A Storm of Strawberries

by Cotterill

  Scrape … scrape …

  My mind fills with images of the metal monster outside, red and rusty, with yellow eyes that gleam menacingly in its battered head. It has bicycle spokes for ribs, and tin cans for hands, which reach out in the wind and scrape along the side of the house … scrape … scrape …

  The scraping is closer now. It is outside my window. If I wait any longer, it will punch its steel fist through the glass. And then the monster will be in my room …

  I leap out of bed, dragging my pillow with me, and run the five steps to my wardrobe. Pulling the door open, I squeeze inside, ducking under the hems of hanging dresses and tangling my foot in a thick wool sweater. The pillow comes in too, squeezing into the small space between me and the door, which I pull closed behind me.

  I sit very still, listening. But all I can hear is my own frightened breathing. Has the monster gone? Or is it peering in through my window with its glowing yellow eyes, trying to see through my thin curtains, wondering where I am?

  Inside the wardrobe it is very dark, much darker than my room. But I can feel walls on all four sides of me, and I am holding the door shut so tightly that nothing and no one could open it. My fingers cramp but still I grip the door. I can’t see anything. But I sit there, curled up, and wait for the terrifying growl that will tell me the monster has arrived.

  Chapter 11

  When the wardrobe door opens, I tumble out onto the floor, waking suddenly.

  “Goodness, Darby!” Mom exclaims. “Why are you in the wardrobe? Did you sleep in there?”

  I rub my eyes, jolted from sleeping to waking too quickly. My head feels fuzzy, and my neck is sore.

  Mom is used to my not answering her questions. She helps me up from the floor and onto my bed.

  I sit, moving my head from side to side.

  She crouches in front of me. “You okay? Sweetheart, you scared me. I came into the room and your bed’s empty! Didn’t you hear me calling?”

  “No,” I say.

  “In the wardrobe,” Mom says, like she can’t quite believe it. “Were you trying to get to Narnia again?”

  “No,” I say. “There was a metal monster.”

  She raises her eyebrows. “A metal monster? Where? In here?”

  “Outside, trying to get in,” I say. “I heard it scraping along the wall.”

  She gets up and goes to my window, pulling open the curtain. “Such a mess out there this morning,” she sighs. “And the winds are getting up again. Oh—there. I think I’ve found your metal monster.”

  I am nervous. Will it be out there, all twisted spokes and dented corners? Will the eyes still gleam or be dull and dead? My hands are shaking.

  I look out of the window carefully. Mom points. “Down there. Is that it?”

  Right up against the side of the house, under my window, is a big metal oil can. As I watch, it slides an inch sideways in the wind, scraping on the ground. The sound makes me shiver, even though I know it’s not a monster after all.

  Mom puts her arm around me. “It’s okay, Darby. No wonder you were scared. A noise like that, in the middle of the night, when the power’s out and everything—well, I’d have been scared too.”

  I turn into her arms and hug her back. I like hugs. They make me feel safe, especially ones from Mom.

  She kisses me on the head and says, “The power’s still out this morning, and something’s wrong with the generator. Dad can’t get it going. The ventilation and irrigation systems are all down.”

  “Oh,” I say. This is bad. This is very bad, because the strawberry plants in the greenhouses need the right amount of water and other stuff. The plants are like babies. You can’t just take away their air and food and expect them to be okay. I can tell Mom is very worried. So I say, “Can I help?”

  Mom makes a funny little noise, which sounds a bit like a sob. I didn’t mean to make her cry! She squeezes me even tighter. “Thanks, darling. You’re such a good girl.”

  It feels like there’s a light inside me.

  Mom takes a deep breath and steps back, looking into my face. “You can’t help on the farm. But you can help me at home. Can you be extra grown-up and look after yourself for most of the day? We have to get as much plastic off the tunnels as we can, so I’ve got to go out and help. The wind has died down a bit, but the forecast is for another storm, and we don’t know how long the electricity will be out. I’ll pop in to check up on you as much as I can. Will you be all right?”

  I nod seriously. “Yup.”

  She gives me another hug. “Maybe you could play a board game with the others later. No one else is up yet—Olly’s still snoring. I’ll take my phone with me when I leave the house, so call if there’s an emergency.” She beams at me. “You’re wonderful, you are.”

  I feel important and responsible. When Mom goes, I get back into bed. I am in charge of myself today. Soon I will get up and have breakfast, and then maybe do some dancing. My laptop will have some battery. Oh—if the electricity is off, the Wi-Fi will be out. I can’t watch music videos.

  Hmm. I don’t really know what to do with my day. But my bed is very comfortable, and it’s nice to stretch out after being in the wardrobe all night.

  I wake up when there’s noise outside my room—Kaydee and Lissa. I can hear them talking and laughing. I jump out of bed and throw open my door. Lissa is halfway up the stairs to Kaydee’s room, clutching a bowl of cereal. Kaydee is on the landing behind her, also holding a bowl. They’re both still in pajamas. “Hi,” I say.

  Kaydee turns and smiles at me. “Hi, Darby! You okay?”

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “Cool.” She turns and follows Lissa up the stairs.

  I hesitate. I want to go up there too, but I haven’t been invited.

  Instead I go to the bathroom and do all the bathroom and washing stuff. Well, a bit. Well, I run the faucet. Washing is annoying. You have to get wet and I don’t like the slippery feel of soap. Mom’s always going on about germs, but I’m sure my hands are fine. I can’t see anything dirty on them. I go back to my room and get dressed and go downstairs to the kitchen.

  Pike, the black cat, is sitting on the kitchen table, licking his bottom. “That’s disgusting,” I say, and I lift him off. Then I decide what I would like for breakfast.

  I sit alone at the kitchen table and look out of the window. I feel taller somehow. Older. When I’ve finished my cereal, I put my bowl and spoon in the dishwasher.

  Now what?

  I start thinking about chocolate. Tomorrow is the chocolate hunt! And we will need the baskets. All four: red, green, yellow, blue.

  The baskets are in Kaydee’s room. I’ll take them to the living room, ready for tomorrow morning.

  I run up the stairs, excited.

  … the last chocolate hunt. Or maybe it was the one before. Kaydee, Dad, Olly, and I were all waiting in the living room. Dad was messing around with Olly. Boys do that a lot, I’ve noticed. They were trying to give each other a dead arm. And then Olly did one on Kaydee, and she screamed and hit him with her basket and the handle came off. And then Dad hit Olly with his basket, and Olly hit Dad, and then Mom came in from the yard and said, “Ready … go!” and Dad and Olly and Kaydee were so busy being silly with their baskets that they didn’t even hear her. And Mom looked at me with twinkly eyes and said, “Hurry up, Darby, you can get a head start.” And I ran out into the yard (but carefully because it was raining a bit) and started hunting. And that year I found ten more chocolates than anyone else, because the others were messing around.

  And later, when we all came in again, Mom smiled at Dad and said, “Well done,” and he winked at her, and I thought it was funny because he hadn’t done well at all. If he hadn’t been messing around with Olly and Kaydee, I wouldn’t have gotten half as many as I did.

  As I go up the stairs to Kaydee’s room, I am thinking that I must check all the basket handles. And I don’t bother knocking or anything; I just push open the door, and Kaydee and Lissa are on t
he bed together, and the cereal bowls are on the floor, and Kaydee and Lissa are …

  … kissing.

  I stand and stare, because they have their arms around each other and their eyes closed and that’s all I have time to see before Lissa opens her eyes and notices me, and almost jumps off the bed in shock. “What the … ?” she says, with a really rude word at the end of it.

  Kaydee sits up too. Her face is red, and she rubs her mouth and bursts out, “DARBY! What the hell do you think you’re doing? Get out, get out!”

  And I am so scared that I turn and run back down the stairs and into my bedroom and shut the door and curl up on my bed, shivering.

  Chapter 12

  A few minutes later, there is a knock at the door. The bed sinks slightly as someone sits on it. “Darby,” says Kaydee quietly. “Darby, I need to talk to you.”

  I stay curled up in a ball. “Go away.”

  “Darby, please.”

  “You shouted at me,” I say into my pillow. I like how the cotton feels. I rub my cheek against it.

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have. I was … You took me by surprise. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  I don’t say anything. I wait.

  “Darby, please sit up. I need to see your face.”

  “Why?” I ask.

  “Because I have to tell you something.” The bed moves a bit, and I know she’s gotten up. I hear the bedroom door closing, and I think maybe she’s gone out of the room, which seems kind of strange, so I uncurl and twist around to see. She’s shut the door but she’s still here. She comes to sit back down again, and her face looks really worried, and her eyes are all shiny.

  “What?” I ask.

  Kaydee waits for a moment and then she asks, “What did you see, Darby?”

  “You and Lissa kissing.” I make a puking face. Kissing like that, with your faces stuck together—well, it’s kind of disgusting. I mean, it’s all right in movies of course. But seeing people in real life, right in front of me, doing it—it’s embarrassing.

  “Yeah …” Kaydee shuffles a bit on my bed. “Yeah, we were.”

  “You shouted at me,” I told her. That’s what I mind. The kissing is embarrassing, but the shouting makes me feel bad. Kaydee never shouts at me—not like that. Not like she hates me.

  “I’m sorry,” she says. “I was … surprised. You … I didn’t want you to see.”

  “I didn’t want to see either,” I tell her. “It’s disgusting.”

  Her face goes red. “It’s not! Don’t ever say that! Lissa and I … we love each other.”

  “That’s silly,” I say, a bit confused and not really sure what to say.

  “Girls can love other girls.”

  I know this. Of course I do. Girls can love girls, boys can love boys, a person can love girls and boys, Mom’s told me that. That’s not the point. I don’t want Kaydee loving anyone more than she loves me. It scares me. What would I do if she didn’t love me anymore? Kaydee has always been the one looking out for me. Always—everywhere we go. I don’t want her to be with Lissa. I want her to be with me, always. So I say, “I’m telling Mom.”

  Kaydee’s face goes angry. “Don’t you dare. This is my secret. I decide when I want Mom to know. I decide when to tell people. You keep your mouth shut.”

  “Or what?” I say. I’m angry now because she’s angry and I’m afraid.

  Kaydee looks at me, and her eyes are glaring, like they’re going to shoot lasers at me. For a moment, I wonder if maybe she can actually do that and I’m going to be fried on the spot, my brain melted. “Or I will take all your toys and throw them in the garbage,” she says. “And I will tear up all your paintings. And I will stamp on your earphones. And …” I brace myself for the horror she’s saved till last. “… And I will get Georgie out from the special secret place under your bed and tear her apart.”

  I cannot speak. My eyes fill with tears.

  Kaydee goes out of my room and shuts the door and I feel totally alone. Because Kaydee has often been angry around me—but she’s never been angry at me before.

  And I don’t understand what I’ve done wrong.

  … a day at school. A boy name Rowan started following me around. He called me Flat-Face and Slitty-Eyes and Big-Tongue, and lots of other mean things. The teachers told him to stop, but he just waited until they weren’t around and started doing it again. At lunchtime, I was crying, and one of my friends went and told Kaydee what was happening.

  Kaydee came swooping into my class in the middle of that afternoon’s lesson. She ignored the teacher and marched straight over to Rowan. “Are you the one who’s been bullying my sister?” she yelled.

  Rowan didn’t know who she was. “What are you talking about?” he said.

  Kaydee pointed at me. “That’s my sister, over there. Are you the one who’s been making her cry?”

  “I never touched her,” said Rowan.

  The teacher tried to interrupt, but Kaydee just turned around to her and said fiercely, “My sister is being bullied because she has Down syndrome, and this school is doing nothing to stop it. So I’m stopping it, right here, right now.”

  The teacher just stared at her. I don’t think she knew what to say. Kaydee faced Rowan again. She leaned forward and put her hands on his desk so that he had to lean back out of the way. “My sister is beautiful,” she hissed at him. “My sister has the kindest heart of anyone I know. My sister is a better person than you will ever be. Having Down syndrome doesn’t make her weird or ugly or stupid. It makes her extraordinary. Whereas you, small boy, will only ever be ordinary.”

  Then she turned and went out of the room, nodding at the teacher as she did so. She hadn’t come anywhere near me. But she didn’t need to. Because I felt her support like an enormous cushion around me, protecting me, holding me up. Her fiery anger blew everyone over that day. Rowan never dared speak to me again. I think he was even afraid to say sorry. And the other kids in the class knew that if anyone, ever, said anything horrible to me, my big sister, Kaydee, would destroy them.

  That’s how it’s always been.

  Chapter 13

  There’s a knock at the door, and Olly comes in without waiting for a reply. “Darby, have any spare batteries hidden in this cave of yours?” Then he stops. “Darby. Hello? Are you okay?” He waves a hand in front of my face.

  I can’t speak. I really, really want a hug. Olly isn’t a very huggy sort of person. But he is the only one here. So I reach out and put my arms around him and hold on very tight.

  He says, “Darby! Er … what are you doing? Um, this isn’t … er … All right, all right.” I don’t let go, so he has to sit down awkwardly next to me and put his arms around me too. It’s not as good as hugging Mom because Olly has more angles. And he doesn’t smell as nice. But it’s still better than sitting on my own, hurting, and so I hold on for quite a long time.

  “Is this about Kaydee and Lissa?” he says after a bit, in a gentle voice.

  I am very surprised. I pull back. “You know too!” I say. What a relief! Kaydee demanded that I didn’t tell Mom, but if Olly already knows, then I’m not breaking any rules by talking about it with him. “She shouted at me, Olly. Really shouted, and she said some horrible things.”

  “Aww, I’m sorry.” He pats my arm. “Did you get in the way?”

  “No,” I say, annoyed. “I wasn’t anywhere near them. I only went up to get the baskets for the chocolate hunt. They didn’t have to stop kissing.”

  He goes very still. “Wait … what? They were kissing?”

  “Yes,” I say.

  “Kaydee and Lissa,” he says.

  I nod.

  “Kaydee and Lissa … were kissing?” he says again.

  “Yes,” I say, “and I didn’t mean to make her mad, but she says they love each other, and that means she doesn’t love me anymore, and I don’t know what to do.” My lower lip starts to wobble.

  But Olly doesn’t put his arms around me again. Instead he stares at
the wall. “Kissing,” he says, in a voice that sounds kind of odd, like the inside of his mouth has been stung with nettles.

  “What about me?” I ask, and big fat tears start rolling down my cheeks.

  He stands up suddenly and kicks at the base of my bed. “I knew it,” he says. “I knew it.” Only there are rude words in between the other words. Then he turns his back on me and goes out of my room.

  I am not sure whether I am less or more upset than I was before. This conversation has been confusing. I have a good think about it.

  Mom asked me to be grown-up and responsible today.

  Kaydee told me not to tell Mom about her and Lissa.

  Olly is angry that Kaydee and Lissa were kissing. He’s angrier about that than the fact that she shouted at me. Maybe he thinks girls shouldn’t kiss other girls. Some people think it’s wrong.

  None of this thinking has helped me understand anything better.

  I get some tissues and blow my nose and wipe my face. And then there’s a kind of pop from somewhere downstairs, and the light comes on. There’s a joyful shout from Kaydee’s room, and I hear Olly say, “Finally!”

  That is a relief. If the electricity is on, I can play my music videos.

  But I don’t feel like dancing. I don’t feel like anything really. I want to hide in bed and not talk to anyone or do anything.

  Come on, Darby, I say to myself. You’re not being grown-up and responsible about this. Who cares about stupid Kaydee and stupid Olly and even more stupid Lissa? Pull yourself together!

  I grab my painting-by-numbers and my iPod and go downstairs to the kitchen table. I put on the overhead light, and the room feels warmer already. Then I sit down at the table, put in my earphones, and start doing my painting. Pike jumps onto the table too and sits next to my paint pots. Cherry, in his basket, gets up and walks over to me. Then he lies down on my feet. He is quite a big dog and very warm. Soon my toes are toasty warm.