A Storm of Strawberries

by Cotterill

  She looked like a giant grape.

  When she’s not dressing like a grape, Lissa has light brown hair and brown eyes and lots of freckles, which she hates. Kaydee teases her about them and Lissa punches Kaydee on the arm. It’s a joke, but she always does it too hard and Kaydee winces and then Lissa apologizes and they make up. It happens every time. Lissa also has zits, like Kaydee, but she paints over them with foundation, and you can only tell they’re there because they look like tiny mountains on her forehead and chin.

  “Aren’t you going to say hello?” asks Kaydee. I realize I’ve been staring at Lissa’s face for several moments, not saying anything. “Hi, Lissa,” I say.

  “Hi, Darby,” she says back, and she smiles at me. “You okay?”

  But this is one of those questions I’m not supposed to reply to, because as soon as she’s said it, she turns and goes up the narrow flight of stairs to Kaydee’s room, which is where the loft used to be before Mom and Dad had it converted. Kaydee’s bedroom is the biggest one of the whole house, but you can’t stand up in all of it, and half of it is divided off into “storage,” which basically means “everything we don’t know what to do with, so we’ll dump it up here.” Kaydee moans about it, but I know it’s pretend because she loves being up there away from everyone.

  I love it up there too. So, without thinking, I follow her and Lissa up the stairs.

  “Oh.” Lissa sees me as I emerge. “Um …” Lissa’s purple suitcase is on Kaydee’s bed. Kaydee unzips it and flings it open. “You might as well unpack since you’re here for three nights! I cleared a drawer for you.”

  “You did?” Lissa looks pleased. “That’s … really sweet of you.”

  Kaydee starts taking out clothes from Lissa’s case. “This is gorgeous!” she says, holding up a purple top.

  I reach across and pull out something stringy and pink, with a bit of lace on it. “What’s this?”

  Lissa snatches it out of my hand. “Don’t touch my stuff! That’s personal.”

  Kaydee says, “Don’t be mad at her. She really didn’t mean to.”

  My eyes sting behind my glasses and I blink lots. “Sorry,” I say.

  “Does she have to be up here?” Lissa says to Kaydee.

  Kaydee looks at her for a moment and then she turns to me. “Darby, would you mind going back to your room for a bit? Lissa and I haven’t seen each other for a while. We’ve got lots to catch up on.”

  “You saw each other last week” I object. “And you’re always texting each other.”

  “Darby …” Kaydee says again, and her voice is not so friendly, “I’m asking nicely.”

  I glance at Lissa. Her black-lined eyes are narrowed and looking at me very hard.

  “Fine,” I say. “I didn’t want to be up here anyway in your stupid room with your stupid friend.” I turn and start down the stairs. When I get to the landing below, I hear laughter break out above me.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” I hear Kaydee say. “She just doesn’t … you know. Some things she just doesn’t get.”

  I get it, I think. You like your friend Lissa more than me. I go to my room and SLAM MY DOOR REALLY LOUDLY.

  Chapter 4

  My room is tidy because I like things to be in the right places. I don’t have clothes all over the floor, like Olly, or thirty makeup and perfume bottles on my dresser, like Kaydee. I have a dark blue carpet, which was really expensive and Mom didn’t want me to have it. “It won’t wear well,” she said, but I insisted. It’s soft and fluffy and I like walking on it with bare feet. It makes me feel warm and tingly.

  The walls are whitish, and I have a big wardrobe that looks like it could have come from the books about Narnia. It doesn’t lead into another world, though. I’ve checked. I also have a chest of drawers. On top of the drawers is a set of shelves where I keep my books and useful things. I like books but I’d rather listen to music or watch videos on my laptop.

  I have just picked up my iPod when the door is flung open again. Olly is standing there, looking very angry. Olly is quite short for his age, like me. He has thick black hair that he spends ages on, making it look like he just got out of bed. (When he has actually just got out of bed, his hair is all flat on one side and not cool at all.) He has a pointy nose and blue-gray eyes and he acts like everything is an effort. “Darby,” he says, “are you trying to ruin my career?”

  Olly plays computer games all the time. He says he wants to make it as a gamer. I don’t know how this is actually a job, but he says it is and he knows more about computers than anyone else in our family.

  I glare at him. I feel all hot and tight on the inside. “What are you talking about?” I ask.

  “I was in a four-way fight,” says Olly, “and your door slamming made me lose my concentration and I died.”

  He means died in the game of course. Not died for real. Because then he wouldn’t be talking to me.

  “The world doesn’t revolve around you,” I say, annoyed, and I fling myself on my bed, putting in my earphones. I don’t know quite what it means, but Mom says it when she’s annoyed with me.

  “It doesn’t revolve around you either,” says Olly, pulling one of my earphones out. “Just because you’re special, doesn’t mean you get to ruin my life.”

  I hate it when he calls me special. When Mom and Dad first got together, Olly used to call me Moonface behind their backs. Then one day he got into BIG trouble for it, and he stopped doing it. But I haven’t forgotten. I have a really good memory.

  “Go away,” I say to him, and I pull on the other end of the earphone.

  “Did you have an argument with Kaydee?” Olly’s voice suddenly goes all babyish. “Ahh, did poor Darby-warby have an argument with Kaydee-waydee?”

  “Go away,” I say. “I didn’t have an argument. It was Lissa.”

  “Lissa?” Olly lets go of the earphone in surprise. “Is she here?”

  “You don’t listen to anything,” I tell him. “Of course she’s here. She’s staying for the weekend.”

  “For the weekend?” He looks annoyed. “Why so long?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “Go away.”

  And this time he does. I’m not surprised Olly didn’t know that Lissa was coming. He doesn’t listen to half the stuff Mom says, or what any of us say for that matter. The only person he ever really listens to is Kaydee.

  I flick through my music collection and find one that I can turn up very, very loud. And then I get off the bed and make up a dance routine to it.

  Chapter 5

  When I come down later, it’s because I’m feeling hungry. But there’s no one downstairs at all. Mom’s office, to the right of the kitchen, is empty. Mom and Dad must be out on the site. I look out the kitchen window and see the trees blowing around all over the place. The wind does look bad.

  But I’m hungry. And I’m not allowed to help myself to food from the fridge or the cabinets. Mom’s very strict about that. If I want something to eat, I’m going to have to find her.

  I go through the hall to the utility room and turn the handle of the back door. The wind almost blows the door into my face, and for a moment, I think maybe I’ll just go back to my room. But my tummy rumbles, so I go out, leaving the door open behind me.

  You can see the biggest greenhouse from our kitchen window. The path from the back door is quite short, and then you’re on the track that goes all the way around the site. You have to watch out because there’s often a tractor or a Land Rover or something driving on it. Or a minibus. In the summer, we have lots of people come and work on the farm, picking the fruit, and they all have to be driven from site to site wherever they’re needed. But it’s not summer yet, so it’s still just the people who are here all year. Juris and his family live in a regular house, but most of the others live in RVs right here. We have loads of empty RVs, ready for the summer fruit pickers.

  The tree at the end of the path is bending over so far it’s almost snapping in two. My hair is blowing in my face, and
my pants are flapping around my legs. It’s horrible. But I’m getting hungrier by the minute, so I set off.

  I walk around the end of greenhouse number one and tug open the sliding door. Inside, it’s suddenly very quiet, and my hair falls down straight instead of sideways into my eyes. “Mom!” I call.

  I walk down the middle of the greenhouse. To my left and right are rows and rows of strawberry plants in special earth bags. They’re not on the ground—they’re at about the same height as my head, on metal tables. In the ceiling are vents, so that air moves around the plants while they’re growing. There aren’t any sprinklers because the plants get their water from pipes that go into the bags.

  It’s all very, very technical and boring and the green fruits aren’t ripe yet (although they will be in a couple of weeks), so I don’t even glance at the plants as I walk down the middle of the greenhouse. “Mom!” I call again.

  At the other end, I pull open the sliding door and step out into the blowing wind again. It’s like being shoved by lots of people, so that it’s hard to stand up. But I still haven’t found Mom, so I keep going toward the site office. I know I’ll find people in there.

  The site office is in a portable building that looks like a big metal box. It’s full to bursting with paper and files and computers and random stuff in boxes. Juris is in there with Dad, and they are looking at the computer screen. Dad turns around as I come in. “Darby,” he says, “you all right?”

  “I’m hungry,” I say.

  “Well, go and make yourself a sandwich.”

  “I can’t,” I say. “I need to find Mom.”

  “I don’t know where she is right now,” he says, and then he turns back to the computer screen, which is showing a swirly yellow-and-green thing and lots of lines and little numbers. “We should move the vans to the end of the tunnels,” he says to Juris.

  Juris nods, his head bouncing like a ball. “The easterly end.”

  Dad says, “Yes, going by the projected route. Any-thing to ease the pressure on the plastic. We shouldn’t have skinned them so early.”

  I wait, but they keep talking in fast voices and I lose track of what they’re saying.

  I go into each of the other three greenhouses—wind blowing, struggling against it; sudden quiet, tangled hair—but Mom isn’t there, and no one can help me. When I reach the road, I stop for a moment. She could be at one of the other sites, I suppose, so I turn left and start walking.

  It’s very difficult to walk in this wind. I keep getting pushed over by sudden gusts and stumbling into the road. A car coming past honks its horn as it swerves around me. I jump back onto the grass, but it’s so hard to stay upright. As I walk, I grumble to myself about sandwiches and moms and walking.

  At a fork in the road, I turn right. I know exactly where I’m going. I don’t remember how far the site is, but I’ll recognize it when I get there. I trip on a lumpy bit of ground and feel pain shoot up my leg. “Ow!” I bend down and rub my ankle, just as a gust of wind shoves me into a patch of nettles. “OW!”

  I get up. My ankle isn’t too bad after the initial shock, but my hand is stung from the nettles. Now I’m hungry and in pain and grumbly. But I still haven’t found Mom, so I keep going.

  A branch whips me in the face. There’s so much NOISE around, from the trees rustling and cracking. I don’t like it. I put my hands over my ears, wincing as the stinging hurts even more, and keep walking.

  Then someone grabs my shoulder.

  Chapter 6

  I totally freak out, like jump three feet in the air and shriek from fright. And then I turn and see Mom standing next to me, looking really angry. “Mom!” I say, relieved and delighted.

  “Darby,” she calls over the wind, “what on earth are you doing out here?”

  “I’m hungry,” I yell back. “I was coming to find you.”

  “You’re two miles from home,” she shouts. “Get in the car.”

  I hadn’t heard the engine because of all the wind noise, and because I had my hands over my ears. I’m very glad to climb into the car and shut the door. The air in here is still and quiet. My ears feel numb, like after you’ve been to a concert where they play really loud music. I look down at my hand. It’s red and white with the bumpy stings.

  Mom gets into the driver’s seat. “Put your seatbelt on,” she says sharply. “Did you even tell anyone where you were going?”

  I put on my seatbelt and pretend I haven’t heard her. Now that I’m in the car, of course I remember I’m not supposed to leave our site without asking or letting people know. But I didn’t remember that back at home.

  “You have to stop wandering off on your own, Darby,” Mom says as she drives home. “It’s so dangerous. What if you’d fallen in a ditch and couldn’t get up? How would we know you needed help?”

  I don’t like it when people are angry with me. It makes me feel bad, so I get grumpy. “I didn’t fall in a ditch.” I don’t dare tell her about my ankle or my stinging hand.

  “That’s not the point, Darby.” Mom uses my name extra often when she’s upset. She is stressed, I can tell. Her hair is all blown about like mine, and her body is tight and crunched up, her shoulders stiff.

  I don’t say any more, but we’re nearly back home anyway. I have walked a long way. Still, I found Mom, so that’s all right.

  We get back to the house and Mom jumps out. “I have to go to the site office,” she says. “Go into the house and stay there. I’ll be there in a minute.”

  “But I’m hungry!” I say.

  “Then make yourself a sandwich. Or have an apple. Honestly, Darby, you’re twelve years old, you can make your own snack.” Then she is gone.

  I can’t believe it. She’s always told me not to make a snack without asking. I followed the rules! And now she’s yelling at me! How is that fair?!

  I stomp into the house and go straight to the kitchen. I knock the lid off the bread bin and it clatters onto the side. I grab two slices of bread and a knife from the drawer, and I butter the bread. I’m not very neat but it’s fine. And then I go to the fridge and get some cheese, and then I get the cheese slicer from the drawer. I’m not allowed to use a sharp knife unless someone is with me, but maybe that rule isn’t what I thought it was either? For a moment, I think about this. And then I use the cheese slicer anyway because I don’t want to cut my hand. Blood makes me feel sick.

  I sit down to eat my sandwich and then I realize my right hand is still stinging really badly, and it seems to have mud on it too. But I don’t care, and so I eat the sandwich anyway, muddy hands and everything.

  Kaydee and Lissa come in while I’m at the kitchen table. They are giggling but they stop when they see me. Kaydee keeps smiling, but Lissa doesn’t.

  “All right, Darbs?” Kaydee says. She goes to the cabinet where the chocolate chip cookies are kept.

  “Yeah,” I say, because I am feeling a bit better since I started eating. And maybe now that Kaydee and Lissa are downstairs, they’ll keep me company.

  Kaydee says to Lissa, “What do you want? We’ve got Kit Kats, Twix, and … er … Snickers.”

  “Twix,” says Lissa.

  Kaydee takes one from the cabinet and gives it to her. Then she takes one for herself and they go out of the kitchen and I hear them running back upstairs.

  “Can I come?” I shout, but they must not hear me because they don’t answer, and I am alone in the kitchen again.

  This day is turning out to be a really stinky one.

  … one day when Kaydee was home sick. Back then, she was in high school and I was still in elementary school. I begged and begged to stay home with her. She had tonsillitis and was taking medicine from the doctor. Mom said no and no and no and no but I was so desperate to stay with Kaydee that I sat down on the stairs and wouldn’t move. I was too big to be lifted into the car, though Dad did try. I held on to the banister and wouldn’t let go, and even though they both shouted at me, I wouldn’t budge.

  In the end, Mom and
Dad looked at each other, all tired, and I knew I’d won. I got a day off school and I spent all of it looking after Kaydee. I sat with her under a blanket on the sofa and we watched all four Spy Kids movies, one after the other. And then we watched the Lion King movies. Sometimes she would ask me to go and get her a drink or something to eat. And I did, because I felt proud and grown-up and responsible for her.

  Mom popped in every now and then to see how we were, but Kaydee always said, “It’s all right, Mom. Darby’s looking after me.”

  Mom smiled and said, “You’re doing a great job, Darby,” and I felt happy.

  At the end of the day, Kaydee said she was feeling much better and Mom said it must be because she had such an excellent nurse looking after her. I was very, very happy.

  The next morning, Kaydee went back to school, so I did too. I was sad because I wanted another perfect day like that.

  Chapter 7

  I watch some music videos in my room and practice the dance moves. I love nailing a routine. Sometimes they’re too hard—lots of routines are really fast—but I just change bits to make them easier. I also find some cream in the bathroom cabinet that says it’s good for stings, so I squeeze a lot of it out and rub it into my hand. And then I remember I haven’t actually washed my hands, so I do that, and the cream washes off, but I put even more on afterward.

  It’s a while later when Mom calls up the stairs. I’m in the middle of a routine, so I don’t do anything. And then she comes and knocks on my door and says, “Come on, Darby, I’ve been calling you. Can you come and set the table, please?”

  “I’m busy,” I say, still trying to follow the video. “You’re dancing, Darby. You’ve done this one twenty times already, I know. Come on, please.”

  I sigh and switch off the laptop. Then I follow Mom down the stairs. The wind is still howling, and there’s no sign of Dad or any of the other workers.