by Jo Cotterill
‘Wow,’ says Mae’s mum, breaking into my thoughts. ‘You look like you’ve just stepped out of one of those romantic paintings.’
I blush and turn away from the mirror. I know the ones she means: Guinevere, with long flowing hair and medieval robes. Titania, queen of the fairies. Maybe in time my frizzy ginger mop will turn into the beautiful auburn tresses of my mother – just as Anne’s did in the stories.
‘It’s perfect for The Lady of Shalott,’ says Mae.
We drag a couple of chairs into the middle of the floor, which is tricky because we’re both draped in large pieces of fabric, and push them seats together to make a boat.
In the poem, the Lady of Shalott has been imprisoned in a tower under a curse. She can’t look out of the window, only into a mirror, and she spends all her days weaving and dreaming of being rescued. Then one day the dashing Sir Lancelot comes riding by and she can’t resist rushing to the window to see him properly – and the mirror cracks, the Lady runs down the tower stairs to get into a boat and drifts downstream towards Camelot. But by the time she gets there, she’s dead, and Lancelot sees her beautiful dead body and wonders who she was. And that’s the end of the poem.
It’s very romantic. I don’t really understand how she dies, but I suppose if you’re under an evil curse then there’s not much you can do about it.
Once the scene is set, I do the bit of the poem where the Lady is weaving in her tower room and runs to the window to look out at the handsome Sir Lancelot riding by. Then I stagger dramatically, struck by the curse, and clamber into the boat. Mae has to help me with this bit because I get my own foot stuck in my skirt and the knot at my waist comes undone in a not-very-romantic way. But in the end, I’m safely in the cushiony boat, and I lie down on my back with my hands crossed over my chest and stare up at the ceiling.
‘You’re supposed to have flowers,’ says Mae. She looks around. ‘Here.’ She thrusts a piece of white cotton at me. It’s printed with blue poppies.
‘Is that the best we’ve got?’ I say, screwing up my nose. ‘Haven’t you got any real flowers?’
‘Hang on.’ Mae brightens. ‘I’ve got an idea. Back in a minute.’ She disappears out of the big French doors, and I practise lying still in the boat and imagine the gentle river lapping at the wooden sides. My eyelids start to droop.
‘Here you are!’
I jolt awake as Mae hands me a handful of bright yellow dandelions. She must have looked hard to find them because there aren’t many around now that it’s October.
‘Will they do?’
The dandelions are a bit small and shabby, but I don’t want to hurt her feelings.
‘Perfect.’ I lie back.
There is a pause. ‘What now?’ asks Mae.
‘I think you have to say some sad words,’ I say, my eyes closing again. These chairs are very comfy.
Mae takes a breath and begins a speech. ‘Oh, sweet Lady of Shalott. You were always … um … in your tower. Spinning all day.’
‘She did weaving,’ I say sleepily.
‘Weaving all day,’ corrects Mae. ‘Never looking out of the window in case the curse should come upon you. Until that fateful day …’
Her voice is soothing and the air is warm, and I’m soft and comfortable. It’s very peaceful until …
‘WOOOOOO!!’
My eyes jerk open and I sit up, disorientated.
Christopher is standing in the doorway, arms out like a zombie, draped in a white sheet. ‘RAAARGH!’ he adds, lurching towards us.
Mae and I watch, unimpressed.
‘What are you meant to be?’ asks Mae. ‘Because if you’re trying to be a ghost, they don’t say “RAARGH” and zombies don’t go “WOOO”, and neither of them wears a white sheet, so it looks like you’re having an identity crisis.’
Christopher pulls the sheet off his head and scowls at us. ‘Both,’ he says. ‘A ghost zombie.’
‘Technically,’ I say, ‘they’re both dead, so you couldn’t get a ghost zombie, because it’d be like being dead twice over, and that’s not possible.’
Christopher huffs. ‘Yeah? I can do what I like on Halloween. Ghost zombies are cool. Mum’s going to make it into a proper costume for me. And it was way better than what you were doing, anyway, Sleeping Beauty.’
‘I was not being Sleeping Beauty,’ I say, feeling my face go pink. ‘That’s a stupid story. I was being the Lady of Shalott.’
He stares at me. ‘The who?’
‘Oh, go away and be a child somewhere else,’ says Mae in an impressively patronising manner.
He sticks his tongue out and disappears. We hear him singing as he thumps up the stairs: ‘Calypso’s being a princess, Calypso’s being a princess …’
Mae sighs. ‘I’m so sorry, he’s such an idiot.’ She turns to me. ‘Are you going out trick-or-treating at Halloween? You could come with us, if you like.’
‘Oh, um … I haven’t got a costume.’
Mae says pleadingly, ‘I’ve got a cat and a witch costume, so you could have one, and we can pretend we don’t know Christopher.’
‘I’ve never been trick-or-treating,’ I admit. ‘We live too far out, so no one ever comes to our house. Where do you go?’
‘Oh, not far,’ Mae says. ‘Back at our old house we just went to the people we knew in our street. Dad usually comes with us and hides round the corner.’
I am not sure. ‘Can I think about it? I’ll ask my dad.’ Though I know what he’ll say. He’ll say it’s an American tradition that’s unpleasant and commercial. Knocking on people’s doors at night and asking them for sweets isn’t good manners. Not that I can say that to Mae. We’re the very best of friends, but in many ways we’re still very different. And it sounds like her dad doesn’t mind being American and commercial.
Mae grins. ‘Beg him to let you come.’ She glances at the pushed-together chairs in the middle of the room. ‘I guess we’ve finished doing The Lady of Shalott, haven’t we? No ghost zombies in that poem.’
I laugh. ‘No. Can you imagine? The Lady looks out of the window to see a white figure with its arms out …’ I raise my arms as Christopher had done. ‘“Wooo!” cried the Lady of Shalott!’ Then I notice that Mae’s smile has frozen and her face has turned pale. ‘Mae? What’s the matter?’
Her mouth forms an ‘o’ shape, but no sound comes out.
‘What?’ I look in the same direction as her gaze. ‘Oh, I forgot I was still holding the dandelions.’ They’re squashed and sticky now, and there are brown marks on my hands where the stems have leaked dandelion milk. ‘Ew. Gross.’
‘The fabric.’ Mae bites her lip and says in a whisper, ‘Look.’
I am draped in the beautiful satin brocade: the thick, heavily embroidered material that must have cost a fortune. I look down – and the kingfisher blue is spotted and splodged with brown stains, just like my hands.
‘Oh no,’ I whisper. ‘Oh no.’
That beautiful fabric. Surely the nicest of all the material – and we promised not to spoil it or get it dirty. We promised.
What will Mae’s mum say?
We promised to be careful. And the fabric is so, so beautiful. Mae’s mum probably bought it in some exotic country, from a seller in a bazaar – we won’t be able to replace it.
I start to tremble. For one brief, insane moment I consider running out of the house and never coming back. Never owning up, leaving Mae to do it. Never seeing the disappointed, angry look on her mother’s face.
But I don’t, of course. Because that would be cowardly, and I am not a coward. So I carefully wade to the French doors, not touching anything, and place the crumpled dandelions on the step outside. Then Mae helps unwind me from the fabric and I go to wash my hands. They stop being sticky but the brown stains don’t come off. My heart sinks lower. If I can’t get my hands clean, how will we ever get the fabric clean?
‘Maybe we should try to wash it,’ Mae whispers at my ear. She is clutching the brocade.
�
��No,’ I say. ‘We’d only make it worse. And the colour might run or something. We have to find your mum.’ My voice wobbles.
Mae’s mum is in the kitchen, chopping carrots. She turns with a smile but sees our faces. ‘What is it?’
I step forward. ‘I’m so sorry,’ I say. ‘There was an accident.’
Mae holds out the kingfisher brocade.
‘It’s dandelions,’ I say. ‘I mean, it’s dandelion milk, from the stems. They leaked. I was being the Lady of Shalott and we needed some flowers. I forgot they would leak. And now …’ I swallow.
Mae’s mum washes her hands and then comes to take the fabric from Mae. She looks very serious. She examines the brown stains and takes a deep breath. ‘Oh dear,’ she says.
I feel tears spring to my eyes and I bite my lip.
‘It’s in the middle too,’ says Mae’s mum, stretching out the fabric and checking all along its length. ‘So it’s not even a question of cutting off one end. Oh, girls.’ The disappointment in her voice cuts me to the quick.
Mae bursts into tears. ‘We’re so sorry, Mummy! We were trying so hard not to damage anything!’
Her mother sighs. ‘I know. It’s all right. I mean, it’s not, because this is some of my favourite fabric, and I was saving it for something very special. But there’s nothing to be done.’
‘Can it …’ I say in a quiver. ‘Can it … be washed?’
She gives a sad smile. ‘No, not really. This kind of fabric doesn’t wash well, and dandelion stains require a chemical treatment. It would destroy it.’
‘Oh.’ I can’t help it. A tear rolls down my cheek. ‘I’m sorry. If I … need to pay …’ I have no idea what I’m saying. I don’t even have pocket money. How would I pay for something like this?
Mae is sobbing so hard she sounds like she might be sick. And it infects me: suddenly the tears are streaming down my face like a waterfall, and although I’m not making a sound I can’t speak any more, and everything is blurred.
Mae’s mum puts down the fabric and holds out her arms, and Mae steps into them without hesitation. But only one arm folds around her. The other is still held out to me.
I step forward too, and then I am enveloped in warmth and security and strength, and the tears stream even faster because it’s almost like I’m borrowing a mother, just for a few moments. Something deep inside me bursts and my knees buckle, but Mae’s mum holds me up.
Someone else is holding me up. I don’t have to hold myself up, for this moment. I don’t need my own inner strength, because someone else is being strong for me.
It is such a relief.
Mae’s mum forgives us. For those few moments before she hugged us, I tried to persuade myself that I wouldn’t mind being on my own again, best-friendless, independent and solitary. I’ve spent years practising it; I can do it again, can’t I?
But knowing I don’t have to, knowing that I’m forgiven and that I can still play with Mae and spend time with her family, makes me cry again with relief. And it makes me feel even more part of Mae’s family – more accepted for being me.
I go round to their house every day during half term. Though I try not to have dinner there because I worry that my dad won’t remember to eat if I’m not back. Mae’s family does so much together that I find myself automatically trying to get Dad to do stuff with me too. It’s difficult, though; he has a lot of work to do and he doesn’t seem to have time even to play Scrabble with me or go for a walk.
His response when I ask him about trick-or-treating is exactly what I expected. ‘No, Calypso, I don’t approve of it.’
‘But I’d be with Mae,’ I say, ‘and Christopher – and her dad will be there too.’
He shakes his head. ‘I don’t like the tradition. And coming home with a bucket-load of sweets is not good for you.’
I wouldn’t mind, I think to myself. I’ve never had a bucket-load of sweets before. ‘Please, Dad …’ It’s funny. I didn’t really want to go, but now that he’s said no, I sort of do.
‘You can decorate a pumpkin if you like,’ he says. ‘That’s harmless enough.’ Then he goes into his library and shuts the door. The conversation is over.
I stand in the hallway alone and look at the floor. Am I angry? Disappointed? Relieved? Is it possible to be all of those things at once?
Mae is simply disappointed. ‘Did you tell him my dad would be coming too?’
‘Yes. He still says no.’
She pulls a face. ‘Your dad can be a bit … um …’
‘A bit what?’
She shuffles awkwardly. ‘A bit … Well, does he do any fun things, ever?’
I open my mouth to say yes, of course. He’s offered to carve a pumpkin with me (actually, did he? Or am I supposed to do it myself?); he can make a game out of emptying kitchen cupboards to find food; he takes me out for pizza on a whim …
For once, my words desert me. ‘Oh,’ I say uncomfortably, ‘he can be fun. He just has a lot of work to do.’
On the last Saturday of half term, Mae and I have our first session in our writing den. It’s not finished by any means, but the floor is no longer damp and we’ve painted the walls inside. Mae’s dad has found a piece of leftover carpet and cut it to the right size, so it’s quite comfortable. The day isn’t too chilly, so we reckon we can work in there for at least an hour before we get cold. Mae and I shut the little door and smile at each other in our own space with curtains and cushions. It’s going to be wonderful in the summer.
‘I’ve brought my Halloween sweets,’ she says, holding up a paper bag decorated with pumpkins. ‘I wish you’d come with us – we’d have got twice as many!’ She hands over a lollipop. ‘Sugar is good for thinking.’
‘Thanks,’ I say, sticking the lollipop in my mouth and opening the hardback notebook. ‘Let’s get started.’
We’ve been working hard on our story. It now runs to twenty-two pages and has developed way beyond my initial idea of the girl who has survived a nuclear war. We invented an area of France that was unaffected by the radiation because it’s under huge domes, like the Eden Project in Cornwall. Our central character, Persephone, or Sephy for short, has to travel through dangerous waters to get there, stealing a boat and nearly being eaten by sharks. We have to invent new sharks because there aren’t really sharks in the English Channel, but they’re necessary for the drama in the story.
What’s even more exciting is that Mae has learned how to upload a book to the internet. It doesn’t seem all that hard. We have a test practice with the first chapter of After Armageddon, our epic story. ‘Armageddon’ means the battle to end the world, so our title is actually quite clever. Mae persuades her mum to set up the account in her name, because you have to be over eighteen. I’m so excited when Mae shows it to me, actually on a real website. We use a photograph of a dark wood that Mae’s mum took as the cover design and set the price at fifty pence, because it’s very short, and we wait impatiently for two days to see if anyone will buy it. No one does.
‘We need to do publicity for it,’ says Mae, trying to reassure me. ‘It’s only because no one knows it’s there. We should send messages to people asking them to buy our book. Maybe we could do adverts too.’
I’m not sure I want to learn how to do publicity things. I just like writing the stories. I begin to wonder whether putting our story online is really worth the effort. But then Mae comes to school a couple of days later beaming all over her face.
‘Someone’s bought it!’ she says.
‘No!’ I say. ‘You’re making it up!’
But she isn’t. There, in our account, a payment is showing. I feel a rush of euphoria. We are proper writers!
‘I hope they enjoy it,’ I say, feeling so proud that I want to tell everyone at school.
‘Of course they will,’ Mae says. ‘They’ll probably write a review saying they can’t wait to read the rest of the book.’
I am so thrilled that I burst into Dad’s study that day after school to tell him.
‘Dad!’ I say. ‘You’ll never guess!’
I have chosen a bad moment. The computer is on and he is glaring at the screen.
‘Not now, Calypso,’ he says, without glancing at me. ‘I’m working. This blasted editor doesn’t know what he’s talking about.’
‘But Dad!’ I say again. ‘I’m a published author!’
That gets his attention. His head snaps round. ‘What did you say?’
‘I’m a published author,’ I say. ‘Well, sort of. Mae and I put a story we wrote online and someone has bought it!’
He stares at me for what seems like too long a moment. He shakes his head slightly. ‘What do you mean, someone bought it?’ His voice is odd.
I want to pull up a chair to his desk but there isn’t another one in here, so I perch on the very edge.
‘Mae learned how to do it on the computer,’ I say, glancing at his. The email from the editor is on screen, and there seems to be a long list of bullet points. ‘We’re writing this story together, and we wanted to see if we could do it properly, you know – sell it. So we put the first chapter on a website where people can buy digital books, and someone’s bought it! It’s only fifty pence – it’s not much, but it works, and maybe when the story is finished, millions of people will buy it and we’ll be rich! And I can have a computer of my own, and we could buy a new car, and we could go on holiday! In fact’ – my mouth runs on by itself – ‘we could go abroad! And we could even get a housekeeper! To do the cleaning!’ I stop, panting, alight with my vision of the future.
Then I see my father’s face.
‘What’s the matter?’
He looks like he has a pain, his eyebrows are pulled so tightly together, and his lips are pale.
‘Are you all right?’
He seems unable to speak. His cheeks are making funny shapes, like he’s clenching his teeth together at the back. And there’s a kind of low grunting.