A Library of Lemons

by Jo Cotterill

  He finally growls out, ‘You put a story online? And someone has paid for it? Not – not a publisher?’

  ‘Oh – no!’ I say with a laugh. ‘No, no, nothing like that. We just put our story up and someone downloaded it. To their computer or their phone or something. They paid fifty pence to be able to do it. It’s not a publishing thing really. But we’ve sort of published it ourselves by putting it there. You know?’

  There is a long silence. It dawns on me that he doesn’t understand a word. Dad lives on paper. What Mae and I have done is as alien as inventing a hovercar.

  The pleasure I had taken earlier from the knowledge of our first sale ebbs away. The warmth of knowing we were achieving something I had longed for is cold.

  ‘Anyway,’ I say eventually, getting down from the desk and rubbing the part of my thigh that has gone numb, ‘I just wanted to tell you. I’ll – um – I’ll go do my homework now.’ As I reach the door, I ask, ‘Do you want a cup of tea?’

  But he’s staring at the place on his desk where I was sitting and he’s as still as a statue. He doesn’t look angry. He looks pained, as though he’s remembering a very bad memory, or as though he’s just watched a terrible accident. I bite my lip. I must have made him feel bad, though I don’t know how. As I turn away, something registers in my mind, and I whip round. There are tears in his eyes. Definite tears.

  I go straight to my room and sit on my bed, trembling. Outside, I can hear the pops and squeals of fireworks as Bonfire Night begins, but I don’t even glance out of the window.

  My father doesn’t cry. Ever. I must have done something very, very bad indeed.

  Things get even worse at school the next day. I can see it in Mae’s face: her lips quiver and her eyes are shiny with tears.

  ‘What is it?’ I ask, dreading the response.

  She pulls my arm and takes me to a corner of the classroom. We don’t usually sit here, and someone will be along in a moment to demand we get out of their seat. Anne of Green Gables plays through my mind: the scene where Anne has a disastrous tea party and is forbidden to be friends with Diana.

  I clasp Mae’s hand. ‘What’s happened?’ I ask in a desperate whisper. ‘You look distraught. Are we to be parted?’ A new juddering thought hits me. ‘Mae, are you dying from cancer?’

  Am I going to lose her like I lost my mother? The breath stops in my lungs.

  ‘Worse,’ says Mae, and she swallows. ‘We’ve had a review.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A review. From the person who bought our story.’

  It takes me a moment to understand her. At first I am swept with cleansing relief. She doesn’t have cancer! We are not to be parted!

  ‘What kind of review?’

  ‘A really bad one.’ Tears run down her face. ‘Oh, Calypso, she said some awful things.’

  ‘What kind of things?’

  ‘She said it wasn’t worth the fifty pence. She said it was badly written and that it was five minutes of her life she’d never get back. She said it looked like it had been written by three-year-olds …’ Mae is hiccupping now.

  I feel cold and sick again. ‘That’s horrible.’

  ‘I didn’t want to tell you,’ she says. ‘I tried to delete it, but the website wouldn’t let me. Oh, Calypso! No one will buy it if they read that review!’

  ‘We’ll take it down,’ I say firmly. ‘We’ll take our chapter off the site so the review goes too. Then we’ll work on the complete story until it’s perfect before we put it up.’

  ‘I’m not sure we should now,’ Mae says miserably. ‘What if people don’t like the full story?’

  ‘You can’t please everyone,’ I say. ‘Besides, it’s only our first book. We’re learning all the time. The second one will be better, and the third one better still.’

  ‘I was thinking we should give up writing.’ Mae is despondent.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ I tell her, though I am frightened by this. I look forward to our writing sessions. Without her, I’d have to go back to doing it by myself, and I’ve learned it’s a lot more fun with two.

  We can’t talk any more because we are kicked out of our seats by two irate classmates, and the lesson begins.

  Mae shows me the review at lunchtime on a library computer and I see what she means.

  Had I realised that this was a mere 500 words, I wouldn’t have wasted my money or my time. In fact, even if it were free, I wouldn’t recommend that anyone reads it. After Armageddon is an over-ambitious title by two authors who clearly have ideas beyond their ability. The writing is childish and clunky, the plot ridiculous and the characters boring. It took me five minutes to read it – five minutes I’ll never get back. Five minutes I could have spent more productively on the toilet or cleaning up after the cat. It looks like it’s been written by three-year-olds and is an example of why self-publishing can be a really bad idea.

  I stare at the screen, at the spiteful, vindictive words.

  ‘Wow,’ I say. ‘She really hates it.’ There’s a hot, tight feeling in my stomach. It’s like I’m on the edge of an extreme reaction and I can choose which way to go.

  It’s a book review. It’s not cancer, or being parted from friends. It’s nothing. I let the feeling bubble up and out of me and I laugh and I laugh.

  ‘She really hates it!’ I whoop. ‘She could have been on the toilet!’

  Mr Simmons comes over, looking concerned. ‘Is everything all right?’ he asks. He can’t tell if I’m laughing or crying.

  ‘It’s fine!’ I shriek. ‘We’re fine! We got a bad review!’

  Mae is staring at me like I’m a lunatic.

  Mr Simmons smiles in relief. ‘You seem to be taking it well.’

  For some reason this makes me laugh even more. My stomach hurts and I cross my arms over it.

  ‘Calm down, Calypso,’ says Mae. She sounds alarmed.

  I try. Returning to normality after that level of giggles is hard to do and it takes me a long time. Even after five minutes, I still get that after-giggle reflex, the one that makes you chuckle out of nowhere for a moment. Mr Simmons goes back to his desk, shaking his head in bafflement.

  Mae hasn’t laughed at all. ‘Calypso, that was really weird. Are you okay?’

  ‘My dad hates that word,’ I confide in her. ‘I love it. Okay, okay, okay! It’s like an echo!’

  ‘Calypso …’

  ‘Oh, Mae, it’s all right. I’m fine – I’m okay, remember?’ I give another giggle. ‘You know how sometimes you’ve got to laugh otherwise you’d cry? This is that. One of those. Come on. Switch the thing off. Let’s not think about it for the moment.’

  ‘Okay …’ says Mae slowly. She logs out of our account, and shuts down the browser, casting slightly worried glances at me on and off. ‘When you did that … it kind of freaked me out a bit. Are you back to normal now?’

  ‘Normal?’ I say, feeling strangely light-headed. ‘I’ve never been normal, didn’t you know that? No one in my family has ever been normal. My dad definitely isn’t normal. Who writes about lemons, for goodness’ sake? And my mum wasn’t normal either. She was an artist. She painted landscapes and skies, but she also painted pictures of things you can’t see. There’s one in the attic called Despair. It’s just black and red and grey with tiny pinpricks in the canvas. And she did another one called Happiness, which is just yellow all over. With glitter sprinkles. I mean, even I could’ve painted that. It was in an exhibition at the National Gallery once, and people said it was amazing. But it’s completely crazy.’ An idea strikes me. ‘Listen, why don’t you come home with me today after school? Come and see my house. I could take you up into the attic to show you Mum’s paintings!’

  Mae is definitely alarmed. ‘Not today, Calypso. Besides, how would I get there?’

  ‘On the bus with me!’ I say with enthusiasm. Suddenly, this is the best idea I’ve ever had. ‘Come on, it’ll be fun! We can sneak you on, hide you under my seat!’ I’m in danger of losing myself in the giggles a
gain.

  Mae stands up, pushing her chair back so sharply that it falls over. ‘No. Stop it. You’re being all weird. I’m going back to class.’

  Oh no – I’ve done something wrong. ‘Mae, don’t go!’ I plead. I grab for my bag, tangling the strap in the legs of my chair and nearly tripping up. In the time it takes me to detangle it, she’s gone. I feel panicky. What happened? I race after her, Mr Simmons calling out in a warning tone something that I don’t hear.

  Mae doesn’t talk to me for the rest of the day, and after a while I give up trying.

  I go home on my own on the school bus.

  Dad is in his library when I get back. Of course he is – he’s always there. The euphoric and crazy feeling I had earlier has gone and now I just feel so very tired. What if Mae never speaks to me again? I don’t think I could bear it.

  I don’t want to go straight to my room. I don’t want to be on my own. So instead, I knock on the library door.

  Dad grunts, ‘Come in!’

  His desk is piled high with A4 envelopes stuffed to bursting. He is writing laboriously on each one, referring to a notebook in between.

  ‘Hi,’ I say, surprised. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘This,’ says Dad, grinning from ear to ear, ‘is my manuscript. Printed and bound and ready to be sent to publishers!’

  My eyebrows climb so far up my forehead they feel like they’re buried in my head.

  ‘Wow,’ I say. ‘Wow.’ I am shocked. I can’t tell him that I never really believed it would be finished, much less ever leave the house. ‘You did it.’

  ‘I know.’ He beams at me. ‘We’re both going to be published!’

  ‘Actually,’ I say, ‘that’s gone kind of bad.’

  He doesn’t look angry or sad any more, but kind of interested, so I tell him about the awful review.

  ‘Oh, Calypso,’ he says, sounding genuinely sympathetic. ‘I’m so sorry. Some people are needlessly unpleasant.’

  He’s so kind about it that I feel tearful. I gulp back the lump in my throat out of habit.

  ‘She didn’t need to be so nasty,’ I say. ‘She could have said it wasn’t her kind of thing and left it at that.’

  He shrugs. ‘Some people make themselves feel better by saying malicious things to others. I’ve never understood it myself. Putting down other people should not make you feel superior. It should make you feel ashamed.’ He smiles at me. ‘Shall we go out for dinner?’

  ‘I’d love to,’ I say, ‘but I’m really tired. I don’t think I want anything to eat.’

  ‘Nonsense.’ He sends me up to have a bath and then he brings me cheese on toast in bed, with a mug of hot chocolate. Not only that, he sits by my bed and reads to me, from Homer’s Odyssey. It makes me feel like a little girl again, when he and Mum used to take it in turns to put me to bed and read to me. Mum read things like Winnie-the-Pooh and The Gruffalo. Dad read Kipling’s Just So Stories and The Jungle Book.

  I feel soft and sleepy and comfortable. I even tell Dad about my strange reaction in the library and how Mae stopped talking to me. He nods as though he understands and takes my plate and mug downstairs.

  When he comes back, he says, ‘I rang Mae’s mum. She said Mae was sorry about how she behaved this afternoon.’

  ‘Oh!’ I feel even warmer at the thought.

  ‘I think you frightened Mae a bit. She said you were – wild.’ He sounds puzzled by the word. ‘What do you think caused it?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘It felt like I was bursting. Like I couldn’t stop it, even though I wanted to.’

  He nods again and says, ‘Did you invite Mae here?’

  I feel embarrassed. ‘Yes. Sort of. I was telling her about Mum’s paintings …’ I trail off. ‘She doesn’t have to come. I should have asked you first.’

  He shakes his head. ‘It’s fine. It’s all arranged. Her mum’s going to bring both of you here tomorrow after school and come and pick up Mae at five.’

  My heart thumps. Mae is coming here! ‘Thanks, Dad. That’s brilliant.’

  He gazes at me for a minute. ‘You’re welcome. I’m sorry if things have been a bit rough for you lately. I’ve taken on some more proofreading, now that I have more time again. So there’ll be a bit more money. For food and – clothes and things. Do you need shoes or something?’

  ‘My school shoes are quite tight.’

  ‘There you are. We’ll go and buy some shoes at the weekend.’

  ‘Thanks, Dad.’ My eyelids are so heavy they’re closing by themselves. Fuzzily, I see him switch off the lamp and blur into the gloom as the door closes.

  I am crazily excited about the idea of Mae coming to my house, but I hide it because I don’t want to frighten her again. Looking back, I’m not really quite sure what happened there in the library. Wild, Mae said. I’ve never been wild before. It felt very strange – terrifying and exciting all at the same time.

  But today I feel more optimistic and so happy that my best friend is coming to my house. Mae is back to her normal self too and we have a big hug to make up.

  ‘I’m really sorry,’ I tell her.

  She nods. ‘It’s okay. Mum said maybe you were just really tired. When people are tired they do strange things.’

  The day drags at school, the way it does when you’re looking forward to the end of it. When Miss Spotlin finally lets us out, I am so eager to leave that I forget my book bag and she has to call me back.

  ‘Going somewhere exciting?’ she asks with a smile.

  ‘Just home,’ I say happily. ‘With Mae. Mae’s coming round.’

  She nods, the smile becoming warmer. ‘I’m very glad to hear it. You’ve become a different person since you made such a good friend.’

  The words spin around my head as I push my way outside. A different person. Am I different since I met Mae? I don’t feel any different inside – or do I? I’m still me, but maybe I’m just a bit … happier?

  Actually, I’m a lot happier. Mae has filled a gap I didn’t even know was there.

  She takes my hand as we walk to the school gates to find her mum’s car, and my heart begins to sing. Mae’s coming home with me. Mae’s coming home with me …

  In the car, squashed between Mae and Christopher, I feel worries resurface.

  ‘My house isn’t like yours,’ I say to Mae. ‘I hope you won’t be cold. And it’s not as tidy. You don’t have to take off your shoes because we haven’t got nice carpets like yours.’

  Mae smiles. ‘I’m sure it’s fine. Anyway, you’ve got a library. I don’t have a library.’

  ‘That’s true.’ I feel a little better, and when the car pulls up at my house, I almost push Mae out in my eagerness.

  Mae’s mum smiles and says, ‘Have fun, girls. I’ll be back at five, okay?’

  ‘Okay!’ I say cheerfully. Then I take Mae up the front path to the door and open it with my key.

  ‘It’s so cool that you have your own front-door key,’ she says in admiration as we wave her mum off.

  I feel quite sophisticated.

  ‘Dad!’ I call as I shut the front door and the hallway is plunged into gloom. ‘We’re home!’

  There’s no answer, but that’s not surprising.

  ‘He’s probably deep in some manuscript,’ I say. ‘What do you want to do first?’

  ‘Wow,’ says Mae, looking around with wide eyes. ‘It’s like something out of a book.’

  I gaze around too. Our front hallway has little black and white tiles in a pattern that’s long been cracked and chipped. The stairs rise from the floor, uncarpeted, the wooden slats sloping unevenly towards the landing. Mum’s painting, the one of the field, is back on the wall, and I switch on the overhead light so that I can show Mae.

  ‘This is one of my mum’s paintings,’ I say, and feel a swell of pride.

  Mae gazes at the painting.

  ‘You can’t really see it properly,’ I add, ‘because the light is too dim.’

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ she says. ‘
Your mum was really talented.’

  My stomach warms at her praise. My mum was talented.

  ‘It makes me want to cry a bit, it’s so beautiful,’ she says.

  I beam. This is the highest possible praise from Mae.

  ‘Through there is the kitchen,’ I say, waving my arm at the darkness behind the staircase.

  ‘Can I see your library? The one that’s just for you?’

  ‘Of course!’ I bound up the stairs, taking them two at a time. ‘Follow me!’

  Mae lets out a little gasp when I push open the box-room door. Three sides of the room are filled with bookshelves, and the shelves are all full, some of them two deep in books.

  ‘Are these all yours?’ she breathes in awe.

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Though most of them came from my mum – she had them when she was little.’ I run to my room and fetch the photograph from my bedside table.

  Mae smiles at it. ‘She’s very beautiful. Her hair is gorgeous.’

  ‘I’m hoping mine goes like that when I’m older,’ I tell her.

  ‘You look so like her,’ says Mae, handing back the photo.

  ‘Really?’ I feel a glow of pride. ‘She loved books, just like us. She collected loads of them. I’ve got some in here, her children’s books. The grown-up ones are downstairs, in my dad’s library. They’re waiting for me to be old enough to read them.’

  Mae sniffs. ‘Is there … what can I smell?’

  ‘Mum’s oil paints,’ I say. ‘This used to be her studio. She went to art school in Paris.’

  ‘Do you paint too?’ Mae asks.

  I shake my head. ‘Not really. I kind of like words better.’

  She nods and starts to read along the shelves. ‘The Wizard of Oz, The Secret World of Polly Flint, The Little White Horse … I haven’t even heard of some of these!’

  ‘Borrow any you like,’ I say enthusiastically. I sit down on the floor next to her. ‘We’ve got some really old annuals from years and years ago too, like 1980. Look.’

  Mae pulls one out at random. ‘Judy,’ she says. ‘Wow, look at the cartoons in here! Oh – it’s about ballet! I’ve never seen a comic about ballet.’ Her eyes start to follow the strip across the page.