I feel odd. There’s no other word for it. My life is changing again. My brother Oscar and I had only just settled into life as evacuees and now we’re going home to a place I can hardly remember. I have heard about the war on Mrs Brisbane’s radio. I know that many of the houses have been bombed and some whole streets have been destroyed. Will I even recognise my home?

Thoughts are spinning round in my mind and I can hardly hear the train whistling. Oscar snuggles up to me and I know he is scared too, but probably in a different way. After all, he is only four.

“Don’t worry,” I whisper, pulling him in close. “Everything’s going to be all right.” I don’t know this for sure but it makes Oscar feel better.

I don’t want to show him how worried I am. The train is in a tunnel and I can’t help shivering. I’m not shivering because it’s dark; I’m shivering because I feel anxious.

Once the train leaves the tunnel, I gaze out of the window as the countryside whizzes past. It looks like a blur of green and blue. Flowers of all kinds are growing in the beautiful meadows, but my thoughts turn to my Mummy back at home. My bag is bulging with all the letters she has written to me and Oscar, but I am worried. What if my Mummy has forgotten what I look like?

I try to shake the thought from my mind but I can’t. I try to picture my Mummy in my mind, but my memories have faded, and all I can see is Mrs Brisbane. I miss Mrs Brisbane. After all, she has been a mother to me for the last two years. In fact, I think Oscar actually thinks she is his real Mummy.

As the train gets closer to London, the view from the window becomes dull and colourless, almost like a lost world. It reminds me of a toy city, which is old and cracked and nobody plays with any more. It looks dirty and poisonous, compared to the fresh countryside we have been used to.

As the train puffs into the station and then skids to a halt, my heart is thumping wildly as though a lever is pulling it in and out. As Oscar and I step off the train, my eyes dart from one end of the platform to the other. When I spot my Mummy’s face in the crowd, I grab Oscar’s hand and run faster than I have ever run in my life. When I reach my Mummy, I fall into her arms, and I feel like I could stay there for ever and ever. I don’t feel odd any more.