by Jo Cotterill
I can hardly believe that soon it will be the first-year anniversary of the day Mae and I met. So much has happened in all that time – too much to write in a book, at any rate. Perhaps one day, when I am old, I will write my memoirs – or maybe I should start earlier, before I get too forgetful. Because it would be awful to forget this moment: this space in time that is peace and quiet and warmth and imagination and writing and family and roses.
A bee buzzes lazily in through the window and lands on a page of writing in my book. It is fat and furry and glints in the sunlight, as though some of its hairs are made of gold. It makes me think of the story of Midas, the king who was cursed with the power to turn things into gold by touch. That makes me wonder what other kinds of powers you could have that would seem amazing to start with and then turn dark and deadly … and that sparks another brand-new shiny idea, begging to be written.
But I can’t. I am deep inside this one, a story of accidental magic and fast friendships, so I write a few words to remind me of the new idea at the back of my notebook.
Mae yawns and stretches, straightening out her hand as though it has cramp. ‘I’ve got stuck,’ she says.
‘It’s writer’s block,’ I say understandingly. ‘You need to do something else for a bit and then come back to it fresh.’
I’ve been reading a lot of books about the skill of writing recently. If writing is going to be my future career, then it’s time I treated it in a professional manner.
Mae nods. Strands of her treacle-black hair are stuck to her forehead and she peels them away. ‘I think the heat is making my thoughts slow. Are you going to take a break too?’
I hesitate. I am in a good part of a scene right now, and I don’t really want to leave it, but it will wait because I know exactly what needs to come next.
‘All right,’ I say, and nudge the bee off my notebook. As it grudgingly hums away, I realise it has left a smear of pollen on the word it occupied on the page. ‘Happy’ now looks as though it’s underlined in yellow. It makes me smile.
We go out into the fresher air and demand more lemonade from the grown-ups. Dad tuts for a moment, and then catches my eye and hastily agrees. He’ll always be Dad, pernickety about words and manners and taking everything just a bit too seriously. But he smiles more than he ever used to now, and although there are days when his eyes darken and he turns away and has to be quiet and sad on his own somewhere, it doesn’t scare me in the way that it did. He and Mae’s dad are proper friends now, which makes me very happy.
I start a new school in September, but I’m not in the least nervous about it, because Mae will be there too. And then we’re all going on holiday to Cornwall together in the October half term. Mae and I can’t stop talking about it! We want to search for mermaids and dragons. If we don’t find them, it won’t matter because we can use the visit for research for a new series we’re working on. I might even try to paint while we’re there.
Dad bought me some oil paints for my eleventh birthday, and when I unscrewed the lid of one it made me cry because it smelled exactly like my library upstairs, the one that used to be Mum’s studio. Dad said he was sorry for upsetting me, but it was the opposite, really. I was happy-crying, like Mae does. It was almost as though he was saying sorry for what he did to Mum’s old books, by giving me something new that connects me to her.
Christopher lets out a yell as he accidentally thumps his own hand with the trowel, and Mae’s mum rushes over, telling him off for being careless while making sure he really is all right. I’ve only recently realised that people do that a lot: say or do one thing in order to cover up a completely different feeling. I did it myself until I met Mae. Now I try to be truer to myself, because if you can’t be true to yourself, how can you be true to anyone else?
If I don’t become a writer, I might become a psychologist. People are a lot more interesting than I thought, and when you start to peel back their layers you find surprising things. I always thought inner strength was something you had to find for yourself. Now I know that the people who are strongest are the ones who love others and let themselves be loved back. There’s a poem that says ‘No man is an island’, and I think I understand what it means. If you have inner strength but no one to love, what is it for?
Christopher is placated with a gel pack from the fridge and another lemonade.
‘Lemon slice, please,’ he says, holding out his glass.
Dad cuts into a fresh lemon, one he’s grown himself, and plops the thick slice into Christopher’s glass.
‘Lemon for you?’ Dad asks me, though he knows what I’m going to say.
I smile. ‘No thanks.’
‘Cricket!’ shouts Christopher, waving a bat in the air.
Mae’s mum takes a lot of persuading, but we get the stumps set up and Dad goes in to bat, and Mae drops the ball by mistake and everyone shouts at her, and then we laugh and Christopher bowls Dad clean out.
And the sun shines and the sliced lemon glistens in the light – and things are going to be all right.
Jo Cotterill
Jo Cotterill has had several careers – actor, musician, teacher, newspaper seller – but is now a full-time writer in Oxfordshire. She loves writing for all ages and has published over twenty books – the latest, Electrigirl, is about a superhero twelve-year-old and is part novel, part comic strip. Jo has previously been nominated for the Carnegie, shortlisted for the UKLA Book Awards and Highly Commended in the Oxfordshire Book Awards for her novel Looking at the Stars, a story about refugees and the power of the imagination. Jo loves going into schools to talk about books and reading, and can be found making cards or writing music when she’s not spending time with her husband and two young daughters. Find her online at www.jocotterill.com or on Twitter @jocotterillbook.
First published in the UK in 2016
by Piccadilly Press
80–81 Wimpole St, London W1G 9RE
www.piccadillypress.co.uk
Text copyright © Jo Cotterill, 2016
Illustration copyright © Sarah Dennis 2016
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.
The right of Jo Cotterill to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 9781848125391
Piccadilly Press is an imprint of Bonnier Publishing Fiction,
a Bonnier Publishing company
www.bonnierpublishingfiction.co.uk
www.bonnierpublishing.co.uk
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