her bike by the gates. She found a broken place in the fence and walked through it. Almost immediately, heavy rain started to fall. The Regan heard a voice.

‘Help me! For God’s sake, help me! The children! The children!’

The voice was coming to her from across the airfield.

Regan closed her eyes for a half a minute. Then she opened them again. Nothing had changed.

‘I’m not asleep,’ she said to herself.

‘The children!’ the voice shouted again. Regan started to run across the airfield. After a moment, she saw the burning house.

‘I can’t help you! It’s too late!’ she shouted.

Lightning flashed. Thunder roared. The heavy rain fell on her face. But she went on running towards the flames.

Then the pilot was standing in front of her. There was blood on her face. His clothes were burnt and torn.

‘What do you want me to do?’ Regan shouted.

The man took a step towards her.

Regan screamed. Then she turned and ran back towards the gates. But suddenly the pilot was standing in front of her again. Regan tried to turn, but she slipped and fell to the ground. A hand touched her shoulder.

Regan looked up. ‘What do you want me to do?’ she said again. This time she spoke quietly.

The man pointed towards the burning house.

‘I can’t do anything,’ she said. ‘It’s too late, It happened nearly sixty years ago.’

Regan stood up and started walking. Soon she was near the fence. As she walked through the broken place in the fence, the rain stopped. The nights was fine and clear again. But Regan was wet and very cold. She got on her bike and rod slowly home. She was shaking with cold and fear.

‘I must tell the others about this,’ she said to herself. ‘But they must finish the project without me.’

--------------

‘So that’s why I’m not going to the airfield again,’ Regan said. ‘I had to see you and tell you.’

It was the next morning. The four friends were in Jack and Tom’s house. Jack, Tom and Frankie had heard Regan’s story.

‘The pilot was trying to tell you something,’ Tome said. “Why did you run away from him?’

‘I was terrified!’ Regan replied. ‘I was very, very frightened. I’m not going back to the airfield.’

‘OK,’ Tom said with a smile. ‘If you’re afraid, you don’t have to help us.’

‘I want to help you,’ Regan replied angrily. Then she was silent for a few moments. When she spoke again, her voice was quiet. ‘I will go back to the  airfield, if you all come with me,’ she said.

‘OK!’ said Tom.

The the phone rang and Jack answered it. When he put the phone down, he smiled at the others.

‘That was Darryl,’ he said.’ He’s arranged our flight. His friend will take us up in the old plane tomorrow.’

‘Brilliant!’ Tom said.

‘Darryl told me something else,’ his brother went on. ‘There’s a private museum at the Lychford Country Club. It tells the story of Lychford Green airfield during the Second World War. Darryl has arranged for us to go there. We can go now.’

‘You two go there,’ Regan said. ‘Frankie and i will talk to Florrie Skinner. We’ll all meet at my house later?’

Chapter IV - Facts and Memories

‘Hello, Frankie dear. What a nice surprise!’ old Mrs Fitzgerald said. ‘And you’re brought Regan with you. Sit down, both of you. We’ll all have some tea.’

In a few minutes, they were all drinking tea and eating biscuits. Frankie began to speak about the project.

‘We went to the old airfield yesterday, Gran,’ she said. ‘We’re doing a project about the Second World War for our archeology club. We’re trying to find out about the fighter planes that flew from Lychford Green. We’re trying to find out about the pilots too. What do you remember about the War, Gran?’

‘I remember lots of things,’ the old lady replied. ‘The airfield was very busy then. There were lots of planes there. The pilots were all tall and good-looking. They came into my mother’s shop sometimes.’

‘Do you remember a plane crashing near the airfield?’ Frankie asked.

‘Oh, yes,’ the old lady replied. ‘The pilot died and so did some evacuees. My mother told me about it. It was very sad.’

‘What were evacuees?’ Regan asked.

‘During the War, the Germans often bombed our cities,’ Mrs Fitzgerald said. ‘So lots of children from the cities were sent to live in the countryside. They were called evacuees. Their parents wanted them to be safe from the bombs. London was bombed almost every day. Lots of children who were killed came from London. They were sent to Lychford to be safe.’

Regan and Frankie looked at each other. So it was all true! The plane had crashed onto the house by the airfield. Five people had died, nearly sixty years ago. But the four friends had seen it happen yesterday!

‘Why did the crash happen, Gran?’ Frankie asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Mrs Fitzgerald replied. ‘I was only five years old in 1940. But Florrie Skinner will remember. She’s much older than me. But she remembers everything from those days. Florrie was a WAAF during the War.’

‘A What?’ Regan asked, with a laugh.

‘She was in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force,’ the old lady said. ‘The members of that were called WAAFs. WAAF didn’t fly the planes, but they did important work. Florrie worked in the Operations Room on the airfield. That was the place where the movements of all the planes were organized.’

‘Where does she live, Gran? Can we talk to her?’ Frankie asked.

‘She lives in an old people’s home,’ Mrs Fitzgerald replied. ‘She lives there with lots of other old people. She’s not strong now, and the nurses at the home look after her. But she enjoys having visitors. I’ll take you to see her tomorrow morning. We can’t go now. It’s after two o’clock, and Florrie always sleeps in the afternoon.’

Half an hour later, Frankie, Regan, Jack and Tom were in the Vanderlindens’ sitting-room. Regan had given each of her friends a can of cola and a bag of potato crisps.

Regan’s parents were very rich. They owned a big house in Lychford. But most of the time, Mr Vanderlinden worked in other countries. This summer, he was working in Rome and his wife was there with him. Regan was living in the big house in Lychford with an eighteen-year-old blonde girl from California.

The girl was the Vanderlindens’ au pair. She was called Jennie St Clair. Her job was to look after Regan. But Jennie wasn’t clever and she didn’t work hard. She made a lot of expensive phone calls to her boyfriend in the USA, but she didn’t care about Regan. So Regan looked after herself, and she had a great time! But Regan didn’t like Jennie. When she talked to her friends about the au pair, she called her by a rude name – the Blonde Bimbo!

When they had finished their crisps, the girls told the boys about Frankie’s gran and about Florrie Skinner.

‘We’re going to visit Florrie tomorrow,’ Regan said. ‘What did you find out at the newspaper office?’

‘Well, the crash happened on the 24th of August, 1940,’ Jack said. ‘And your gran was right. The Spitfire crashed onto a little house near the airfield. Four young evacuees from London were killed.’

‘The pilot died too,’ Tom told the girls. ‘And he wasn’t an American. He was a Canadian. His name was Glen Loosthawk.’

‘Why was he in England in 1940?’ Regan asked.

‘He was studying at a university here when the war started,’ Jack said. ‘Glen joined the Royal Air Force. He was only twenty years old when his plane crashed.’

‘He was very unlucky,’ Tom went on. ‘He’d been in a battle with some German planes. His radio wasn’t working and suddenly there was a terrible storm. He crashed onto the house. A lot of fuel was stored there. The fuel exploded and everyone was killed.’

‘The crash wasn’t the pilot’s fault,’ Regan said quickly.

‘Well, Glen Loosthawk made a mistake – that’s what the newspaper said,’ Tom replied. ‘It was only Glen’s third flight in a Spitfire.’

‘It wasn’t Glen fault,’ Regan said again. ‘And he tried to save those evacuees. I saw him running towards the house.’

‘The newspaper didn’t say that,’ Tom said.

‘No, it didn’t,’ Regan said. ‘We’re the only people who saw the crash. And we only saw it two days ago!’

‘Those evacuees were the same ages as us,’ Jack said. ‘They were thirteen, twelve and eleven. There were two boys and two girls The boys were brothers, like Tom and me.’

‘That’s terrible!’ Frankie said. ‘They left their parents in London. They came to Lychford to be safe, but they were killed here. Poor kids'!’

‘And poor Glen,’ Regan said. ‘No one else will ever know the truth about him now. He was a good man. Perhaps Florrie Skinner knew him. We’ll ask her tomorrow.’

‘We’ve stil got a lot to do,’ Tom said. ‘Darryl is trying to borrow a metal detector for us. If we search the airfield with that, we’ll find all kinds of things. There must be pieces of planes in the ground. Anything that we find can be part of our project.’

‘Perhaps Darryl well arrange that flight for us too,’ Frankie said.

‘Yes. That will be great,’ Jack replied. ‘Tom and I will pur all our notes onto our computer tomorrow. You two girls can talk to the old lady at the old people’s home.’

Lichen

Lichens are a uinique group of complex, flowerless plants growing on rocks and trees. There are thousands of kinds of lichens, which come in a wide variety of color. They are composed of algae and fungi which unite to satisfy the needs of the lichens.

The autotrophic green algae produce all their own food through a process called photosynthesis and provide the lichen with nutritional elements. On the other hand, the heterotrophic fungus, which depends on other elements to provide its food, not only absorbs and stores water for the plant, but also helps protect it. This union by which tow dissimilar organisms live together is called “symbiosis”.

This sharing enables lichens to resist the most adverse environmental conditions found on earth. They can be found in some very unlikely as well as in wet ones, on mountain paks and along coastal areas.

The lichen’s strong resistance to its hostile enviroment and its ability to live in harmony with such environments is one example that humanity should consider in trying to solve its own problems.

Bài Dịch:

Địa y là một nhóm duy nhất gồm những thực vật không có hoa, phức hợp mọc trên đá và thân cây. Có hàng ngàn loại địa y với nhiều màu sắc đa dạng khác nhau. Chúng được cấu tạo bởi tảo và nấm, hai loại này kết hợp lại để thỏa mãn như cầu của địa y.

Loại tảo xanh tự dưỡng sản xuất ra tất cả thực phẩm của chúng qua một tiến trình được gọi là quang hợp và cung cấp cho địa y những chất bổ dưỡng. Mặt khác laoij nấm dị dưỡng phụ thuộc vào các thành phần khác về mặt thực phẩm, chẳng những hấp thu và tồn trữ nước cần cho loài thực vật mà còn giúp vào việc bảo vệ nó nữa. Sự liên kết này mà nhờ đó 2 cơ thể dị biệt nhau cùng sống chung với nhau, được gọi là “sự cộng sinh”

Sự cộng sinh này làm cho địa y chống chọi lại được những điều kiện sinh thái bất thuận lợi nhất trên quả đất. Chúng có thể được tìm thấy ở những nơi mà người ta nghĩ rất khó xảy ra thí dụ như trên những địa cực phủ đầy băng cũng như ở những vùng nhiệt đới, ở nơi khô cũng như những nơi ước, ở trên các đỉnh núi cũng như ở những khu vực dọc theo bờ biển.

Khả năng chống chọi mạnh mẽ của địa y đối với hoàn cảnh sinh thái bất thuận lợi và khả năng hòa hợp với hoàn cảnh sinh thái như vậy là một ví dụ mà con người phải xem xét trong cố gắng để giải quyết các vấn đề của chính mình.

Chapter III- Darryl’s Idea

Darryl Pepper lived in a big room at the top of an old house. Darryl was the kids’ friend. He was nineteen years old, but some of his hair was already grey. He had a long thin body and long, thin legs. He wore thick glasses.

Darryl had been a student at the kids’ school. He’d been the first member of the archeology club. He was very interested in history and science and he had many books about these subjects. He didn’t work in an office or a factory. But he often delivered things for people in his old van. He earned some money that way.

Darryl’s room was full of old furniture, books, papers and pieces of machinery. His computer stood on a big desk near a window. The rest of the desk was covered with papers.

Regan, Frankie, Jack and Tom met in Darryl’s room on the morning after their visit to the airfield.

‘Well, who can explain what happened yesterday?’ Jack asked.

‘I have an idea,’ Darryl said. ‘Some scientists have a theory which could explain it. It’s the Psychic Stain Theory.’

‘What’s that?’ Tom asked quickly.

‘Well, sometimes a terrible thing happens and it leaves a mark in time,’ Darryl replied. ‘The mark never disappears. It’s like a stain that never fades. Then the terrible thing is repeated for ever and ever. The theory could be correct. Lots of people believe in ghosts. Perhaps ghosts are Psychic Stains too.’

‘So that crash did happen. But it didn’t happen yesterday. Is that what you think, Darryl?’ Jack asked.

‘Yes,’ Darryl replied. ‘It happened in the past and it left a mark in time. Now it’s like a videotape which is playing again and again. And yesterday, you all saw it.’

‘But why hasn’t anyone seen the crash before?’ Frankie asked. ‘I’ve lived in Lychford all my life. I’ve never heard anything about it.’

‘That’s an interesting question,’ Darryl replied.

‘I want to find out more about that crash,’ Regan said. ‘When did it happen? Who was the American pilot?’

‘I’ve been asking some of my friends about this,’ Darryl said ‘There are a few Spitfires still flying. They fly in air shows and exhibitions. But no Spitfire has crashed in this area since 1945. So your Spitfire probably crashed during the Second World War.’

‘Perhaps it was in a battle with a German fighter plane,’ Tom said.

‘That poor pilot,’ Regan said. ‘He tried to save some children who were in that house. Were they all killed?’

Jack remembered his feelings about the house.

‘Yes, they were all killed,’ He replied sadly.

‘I want to know what happened,’ Regan said. ‘Where can we find out about this, Darryl?’

‘Well, that crash was “repeated” yesterday for a good reason,’ Darryl said.’Why? What was the reason?'
’Was the date important?’ Tom asked. ‘Yesterday was the 24th of August. Did the crash happen on the same date, many years ago?’

‘Yes, that’s exactly what i think,’ Darryl replied.

‘Then we can make some guesses,’ Tom said. ‘The first Spitfires flew in 1938. The Second World War began a year later, in 1939. The War ended in 1945. So the crash happened sometime between 1938 and 1945.’ Then Tom looked puzzled. ‘But Spitfires were British planes,’ he went on. ‘Why was an American pilot flying the one that we saw?’

‘My grandmother might remember something about the crash,’ Frankie said. ‘I’ll ask her about it. I’m going to visit her this afternoon.’

‘I’ve got a better idea,’ Tom said quickly. ‘Let’s as someone at the Lychford newspaper – the Lychford Gazette. Jack and i will go to the office of the Gazette. We need facts, not just memories. Does the Gazette office keep copies of the old newspapers, Darryl?’

‘Yes,’ Darryl replied. ‘I have a friend who works there. I’ll phone him. He’ll let you look at the papers.’

‘And i’ll go with Frankie, to see her gran,’ Regan said. ‘I prefer old people to old newspapers!’

‘That’s fine,’ Darryl said.' ‘Then, you’ll have the facts and the memories.’

‘Brilliant!’ all the children said together.

‘Let’s meet tomorrow at my house,’ Regan said. ‘Will four o’clock be OK?’

Chapter II – The Pilot

Regan jumped up and ran. But she didn’t run towards Darryl’s van, she ran towards the other side of the airfield. There was only one thought in her mind – the pilot. There was a pilot in that plane. And the plane was on fire – it was burning. They had to het the pilot out!

        Soon, Regan was near enough to see the plane clearly. The Spitfire ad crashed about two hundred metres outside the airfield. It had crashed onto a small house.

        Regan screamed when she saw this, but she ran on. Then she saw black shape on the grass, about twenty metres in front of her. The shape moved and stood up. It was a man. He was wearing a leather jacket and  a leather helmet. It was the pilot!

        Regan screamed again. The pilot looked at her, then he ran towards the house. He tried to get into the house, but the flames from the burning plane were too hot.

        ‘Help me!’ the man shouted. ‘The children are in there!’

        Regan saw a flash and heard a terrible roar. Flames jumped high into the sky. The pilot was lifted into the air for a moment. Then he crashed onto the ground. The house was on fire now, but the plane had gone.

        Regan ran to the pilot. The airman’s clothes were burnt and torn. Regan saw his face. It was terribly cut and brunt. But his eyes were open. The pilot was still alive.

        ‘We must get Darryl and the van here now!’ Regan shouted to her friends, who were running towards her ‘We must take this man to a hospital.’

        The four friends ran back across the airfield. The storm was almost finished. The sky was getting lighter. Now, they could see their friend Darryl Pepper, sitting in his old van by the airfield gates.

        “What’s wrong?” Darryl asked.

        “Didn’t you hear anything?” Regan asked. “A plane crashed onto a house on the other side of the airfield. The pilot is badly injured. We must take him to hospital.’

        The kids jumped into the van and Darryl shouted. ‘I can’t see a house anywhere. Where is it?’

        Regan opened her mouth but she couldn’t speak. There was no house, no plane, no pilot – there was nothing.

        Darryl stopped the van. Suddenly, the sun was shining. A bird began to sing. The four kids and their friend got out of the van.

        ‘What exactly did you see?’ Darryl asked.

        ‘It began with the storm,’ Jack said.

        ‘What storm?’ said Darryl. ‘There wasn’t a storm.’

        ‘What about the thunder? What about the lightning? What about the rain?’ Jack replied.

        ‘There was a little rain,’ Darryl said. ‘But there was no thunder or lightning.’

        ‘And what about the plane crash?’ Regan said. ‘We all saw it and heard it. Were we all dreaming? Did we all have the same dream?’

        ‘The plan was a Spitfire,’ Tom said. He knew a lot about the old planes.

        ‘And it crashed near here, onto a house just outside the fence,’ Regan went on. ‘The pilot had got out of the plane but he ran back towards the house. He spoke to me. He said something about the children. He spoke with an American accent.’

While Regan and Tom had been talking to Darryl, Jack walked through a broken place in the fence. Suddenly he shouted to the others.

        ‘Come over here!’ he said. ‘Look at this. There was a house here once, a long time ago. You can see the shape of its walls on the ground. It’s a ruin now and it’s covered with grass and weeds. But there’s terrible sadness here. Something terrible did happen here once.’

        Regan turned away. ‘I don’t want to stay here any more,’ she said.

        Silently, they all got into the van. Darryl drove very carefully back into Lychford.

        ‘Did we all have the same dream?’ Jack asked.

        ‘No, it wasn’t a dream,’ Regan said. ‘We didn’t all see the same things.’ In her mind, the American girl could still see the cuts and burns on the airman’s face.

Chapter I – The Storm

Four young people – two girls and two boys – were standing  in the long grass in the middle of Lychford Green airfield. The air fields wasn’t used any more and all its buildings were in ruins. Their roofs had fallen and their walls were broken. Grass and weeds grew in broken places in the concrete runways. The airfield’s gates were shut. They hadn’t been opened for many years. But the wire fence around the airfield was broken places.

The kids had walked through one of the broken places.

It was raining, and the kids were cold and wet.

      ‘This doesn’t look very exciting,” one of the girls said. ‘But it will be a good subject for our project.’

     The girl who had spoken was Frankie Fitzgerald. Frankie – a pretty, fair-haired girl – was thirteen years old. The other girl was eleven-year-old Regan Vanderlinden. Her hair was dark. The two boys, Jack and Tom Christmas, were brothers. Jack was thirteen and Tom was twelve. Both were fair-haired.

        ‘This is a very sad place!’ Jack Christmas said. ‘Something terrible happened here once. Perhaps it happened during the Second World War.’

        Jack often said things like this. He often knew things which he couldn’t explain. Sometimes he knew what happen before it happened. Sometimes he knew what had happened in the past, without being told about it.

        ‘Take your photos quickly, Tom’ Jack said to his brother. ‘Then he can all go home. I don’t like it here.

        Tom Christmas looked around carefully. Then he lifted his camera and began to take pictures.

        Suddenly, the younger girl ran in front of Tom.

        ‘Hi! Take a picture of me!’ she shouted.

        ‘Get out of the way, Regan,’ Tom replied. ‘I want to take photos for our project. I don’t want pictures of a crazy American kid.’

        Regan’s blue eyes were shining. She laughed and pushed her long black hair away from her face.

        ‘There’s plenty of time for the project,’ she said.

        ‘No, there isn’t. We’ve only got two weeks,’ Tom said. ‘ Today is the 24th of August. We have to finish the project by the 6th of September. And we haven’t started it yet.’

        The four friends went to the same school. They were all members of the school’s archeology club. Their history teacher, Mrs Tinker, was in charge of the club. She’d asked all the members of the club to do a project during the summer holiday. They all had to find out about the history of their town of Lychford between the years 1939 and 1945. That was the time of the Second World War.

       Frankie Fitzgerald had told her three friends about the airfield. Lychford Green airfield, which was at the edge of the town, had been a very important place during the War. Frankie knew about it because she had lived in Lychford all her life.

        So Frankie, Jack, Tom and Regan had decided to do a project about the airfield together.

        ‘My grandmother was a young girl during the Second World War,’ Frankie said, as they looked around the wet, ruined airfield. ‘Gran remembers the Battle of Britain, in 1940. Spitfire fighter planes flew from this airfield to fight the Luftwaffe – the German air force. The airfield was a busy place then.’

        ‘It’s just a ruin now,’ Regan said.

        ‘We’ll see the airfield better from above,’ Frankie went on. ‘Darryl is trying to arrange a plane flight for us. He has a friend who flies an old plane.’

        ‘That will be brilliant!’ Tom said. ‘I’ll be able to take more photos from the plane.’

        The rain was falling heavily now and a strong wind was blowing. Suddenly, there was a flash of lightning. The sound of thunder followed it at once. The four friends were in the middle of a terrible storm.

        ‘Run!’ Tom shouted. ‘Run back to Darryl’s van!’

        As the kids ran towards the fence, lightning turned everything white again. Then there was a tremendous noise. They were all thrown to the ground.

        Regan looked up and screamed. A black shape was falling out of the dark clouds. Tom looked up too.

        ‘It’s a Spitfire!’ he shouted. ‘And it’s going to crash!’

        Another flash of lightning shoed the Spitfire more clearly. Flames and smoke were coming from the engine of the falling plane.

        ‘No! No!’ Regan shouted. At that moment, the plane hit the ground.

‘

Chaper 0 - A Note About this story

The four friends in this story go to the same school. They are all members of their school's archeology club. Archeology is the study of how people lived many years ago. Archeologist dig in the ground. They try to find the things which people used and the places where they lived.

The friends are going to write a project for their club. The project is going to to be about their town in the Second World War (1939 to 1945). During this time, Britain and Germany were enemies. The armies, navies and air forces of Britain and Germany fought each other. The British air force was called the Royal Air Force (RAF). The German air force was called the Luftwaffe. Some RAF pilots flew 'Spitfire" fighter planes and some Luftwaffe pilots had 'Messerschmitt 109' fighter planes. There were many battles between fighter planes in the air above northern Europe. The worst was the Battle of Britain in 1940. It lasted from June to October. Many hundreds of people died.

Fighter planes were quite small. But there were larger planes - bombers - which carried big bombs. These bombs were dropped on towns and cities. Some of the German bombers were called "Dorniers". Some of the British were called "Lancasters".

Pilots in the RAF worked together in groups squadrons. The pilots flew their planes from small airfields. Each airfield had a few concrete runways and some large buildings for the planes. Many other people worked in buildings on or under the ground of airfields. People in a tall building called a control tower gave instructions to the pilots and they watched the planes. In the Operations Rooms (Ops Rooms), men from the RAF and the women from the WAAF (Women's Auxialiary Air Force) worked. On large maps, thet marked the places where planes were at all times. They gave this information to the officers in charge of the fighting.