'When the Bomb Fell' by Marina Jeavons

I was crossing the old wooden stepping bridge on my way to school with my best friend Brenda - when the bomb fell!
As we skipped, jumped and hopped the steps as was our wont, Brenda suddenly stopped and turned to me, “Course ya know he aint yer real Dad is he.”
“Wot ya mean? He aint me real Dad. ‘Course he is!”
“No, he aint. Me Mom told me. That’s why them cousins o’ yourn keep hitting ya, they doh like yer.”
My heart bumped about in my chest as I pondered her words and I went very quiet for a moment. Then retorted, “Oh doh be daft, yer doh know wot yer talking abaht!”
We carried on to school, but for the rest of the day my thoughts kept going back to the conversation on the bridge and episodes at home that had often puzzled me. I hurried home that afternoon on my own, I didn’t wait for Brenda, nor did I hop and skip along the bridge, I went straight to the little back kitchen where Mom was, as ever, slaving away at the kitchen sink, where all our washing, and cooking preparation was done. “Mom” I said, “Brenda said Dad isn’t my real Dad, he is isn’t he?”
Mom turned and looked at me. She didn’t have to say anything. The look on her face said it all.
I turned and ran and ran and ran, tears running down my face. I reached the park and clambered into the basin of the old iron fountain that had not seen water for years. I lay there cocooned and hidden as I cried. Lots of things started to make sense. The times I felt left out. Dad’s relatives not bringing me presents back from holidays or at Christmas, yet my brothers and sisters getting them. When I had been punished for misdoings with the belt and Mom saying “Stop that, you have no right”. My elder sister Kath not living with us, but staying at Gran’s and many more such episodes.
I lay there till night fell.