by Cotterill
As I paint, I sing along to my music. I have lots of really good songs on my iPod, and I know all the words. Every now and then I put out a hand to stroke Pike. He has very soft black fur. He purrs and nudges my hand while I’m painting. Pike has no worries. All he wants is food and rubs. Cherry is the same. Animals have it easy.
… when I was young I learned a song about animals at a fair. Which is weird because you don’t get animals at a fair, you get them at a circus. Or sometimes not even there. Kaydee says circus animals are badly treated, which is sad.
The animals in the song were doing non-animal things. There was a baboon combing his hair, which isn’t very likely because baboons don’t have hairbrushes or hairdressers. They pick fleas out of their fur and eat them, which is totally disgusting. And in the song a monkey fell out of a bunk bed and nobody knows what happened to him. And an elephant sneezes, and I don’t know if elephants can sneeze or not. They have very long noses, so maybe if they do sneeze, it’s extra loud. I remember Kaydee asking Mom what had happened to the monkey, and Mom said with a smile that maybe the elephant fell on him and squashed him.
That poor monkey! I was so upset that I refused to sing the song ever again. And I haven’t. I keep my promises.
Monica comes in, which takes me by surprise. She works on the farm. I like Monica: she has very black hair and eyebrows and she smiles a lot. I pause my music. “Hi, Darby,” she says. “Seen your mom?”
“Out on site,” I say.
Monica rolls her eyes. “I keep missing her! She said she was coming back to the house, but she must have been held up.” She sighs. “I need to sit. Is it okay if I make a cup of tea?”
It’s a bit like this in our house. People wander in and out and have cups of tea. I like Monica and I’d like some company, so I say, “Yeah,” and she fills up the kettle.
“Thank goodness the electricity is back on, eh?” she says, nodding. When she’s made her cup of tea, she sits down at the table. “How are you today, Darby?” she asks.
I shrug. “Fine.”
She laughs. “You must be the only one. Everyone on the farm is in a … what’s that? … right tizzy. A right tizzy.” She smiles. Monica isn’t English but she loves collecting English sayings.
“Your hair is all tangled,” I say to her.
She reaches up to it. “I know. Nightmare. It is the wind. I should wear a hat. Or a bonnet. Or shave it all off, what do you think, eh?”
The thought of Monica with a shaved head makes me smile. “You would look like an alien.”
“An alien!” She sits back in her chair and chuckles. “Yes! Like E.T.!”
… watching E.T. It’s a movie about a short brown alien who comes to Earth and gets left behind by mistake. He meets a boy who becomes friends with him and hides him in his closet (which is like a wardrobe but you wouldn’t find Narnia at the back of it because the book’s not called The Lion, the Witch and the Closet). I liked the parts with the children, but I found E.T. really gross. He’s all wrinkly and poo-colored and talks funny. And his finger lights up, like it’s got a flashlight inside it. I wouldn’t want him in my closet.
Monica would look nothing like E.T. I was thinking of the other kinds of aliens, the ones that have smooth gray skin and long, thin bodies and huge black eyes. Olly has a poster of them on his wall. But explaining all of that to her seems like too much of an effort, so instead I just nod and say, “Yeah.”
“Can I see your painting?” she asks, leaning forward.
I turn it around so that it’s facing her. It’s a picture of a circus, with a big top and clowns and an elephant and some excited people in the audience, and children laughing.
Monica smiles. “That’s beautiful, Darby. You are very clever.”
“I just put the paint where it tells me to,” I say. “It’s simple.”
“You would be surprised,” she says, “how often people don’t understand something simple. Just follow an instruction.” She sighs, and the smile fades away.
I look at her. Monica has been smiling and laughing, but I think maybe she’s only pretending to be happy. I reach over the table and put my hand on top of hers. “You look sad,” I say.
She glances at me, surprised. Then she takes my hand and squeezes it. “You’re clever in lots of ways, Darby. I am sad. I’m sad when your parents are worried. They are good people. They look after their workers. And they do not deserve this.”
I nod, wondering what she means by “this.” Does she mean the storm?
Monica holds my hand with both of hers. It is like my hand is in a cozy nest. Cherry is still on my feet. I am warm all over. “Sometimes it is hard to know what God has in mind for us.”
Monica is a big believer in God. She prays every morning and every evening, and sometimes at other times too. She believes that God controls the weather. Dad doesn’t think this because he doesn’t believe in God. But then he says he checks the National Weather Service updates “religiously,” which is a bit odd. I don’t know what I think.
I stop listening to Monica because I’m thinking about the satellites and whether they bump into God up there above the Earth. But it doesn’t matter because Monica has bowed her head and is mouthing some words. I’m pretty sure she’s praying. When she’s finished, she lifts her head and smiles at me, and then she says, “It’s a great comfort to know someone is listening.”
I am not sure if she is talking about me or God—and if she is talking about me, then she is wrong, because I wasn’t listening.
I want to tell Monica about Kaydee. But she gets up, letting go of my hand, and says, “I’d better get back to work. Tell your mom I’ll see her later.” She drinks the last of her tea and smiles again. “After the storm comes the sun, eh, Darby?”
I smile back, but she’s not right because the sun doesn’t always come out after a storm. Sometimes all you’re left with is a big mess that needs clearing up, and it’s still gray and miserable.
Chapter 14
By the time Mom comes back, I have finished three pictures, even though Pike kept distracting me by nudging my hand. One of the pictures has a cat paw print on it, which is a bit of a shame. Cherry got up when I had to go to the bathroom and he went back to his basket, so my feet are cold again. Butter, our other dog, is always out on the farm. He’s a springer spaniel, and he’s got more energy than Cherry. If he sat on me, it would only be for about two seconds.
“Darby!” says Mom, coming over and giving me a hug. “How are you, love? Oh, look at your beautiful paintings! You crafty thing.”
“Pike tried to help,” I say, showing her the paw print.
Mom laughs. “As long as it was his paw and not his bum.”
“He was cleaning his bottom on the table again,” I say.
Mom screws up her nose. “And people say cats are such good pets. How revolting. I’ll spray the table. Make sure you wash your hands. It’s kind of chilly, don’t you think?”
“My feet are cold,” I tell her.
“Why don’t you run upstairs and get an extra pair of socks? I’ll put the heat on. In the meantime, I’m going to make some soup. Can you tell Olly and the girls that lunch will be in five minutes?”
The girls. That’s what she usually calls me and Kaydee. Now it’s Kaydee and Lissa, and where does that leave me?
I go up and knock on Olly’s door. “What?” he grunts.
“Lunch in five,” I say through the door.
He grunts again. I’m not sure if that means he’s coming down or not.
I don’t want to go up to Kaydee’s room because I am afraid she will shout at me again. So I call up the stairs, “Lunch in five!” and then go to my room before they can reply.
I pull on my biggest and warmest sweater, and I put on another pair of socks. Our house is usually quite warm, but when there’s a storm, the wind seems to find all the little gaps in the door and window frames. I hear the clunk of the heating as Mom switches it on.
I set the table for Mom and pu
t cheese and bread and butter out too. She chatters at me. “There’s not too much damage after all that noise last night. The wind caught one of the greenhouses and bent the frame. Your dad’s working as fast as he can to get the plastic off the rest of the greenhouses. Juris has called in all his friends to help. There’s another storm forecast for tonight. Can you believe this weather? Thank goodness the electricity is back on. They’re good, the engineers, but they have to prioritize. Old people’s homes are more important than our fruit. Though if we lose the crops … Well, let’s hope that doesn’t happen. Too many people depend on us. Have to keep fighting, don’t we? We’ll get through this somehow … Monica told me she’d popped in to see you earlier.”
I nod.
“She’s a diamond, that woman,” Mom goes on. “I hope she can stay. She’s got family problems back home. She’s one in a million; we’d never find anyone like her if she and Gregor had to go.”
Mom sometimes forgets that I don’t follow fast talking very easily. She keeps going, but I got lost somewhere between “greenhouses” and “fruit.” I sit down at the table and wait.
There are footsteps on the stairs, and Kaydee and Lissa come in. I don’t want to look at them. I am afraid that Kaydee is still angry with me. They are laughing and chatting and asking if the electricity will stay on.
“I don’t know,” Mom says in reply. “How long is a piece of string?”
This is a weird thing grown-ups say when you ask them a question they can’t answer. I don’t know what string has to do with anything. Maybe it’s because string can get tangled and so can conversations.
… playing with string in the yard with Pike. I dangled it in front of his nose and he batted it with his paws. It made me laugh, and I waved it around in the air, and Pike tried to catch the end of the string as it went past him, and I bent down to tease him, and he swiped at the string with his paw, and he scratched me right across one cheek. It stung a lot and I had two red scratches on my face when I went to school the next day. I told people the cat had scratched me and they all looked shocked. And the teacher was extra nice to me because I had a hurt face, and Leila even let me borrow her nicest pen.
Kaydee sits down next to me, which makes me nervous. Is she going to shout again, or is she going to pretend that nothing happened? She doesn’t look at me, but she does say, “Hey, Darby,” and then keeps talking to Mom. I think she is going to pretend everything is fine, which means I have to pretend too. I am not very good at pretending.
Olly comes in and he is even worse at pretending than I am. I can see by his face when he looks at Kaydee that he is still furious. His eyes are red too, like he’s been crying. Maybe he feels as sad as I do that Kaydee loves Lissa. He sits down next to me, and I reach to hold his hand, because I want to let him know that I understand—but he snatches it away and says, “Pass the butter.”
It is a funny meal. It’s like the Magic Eye picture that Dad put up on the landing. It looks like squiggles, but if you look at it long enough, you start to see a picture beneath the squiggles. I can’t do it—my eyes don’t work like that—but this meal is like those pictures. Like we are a lot of squiggles but there’s a hidden picture underneath. We are a kaleidoscope of people, sitting and talking to each other, the conversation shifting and changing into different patterns, and everyone is not quite looking at each other, not quite laughing.
It is a table of not quite people. All squiggly.
I can’t see the pattern underneath but I know it’s there.
Chapter 15
I think if Mom weren’t so worried about the farm, she might have noticed something’s wrong with all of us. But her eyes keep sliding to the windows, and she tries to butter her cheese instead of her bread, so I don’t think she’s really paying attention.
“Darby,” says Olly unexpectedly, “want to play a game after?”
I blink. “After what?”
“After lunch,” he says, like I’m an idiot.
“Oh.” I can’t remember the last time Olly asked me if I wanted to play a game. I am a bit confused. “What game?”
He shrugs. “I dunno.”
“That’s a nice idea,” Mom says. “Maybe all four of you could play together.”
There is a sharp silence, like the split second after someone has smashed a glass on the floor.
“It’s a two-player game,” says Olly.
“You just said you didn’t know what you were going to play,” Kaydee says.
“You’ve got your own two-player game going on,” Olly says, and his voice sounds hard and cold, like ice.
Mom doesn’t notice that they’re glaring at each other. She is clearing away the bowls and looking out of the window again.
Kaydee turns to me. “Thanks for nothing, Darby.” Then she gets up and leaves the room. Lissa goes after her.
I burst into tears. Olly puts his arm around me. “Sorry, Darbs,” he says.
Mom says, “Oh gosh, Darby, what’s the matter?” She fetches the tissue box and comes to sit on the other side of me.
I can’t tell her. It’s a secret. I wasn’t supposed to tell Olly, I see that. I made a mistake. Now Kaydee thinks that I can’t be trusted. I have to prove that I can still keep secrets, which means I can’t tell Mom. Not now, not ever.
“It’s not your fault,” Olly says.
“What’s not her fault?” asks Mom, passing me another tissue.
Olly hesitates and looks at me. He can’t tell! “Kaydee and Lissa,” he says slowly, “are best friends. Darby feels left out.”
“Oh, sweetheart!” Mom reaches out to hug me. “Darling, we’ve talked about this. Kaydee will always be your sister. She will always love you. But she is allowed to have other people in her life. People her own age, who have the same interests as her.”
Olly makes a kind of snorting noise, and then he coughs straight after to make it sound like an accident.
“You and Kaydee can spend all of Monday together when Lissa goes,” Mom says. “Why don’t I drop you in town next week and you can go bowling, just the two of you?”
I love bowling. I nod quite hard.
“There.” Mom kisses me on the head. “Oh dear, I don’t want to leave you if you’re upset. But I really ought to go out again.”
“I’ll look after Darby,” Olly says, and I nearly fall off my chair in surprise.
“I thought you were joking,” I say.
He looks offended. “I’m not joking. You can play Spooky Manor with me if you like.”
Spooky Manor is a game we can play on the TV using the controllers. It’s awesome, all about finding jewels in a haunted house. I smile at him. “Cool!”
There’s another PTCHOO! and the lights go out again.
Mom lets out a very, very big sigh. “Oh no, I don’t believe it. That’s just typical.”
“There goes Spooky Manor,” I say. I should have known. This is a Bad Day. This is not one of those days where Nice Things Surprise You.
“Sorry, Darbs,” says Olly. “Er … what do you want to do instead?”
Mom reaches over and ruffles Olly’s hair, which I know he hates. “You are a good boy,” she says. “I’ve got to go out. Your dad will be going crazy over this. I bet the vents are jammed open now—that’ll be disastrous if the wind picks up again.” She stands, shaking her head. “Sometimes I think we must be crazy to do this …”
I have an idea. “I want to build a fort,” I say.
… when Kaydee and I were much, much younger, we used to build forts all the time. Sometimes in the yard, but mostly indoors. The house was smaller then, before Dad built the extension. The living room was the same size, though, and Kaydee and I used to bring all the spare sheets down and drape them over the chairs and anything else we could find to make a kind of tent. Then we would crawl underneath with flashlights and bags of chips and tell each other stories and sing songs.
And very, very occasionally, Mom would let us sleep in the fort, all the way through the night. And t
hose were the best nights ever.
Chapter 16
Olly is actually better than Kaydee at building a fort because last year he took an engineering class and so he knows about structure and bridges and things. At least, this is what he says. He even has this idea about suspending sheets from the ceiling using a rope-and-pulley system. He says it will be amazing.
But it’s slower than building a fort with Kaydee, to be honest, and I get a bit impatient because it’s taking so long. “Hurry up,” I say.
Olly is really into it. “Can you get me the clothespins, Darby? And some string.”
I sigh. “Olleeeee.”
“Go on. This is going to be the best den ever, I promise.”
I go and get the clothespins and the string. “Cool!” says Olly. “Stand here, and hold this …”
I stare out of the window as I hold one corner of a sheet. Outside, the sky is full of chasing clouds, bumping into each other. I bet clouds don’t like storms. Storms are loud and pushy and shoot lightning. I bet clouds get scared. No wonder they’re all running away.
“Darby!” Olly interrupts my thoughts. “Don’t do that talking-to-yourself thing. It’s weird.”
I sigh again.
And then Olly says, “All right, you can let go … Ta-da!”
And he pulls on the string, and the sheet canopy lifts up off the ground like a big white parachute, leaving just enough space to crawl under. “Whoa!” I say. And then I dive underneath, yelping and whooping, and Olly does the same, and it’s like we’re little kids again, shouting while we play, “Pirates boarding the starboard side!” and, “Pass the space blaster!” Olly pretends he’s firing a huge gun, with a really good explosion noise, and I fight off the pirates with a sword (well, a bent dog chew) and we put one of those lights that stands up by itself underneath and make shadow shapes with our hands on the sheets. Both of us get louder and louder until Olly stands up suddenly and says, “I know where Dr. Death is!” and hits his head on the mantelpiece and collapses, swearing.