Beneath the Distant Star

by Lisa Shambrook

  Amber grabbed her hand to examine it. She turned it over and studied it. “But it’s not your blood,” she said.

  “She still bit me!” cried Tayla.

  Mr Reinholdt was pale. He stared speechless at his feral pupils. “Tayla, sit down,” he said, suddenly finding his feet and his voice, and moving towards the two girls. “Tayla, you’re not bleeding. Jasmine, you need to go to the office and get that seen to.”

  Jasmine shook her head, not understanding. “Get what seen to?” she asked.

  “Your neck,” he said, “You’ve got a cut on your neck, and it’s bleeding. Go and get it seen to. Lori, go with her.”

  “Yes, Sir.” Lori cast a horrified glance around the class, but she stood up and moved towards Jasmine.

  “I can go myself!” she cried, touching her neck and feeling sticky warmth on her fingers.

  The classroom door opened. Mr Harvey stood in the doorway. “Would anyone like to explain what’s going on in here? I could hear the ruckus from the other end of the corridor!”

  Mr Reinholdt looked subdued and Amber spoke for him.

  “Jasmine started a fight!” she exclaimed. “She bit Tayla!”

  “It was both of them…” began Mr Reinholdt. “No more one than the other…”

  “Then I’ll take both of them off your hands,” said Mr Harvey.

  Lori quickly took her seat with relief flooding her face.

  “Jasmine will need that cut on her neck seeing to,” offered Mr Reinholdt, gesturing anxiously.

  “They’re both going to get seen to,” said Mr Harvey. “Now!”

  Tayla jumped out of her seat, grabbing her bag. Jasmine stuffed her book into hers and followed as Mr Harvey ordered them out of the classroom.

  “Follow me, and keep up!” he told them.

  “She bit me!” whined Tayla.

  “Not a word!” Mr Harvey barked.

  Jasmine slunk up the stairs to her room with a heavy scowl on her face, leaving Mum sitting in the lounge with tears on hers. Mum had stayed silent all the way home in the car. Jasmine wasn’t sure she wanted to know what was running through her mother’s head. As they’d reached the last traffic lights before home, a tear had slipped down Mum’s cheek and she’d wiped it hurriedly away with her white knuckled fist. She’d pulled up beside the house and sat for a moment, almost as if she was going to speak, but nothing had escaped her thin lips and then she’d got out of the car without a backward glance at her daughter.

  Jasmine closed her bedroom door. Her rage had subsided and she felt empty as she sank down onto her bed. Light rain decorated her window and a lacklustre breeze rippled through the trees. She moved to her desk and bent to her mirror, examining the cuts on her neck. Tayla’s well-manicured nails had indeed sliced into her skin, leaving three red welts an inch or two long across her collarbone. She winced and carefully picked at a loose piece of skin. She sighed and wiped away a tiny drop of ruby-red blood that rose against her pale flesh. Her stomach grumbled and she realised that it wasn’t even noon.

  She opened her desk drawer and rummaged, digging beneath papers and books and stuff…until she grasped a foil wrapper. The chocolate bar was going to have to last, because she didn’t plan on going downstairs at any time in the near future.

  She spent the next few hours engrossed in her words, which was much more fun than geography or maths.

  It had stopped raining the next time she glanced up at the window. Raindrops still adorned the glass, but the sunshine fought to glow. She glanced at her watch. School was finished and her stomach complained again. She put down her pen and gazed at the shafts of light filtering down through the grey cloud. The chance of a rainbow killed off her train of thought and left her mind as empty as her belly.

  She shook her head and closed her notebook then noticed movement down in the field. She knew immediately it was Thomas; his hair shone in the rays, the glorious colour of rust. For a moment she considered climbing out of her window, but the day’s events warned her against it. Thomas trailed the edge of the field, looking up at her window once he was close enough. She waved and gesticulated until he nodded.

  She inhaled deeply and grabbed her jacket, then thumped down the stairs two at a time. She paused at the lounge door then peered around it. The room was empty and kitchen sounds came from the next door. She wandered nonchalantly into the kitchen.

  “Hi Mum,” she said.

  “Jasmine,” replied her mum.

  “Is that dinner?” she asked, running her hand along the dining table.

  “I wouldn’t know what else it would be,” said Mum. “Are you off out to see Thomas?”

  Jasmine grinned, despite herself. “How did you know?”

  “He’s been hovering outside the back of the garden for a couple of minutes. Making lots of strange hand signals up to your bedroom window…”

  “Then, yes, if that’s okay?”

  Mum nodded.

  Jasmine spun on her heel, and Mum spoke again. “Listen Jaz, I know things haven’t been easy, but, look, just think of others for a bit.” Jasmine was about to fire off a retort, but Mum continued. “I was talking to Jen the other day and Thomas hasn’t had it easy either lately. She’s worried, so don’t upset him.”

  “I’d never upset him!” Jasmine was indignant.

  “I know, I know you’d never mean it, but...oh, don’t worry, it’ll work itself out.”

  “So what’s going on with him?” asked Jasmine.

  Mum sighed. “He’s been quiet, something about school, but he won’t talk to Jen.” She waved her hand and refused to elaborate. “It’ll be fine.”

  Jasmine frowned. “I’m not going to upset him.” She shook her head and opened the back door. “We’ll be up in the field.” She harrumphed and closed the door behind her.

  She jogged down the garden path and joined Thomas at the gate. His grin, the one she loved, burst forth spreading across his face, and his eyes lit up. “Hey, Buddy,” she punched him lightly on his shoulder. “How’s you?”

  He laughed and they set off along their usual path through the long grass. Neither spoke. As they reached the tree stump, Jasmine cast a sideways glance at Thomas. He looked subdued. She reached out and playfully punched his shoulder again. “You okay?”

  He nodded and climbed onto the stump. He stood there staring out across the field, his eyes crinkled as the sun rested on him. There was something wrong, but Jasmine couldn’t tell what. His chin wobbled and he turned away.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  He shrugged his shoulders. “I’m okay.”

  “No, you’re not.” Jasmine moved around the stump, and he twisted around again. She grabbed his shoulders and turned him towards her. To her shock a plump tear rolled down his cheek and dropped onto his fleece. He pulled away and flipped his hood up and over his head. He grabbed the cords and tightened the hood around his face.

  “Thomas!” Jasmine took his arm and pulled him off the tree stump. “Talk to me,” she insisted.

  He clumsily wiped his face, and his forehead creased as he tried to stop himself from crying.

  “Thomas!” she said, “Tell me!”

  He shook his head.

  “Thomas, stop being a baby and tell me!”

  “I’m not a baby!” he shouted and pulled away.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, “I didn’t mean that.”

  “I know.”

  “You’re not a baby.”

  “So don’t call me one!” He narrowed his eyes.

  Jasmine’s eyebrows lifted and she shook her head. “I said I was sorry. You gonna tell me what’s wrong?”

  Thomas loosened his hood and pushed it back. His ginger hair stood up at the front, tousled and golden in the light. “Aunty Joan’s not well.”

  Jasmine frowned. Aunty Joan, she didn’t have an Aunty Joan.

  “You know, from church.”

  “Oh, Joan, Joan Hillman.” She hadn’t been to church in a while, nor had her mother.


  He nodded vigorously. “She’s like my Aunty.”

  Jasmine smiled. “She’ll be okay, she always is.” Jasmine had a soft spot for old Joan Hillman, everyone did. “She’s like a hundred and ten…”

  “Ninety-nine,” interrupted Thomas.

  “She’ll go on forever Tommy, she’ll be fine.”

  “I’m named after her husband, he died.”

  “Is that what’s troubling you?” she asked.

  He nodded. “She’s really sick.”

  “Old people get sick, it doesn’t mean they’re going to die,” she told him.

  “It might.”

  She nodded and shrugged. “It might, you’re right. You never know when someone’s going to die.” She glanced pensively down at her house. “People die all the time…but that doesn’t mean old Joan will. I’ll go with you to see her if you want.”

  Thomas nodded.

  “So, anything else worrying you?” she asked. Thomas shook his head, but Jasmine wasn’t convinced. “Nothing? Really?”

  He pulled the hood back over his head again and closed his eyes. He was a sensitive soul, nothing like she was, but it broke her heart to see him so upset. Her mothering instinct took over and she pulled him close. She wrapped her arms around her cousin and held him.

  A few minutes later he pulled away and she met his eyes. An imprint of a zip from her leather jacket marked his freckled cheek and dirty trails from tears ran alongside. He sniffed noisily and rubbed his eyes with his sleeve.

  “I’m okay.”

  “Don’t lie to me,” said Jasmine, “There’s more to this than just old Joan.”

  He stared at the ground. “You called me a baby…”

  “I know, I’m sorry, I was just annoyed you didn’t answer.”

  “We don’t have to answer you straight away, you know. I don’t have to answer you at all!” he said with uncharacteristic vitriol.

  She frowned. “No, you don’t if you don’t want to.”

  “You can be a bully sometimes.”

  Again her eyebrows rose. “Me?”

  He nodded.

  “Cheers for that,” she huffed.

  “Yeah, well…”

  “Well, what?”

  “Well, you’re not the only one…”

  “The only what?” Annoyance tinged her voice.

  “The only bully out there.”

  “Okay, do you want to put this into English before I get fed up?”

  “You’re not the only one to call me a baby.”

  “Who else does? I’ll kill them!” she cried, her eyes flashing.

  “A couple of girls at school.”

  “Who are they? I will kill them!”

  He chuckled at her indignation. “Yeah, and that’s why I won’t tell you who they are!”

  “That’s hardly fair!” she protested, “Why do they need protection when they’re bullying you?”

  “From you!” he grinned.

  “Fair enough.” She shrugged.

  “I heard about today.” He caught her eye.

  She sighed. “I don’t think it’s my fault. They goad me.”

  “Are you suspended?”

  “For another day. They didn’t blame me entirely, after all she scratched me badly too, look.” She pulled down her collar to show him her abrasion.

  “Ow!” he sympathised. “Aunty Rachel’s mad then?”

  “Um, yes…”

  “I know. I heard Mum and Dad talking about you and how much it was upsetting Aunty Rachel.”

  Jasmine bit her lip, she wasn’t sure she liked being talked about. “She’ll get over it.”

  “Will you?”

  “I thought we were talking about you. You need to stand up to the bullies.” She looked at him sternly. “I don’t care if they’re girls, or boys, you should stand up for yourself. If you don’t they’ll make your life hell.”

  He shook his head and shrugged. “I’ll get over it.” He sniffed again and wiped his nose on his sleeve.

  The sun dipped behind a cloud and before they knew it rain began pelting down. “C’mon!” Jasmine grabbed Thomas. “Back to mine, we’ll sort out your life there!”

  The bluebells did blossom in time.

  Jasmine woke early and watched her mother trudge down the garden. It was raining, an early morning shower, and Mum walked down the path to the apple tree. The garden still sat in the gloom as a pink blush appeared over the horizon. Jasmine peered around her curtain, not wanting to interrupt her mother’s private ritual.

  At the apple tree, her mother sank down to the dewy grass and began gently plucking fresh bluebells. She touched each stem, carefully moving it away from the cluster, examining the delicate bells and choosing the best flowered stems to pull. There wasn’t a strong showing this year and Jasmine watched as she left some flowers still tightly in buds and only picked the open blossoms. She had collected a paltry handful when Jasmine’s attention was diverted.

  Out of the corner of her eye, in the semi-darkness, someone moved in next door’s garden. Not worrying about concealment, she lifted the curtain more and squinted. Their elderly neighbour, Daisy, wandered down her own garden, in fluffy slippers. Jasmine’s eyebrow rose. Daisy shuffled quietly towards a crop of bluebells beneath her hedge and bent to pick some. She moved slowly and definitely, choosing the best flowers as Jasmine’s mother did in her garden. Daisy’s bluebells filled her frail hands as she painfully straightened her back and stood.

  Jasmine glanced back at her mum and saw her brush tears away with her sleeve. Her mum held the small bunch of flowers against her chest as she crouched beneath the tree.

  In the still of the burgeoning morning, Daisy’s soft murmur could be heard even by Jasmine through her window as it travelled across the fence. Her mum looked up and turned to the fence. She saw the flowers in Daisy’s hands and more tears fell. She got to her feet and moved to the fence. The two women grasped hands and Daisy offered her flowers to enhance the grieving woman’s own bouquet.

  Jasmine suddenly felt hot tears course down her face as memories flooded back. She remembered standing at that very fence handing bunches of flowers to her elderly neighbour. She recalled posies of daffodils, huge yellow trumpets and thick stems; bunches of freesias, purple, red, yellow and white, with long stems and broken stems; clusters of sweet peas, filling the air with scent and colour; late bouquets of bright blue cornflowers, bright red montbretia and heady purple lavender; and as today, limp bunches of bluebells, interspersed with pink and white ones…

  The memories swamped her and emotions rose. Warm and choking moments of pride, memories of a small girl gifting her neighbour battered bunches of flowers to continue a tradition set by her lost sister threatened to undo her, and a sob welled up with her tears.

  Jasmine remembered Daisy’s gratitude every time she handed her flowers; she treated each tatty bunch as if they were bouquets from a florist. She and her husband, Donald, had become like grandparents, especially since her father’s parents lived so far away and her mother’s father had died not long after Freya. She still saw her maternal grandmother, but she now lived in a retirement home, so visits were more fleeting.

  When she was about five, Jasmine had turned up on Daisy’s doorstep with flowers, a bunch of summer roses and Donald had thrown white feathers all over her and opened the door with a ‘Quack’ and a grin. Though Mum had explained the joke, it wasn’t until she was much older that she’d understood the hilarity of Donald and Daisy. Beneath the old man’s quiet sense of humour had lain a love of Donald Duck and all things related, to the point that Jasmine had once wondered if he’d married Daisy just because of her name!

  For a moment Jasmine thought about Donald and grinned. She had vague memories of white feathers and snowflakes, and dancing amid the two, but she could never quite place it.

  She hadn’t given Daisy flowers for years, not even when her husband had passed away a few years ago. A mixture of sorrow and shame overwhelmed her as she watched Daisy hand over h
er bluebells. Her mother leaned across the fence and laid her head on Daisy’s shoulder. The old woman patted her back as they embraced.

  Jasmine roughly wiped away her tears and shivered. She could imagine the words exchanged between the women as they comforted each other. Understanding and empathy rose from them, glowing, as dawn lightened the sky and chased away the rain. She watched the couple as Daisy released her mum and more words were shared. Daisy nodded and Mum buried her face in the posy in her hands. Then Daisy shuffled slowly back down her garden and home again.

  Mum stood alone in the garden turning her face towards the sky, staring out across the field, and daylight stirred dismissing the gloom and tinging the soft white clouds in scarlet. She stood silent, clasping the bluebells to her chest then she smoothed down her jeans, ruffled her hair and disappeared inside.

  Jasmine listened as the back door clicked shut, and a few minutes later the front door quietly closed behind her mother. She stood for a moment then heard the light patter of rain again. She pulled back the curtain and gasped.

  The first rays of golden sunshine burst through the clouds and a bow of colours arced from the far horizon, high up into the morning sky.

  Jasmine pulled on her jeans and t-shirt, grabbed her jacket and slipped on her boots, not even doing them up. She raced down the stairs and flung open the front door. She stared wildly up and down the street, but Mum was already gone.

  Did she see it? Did she see the rainbow? Half of her wanted to pursue her mother down the road and point at the rainbow, the other half wanted to banish it from the sky altogether!

  She half-heartedly ran down the path and stared down the road, but there was no sign of movement, of anyone. Instead she glanced up at the roof. The rainbow cut across the chimney pots, fading fast as the clouds descended once more. Rain spotted the pavement, the sun gave way to the clouds, and the rainbow vanished as quickly as it had appeared.

  Gloom filled her soul and she saw her parents’ bedroom curtain move. Dad gazed out of the window at her with a worried expression on his face. She shook her head and hurried inside as the rain began to darken the pavement. She flew back upstairs to her father waiting at his bedroom door.