Best Friend Forsaken


 
 
 Table of Contents
 
 A NineStar Press Publication
 Best Friend Forsaken
 Dedication
 Chapter One
 Chapter Two
 Chapter Three
 Chapter Four
 Chapter Five
 Chapter Six
 Chapter Seven
 Chapter Eight
 Chapter Nine
 Chapter Ten
 Chapter Eleven
 Chapter Twelve
 Chapter Thirteen
 Chapter Fourteen
 Chapter Fifteen
 Chapter Sixteen
 Chapter Seventeen
 Chapter Eighteen
 Chapter Nineteen
 Chapter Twenty
 Chapter Twenty-One
 Chapter Twenty-Two
 Chapter Twenty-Three
 Chapter Twenty-Four
 Chapter Twenty-Five
 Chapter Twenty-Six
 Chapter Twenty-Seven
 Chapter Twenty-Eight
 Chapter Twenty-Nine
 Chapter Thirty
 Chapter Thirty-One
 Chapter Thirty-Two
 Chapter Thirty-Three
 Chapter Thirty-Four
 Chapter Thirty-Five
 Chapter Thirty-Six
 Chapter Thirty-Seven
 Chapter Thirty-Eight
 Chapter Thirty-Nine
 Chapter Forty
 Chapter Forty-One
 Epilogue
 Acknowledgements
 About Dorothy Piper
 Connect with NineStar Press
 
 
 
 A NineStar Press Publication
 www.ninestarpress.com
 Best Friend Forsaken
 ISBN: 978-1-64890-602-2
 © 2023 Dorothy Piper
 Cover Art © 2022 Jaycee DeLorenzo
 Published in January 2023 by NineStar Press, New Mexico, USA.
 
 This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact NineStar Press at [email protected].
 
 Also available in Print, ISBN: 978-1-64890-603-9
 
 CONTENT WARNING:
 This book contains sexually explicit content, which may only be suitable for mature readers. Depictions of Homophobia, on-page domestic violence
 Best Friend Forsaken
 
 Dorothy Piper
 To my writing friends who have always supported me.
 Chapter One
 A STURDY URCHIN dug a trowel into a water-logged patch of soil, while a slimmer boy of about his age, wearing a smart navy-blue raincoat, peeped at him through the hedge separating their houses. It was a bright, sunny day in June 1944, near Leeds in the West Riding of Yorkshire.
 “Hello,” the boy in the raincoat called through the privet leaves. “What are you doing?”
 “What’s it look like?”
 “Playing mud pies?”
 “’Course not! I’m plantin’ stuff.”
 “Can I help?”
 The boy with the trowel shrugged. “If yer wants ter.”
 His neighbour squeezed through a gap in the hedge. “I’m Bill. What’s your name?”
 “Ted.”
 Bill bent to catch the short fat stick Ted threw at him. “What’s this for?”
 “Ter make holes wiv. About ten of ’em like I’m doin’.”
 Bill knelt and wiggled the stick into the ground until he had made a neat line of holes on his side of the patch. Dandelions and clumps of rye grass flourished between the boys, but mostly the patch was bare and muddy where copious amounts of water had been poured on it.
 “What do I put in these holes?” he asked.
 “Bits o’ tater.” Ted bowled a sprouting potato over to him. “Yer have ter cut it into chunks. Got a knife? I ain’t sharing mine. Dad give it me afore he went ter France.”
 “I’ll ask my father. Won’t be long.” Bill brushed soil off his raincoat before he shouldered through the hedge again.
 Ted heard a door bang. The house next door had been empty when he came to live with the woman he’d been told to call Mary Mum. He sat back on his heels, his eyes on the gap in the hedge. There weren’t any hedges in his old street in Woolwich. Just rows and rows of houses, all black from the smoke. Him and his friends had been sent away because of the air raids. The man on the wireless said they had another one last night.
 What did happen las’ night? Is Mum all right? What did Mary Mum whisper to Stan Dad, afore she said ter play out here? Must’ve been bad, else why did she whisper?
 Bill squeezed back through the hedge and knelt down. He spread out a square of newspaper filled with chunks of potato. “Dip, dip, dip, my little ship,” he recited, choosing which bit to plant.
 “We ain’t got all day,” Ted said. “Gis some here.”
 He held out his hands, caught some of the pieces Bill threw over, and groped in the mud for the rest. He added them to his pile, except for one chunk that he dunked in an old saucepan full of water lying nearby. He stuffed that bit into his mouth.
 “Ughh!”
 “S’good,” spluttered Ted. “Ain’t yer never had raw tater?”
 “No, I haven’t. Why do you eat it?”
 “’Cos I’m hungry. What d’yer fink?”
 “Didn’t you have any breakfast?”
 “I had a bit o’ toas’. Me mum use’ ter boil me an egg till I got sent here.”
 “Where do you come from?”
 “Woollidge. Lunnun.”
 “London? Oh, my father said…” Bill bit his lip and stopped talking.
 “What? What did he say? That it was bombed las’ night?”
 “Yes. Hundreds of rockets came over the Channel. They did a lot of damage.”
 Ted rubbed a finger under his nose, leaving a muddy streak. “I wonder if me mum…”
 “She’ll be all right. She was probably in a shelter.”
 “She never liked them places. We use’ ter hide under our table.”
 “Oh!” Bill put pieces of potato into the holes. When he had planted five of them, he looked warily at his new friend who was sitting on his heels, staring into nowhere.
 Suddenly Ted asked, “How come you’re here?”
 “We’ve left London until the war’s over.”
 “Who’s we?”
 “My father and me.”
 “What’s so special ’bout your dad? How come he’s here when ev’ryone else’s has bin sent ter fight in France?”
 “He’s what they call exempt. He’s got a special job.”
 “Is he a conshee? I hates conshees. They’re lily whi’ cowards. Not real men, like my dad.”
 Bill clenched the stick. “My father’s a real man too. But he refuses to kill anyone.”
 “My dad ain’t killed no one neither. Not yet. Where’s yer mum?”
 “I don’t know. I think she’s dead.”
 “So’s my mum prob’ly, if that bombing…”
 “They’d have