“Well, take it now,” Miss Snelgrove said.

Polly nodded and, when Miss Snelgrove went into the stockroom to take off her coat and hat, told Doreen to send word to her immediately if anyone came in asking for her.

“Like the airman you met last night?”

Who? Polly thought, and then remembered that was the excuse she’d given Doreen for needing to know the names of airfields. “Yes,” she said, “or my cousin who’s coming to London, or anyone.”

“I promise I’ll send the lift boy to fetch you the moment anyone comes. Now, go.”

Polly went, running downstairs first to look up and down Oxford Street and see if Mike and Eileen were coming, and then going up to ask the shop assistants in the lunchroom about airfields. By the end of her break, she had half a dozen names that began with the correct letters and/or had two words in their names.

She ran back down to third. “Did anyone ask for me?” she asked Doreen, even though they obviously hadn’t come.

She ran back down to third. “Did anyone ask for me?” she asked Doreen, even though they obviously hadn’t come.

“Yes,” Doreen said. “Not five minutes after you left.”

“But I told you to send word to me!”

“I couldn’t. Miss Snelgrove was watching me the entire time.”

I knew I shouldn’t have left, Polly thought. This is exactly like Backbury.

“You needn’t worry, she hasn’t gone,” Doreen said. “I told her you were on lunch break, and she said she had other shopping to do and she’d—”

“She? Only one person? Not a man and a girl?”

“Only one, and definitely not a girl. Forty if she was a day, graying hair in a bun, rather scraggy-looking—”

Miss Laburnum. “Did she say what she was shopping for?” Polly asked.

“Yes,” Doreen said. “Beach sandals.”