A Map of the Sky

by Claire Wong

  “You know, there’s a place not far from here called Robin Hood’s Bay.”

  “Did he live there?”

  “Hard to say. Most likely not. But the story goes that he defended the coast from pirates who came to plunder the poor fishermen’s earnings and steal their boats.”

  “When is your baby due?” asked Juliet. She would think to ask that kind of question, of course. Kit had never thought of it.

  “Due date’s a month tomorrow. Not that you ever really know for certain when they’re going to arrive. Now, Juliet. Tell me about you.”

  Juliet looked down at her hands. “I’m fifteen. Nearly sixteen – my birthday’s in two weeks. I’ve just finished my GCSEs. Next year I want to take French, History, Geography, and Physics at St Jude’s.”

  “And what are you really good at?”

  “Um, not much.” She shrugged and moved over to the window. The grasses had not been cut back in weeks and were bobbing their heads in the sea breeze.

  “That’s not true!” Kit contradicted her. “She always gets full marks in everything. Except for drama.”

  “Right, so you’re clever and humble with it,” said Beth. She set down the rough version of the map so that Juliet had her full attention. “Well, tell me what you like doing instead.”

  “I enjoy… well, I used to go out shopping with my friends on the weekend. But now they’re all in London and I’m here. We stayed in touch every day at the start of the summer, but lately I’ve not heard so much from them. I think they’re realizing that I’m not coming back.” She sighed and leaned against the windowsill.

  “Do you miss them?”

  “Some of them.” Juliet sounded surprisingly measured in her response. Kit had assumed, given how much time she had been spending on her phone, that she must desperately miss all of her class and be trying to stay in contact with them at every moment. “A couple of the girls in my year were really nice. But it’s actually quite good, not having to think about the group all the time. Mum and Dad think they were a bad influence and that it’s better for me to be away from them.”

  Kit made a mental note to ask Beth what her secret was that people were immediately comfortable talking to her. This was more information than Kit had got out of his sister all summer.

  “The people we spend time with can have a big impact on us,” said Beth. “What have you been doing to entertain yourself this summer without them?”

  “Listening to music mostly. I haven’t been able to practise my piano for ages; it’s been in storage while we moved. I’m supposed to be doing my Grade Seven as soon as Mum finds a local teacher. But I can still listen to stuff while I’m revising. I guess it’s good that there’s so much work to do. I’m not as inventive as Kit; I don’t have a ‘quest’ to keep me occupied.”

  “What quest is this?”

  “You know – helping you with your map. He’s rescuing the damsel in distress, one grid reference at a time.”

  Beth looked over to Kit, who suddenly felt embarrassed. True, he had thought of the map as his mission, and even discussed it with Juliet, but he had never told Beth about his efforts to save her from a life of solitude or from whatever horrible plans he suspected Sean was hatching. Beth’s large, searching eyes seemed to take in all this in her calm way. He looked down to avoid her gaze.

  “I can see why you liked those Camelot books so much now. I think helping me with my map is a very noble quest.”

  Kit raised his head in surprise. Beth wasn’t angry with him. But she hadn’t finished yet.

  “But there’s one thing I think you’ve got mixed up. In the legends, the person who gives the hero the commission or quest isn’t usually the princess who needs rescuing, is it? It’s the wise sorcerer.”

  He thought about this. Beth was right: it was Merlin who pointed Arthur towards Excalibur. And it was Athene, goddess of wisdom, who gave Odysseus all he needed to claim back his home.

  “So you see, Kit, I’m not really a damsel in a tower, despite appearances. You don’t need to worry about saving me from anything. But I’m very impressed and grateful for how well you’ve responded to this quest to fill in the map. If I had a magic staff, I’d probably conjure up a reward for you.” She picked up a paintbrush and waved it with an overly dramatic flourish. “Just bear in mind that sometimes the people who need our help the most aren’t the ones who look ill or desperate. Sometimes you can be a hero by spotting those closer to home who just need some kindness and encouragement to help them out from under a cloud.”

  It made sense. Beth was wise, and sometimes didn’t say everything very clearly, just like the way wizards always spoke in riddles. Kit could accept that. But then she didn’t know what Sean had been saying behind her back. Besides, a hero had to save someone. It didn’t have to be a princess necessarily, but it had to be someone. Otherwise how would anyone know he was a hero, and not just any old character?

  He frowned over this as they left Askfeld. Though it had turned out well in the end, he wished Juliet had not said anything to Beth. He made this known as soon as they were outside.

  “I hadn’t told anyone else about it being a quest to help Beth. Only you knew that. What if she doesn’t want to be friends with me now she knows?”

  He waited for his sister to say he was overreacting, that it was his own fault for not making clear that the quest was a secret. Instead, Juliet’s eyes widened and she chewed her lower lip. When she replied, her face was full of worry.

  “I didn’t think of that. I thought you told Beth everything – you have all these secrets together like the map. I’m sorry. That was really stupid of me.”

  She was so downcast, Kit jumped to reassure her that it was not the end of the world. After all, Beth had coped with him bothering her on bad pain days, running into out-of-bounds rooms, and bombarding her with questions about her illness. She would probably let this most recent mistake slide too. It had no effect on his sister, who stared at a scuff mark on her shoe and mumbled apologetically.

  “I can’t believe I was so thoughtless. I didn’t mean any harm by it.”

  She was starting to annoy Kit, so he changed the subject. Did Juliet know anything about puffins? Bert had told him the scientific name for them, but he could not quite remember it. He tried to impress her with albatross facts instead. They began the walk across Askfeld’s grounds, towards the path.

  There was a bang and a shout. Juliet jumped out of her despondency in surprise.

  “What’s that? Is someone hurt?”

  Kit shook his head. “I know what that was. Come on!”

  He ran off in the opposite direction from the house, as his sister shouted in protest after him.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  DRIFTWOOD

  POSSIBLE REASONS WHY MADDIE IS SO ANGRY WITH EVERYONE:

  1. She’s from another country and we’ve accidentally offended her without knowing it (like how Beth’s mum didn’t mean to seem like she hated me).

  2. Something bad happened to her. Maybe she was attacked by robbers on her way here, but when she arrived at Askfeld, Sean and the others refused to help or call the police.

  3. She’s thought of somewhere that would have been a better place to go on a pilgrimage to and is cross that it’s too late to change it after all this time.

  He led the way over the grass from Askfeld, towards the dark crooked trees that spilled down towards the sea.

  “I thought we were meant to be going home,” Juliet called as she ran after him. “Mum won’t like it if we’re back too late. And if you think I’m going to take the blame for this…”

  Kit ignored her threats, knowing that if he kept running, Juliet would have to follow. She wouldn’t leave her younger brother alone and risk getting into trouble for that irresponsibility.

  Further up from the copse was a field where the grasses had been allowed to grow tall and golden this summer. The noise was coming from this direction, higher up than the last time he had been here. It rang out agai
n: the sound of wood and metal colliding. There was something not quite right about it this time though. It was not the steady rhythm of a hammer working nails into place.

  Juliet caught up with him and hissed, “I think someone’s crying. Whoever it is, they probably want to be left alone.”

  But it was too late to turn back. They could already see the upturned boat, lying like a beached whale where Maddie had dragged it up the steep cliff path from the shore, the one that had been designated not safe enough for Kit or Juliet to use. He had half expected the little vessel to be transformed by now, with new timber and bright paint, ready for its next voyage. It looked, if anything, worse than before. There was now a gaping hole at the prow end.

  Bang! Maddie kicked the boat with a wordless cry of frustration. Then she saw she had an audience.

  “Oh!” She quickly wiped her face with the back of her hand. Her eyes were red and swollen.

  “I’m so sorry, Maddie,” said Juliet. “We didn’t mean to disturb you. Come on, Kit, we need to get back home.” Apparently Juliet had no questions about the broken boat on its side in the meadow, or what was upsetting Maddie so much. But Kit would not be led away so easily.

  “What happened?”

  Maddie sniffed and seemed to force her eyes wider and brighter before she answered.

  “This boat’s much harder to repair than I thought. Turns out the wood’s rotten in a few places. I dragged it up here into the sunlight hoping it’d dry out, but it hasn’t helped.”

  “Is that why you’re crying?”

  “Kit, I don’t think that’s any of our business.”

  Maddie bent down to examine the sizeable damage to the prow, and Kit peered over her shoulder to see if it was as bad as she claimed. It would fill with water in no time in its current state. There was no way this boat could make the journey to Whitby. It would be a shipwreck on the seabed before it had cleared the cliffs below Askfeld.

  “You can mend the hole though, right? You just need some new wood that isn’t rotten. Can we help?” His dad would have known where to find the right materials for the job.

  “You remind me of Charlie,” Maddie said, straightening up. She smiled, but her eyes were still full of tears. “You’re the same age as him, I think.”

  “Who’s Charlie?”

  “He’s a very kind and clever boy, who I used to look after. He never used to let me give up hope either, until…” She changed her mind about completing this sentence.

  “Are you a teacher?”

  “Not quite. And certainly not any more.”

  She ran a hand over her face to pull back the strands of hair that had escaped and were now in her eyes. Then she walked down to the stern end of the boat and began chipping away the remaining flecks of paint. Kit wanted to say that he had watched his dad at work often enough to be fairly sure it was better to replace the rotting planks first before sanding down the existing wood, but Maddie was starting to look more relaxed now, so he let her continue.

  His silence was rewarded, because as she worked, Maddie said, “I used to work at a special school, for children who have developmental difficulties. It was a residential school, so some of the boys and girls lived there during the term. And I helped to look after them in their school home.”

  “But you don’t work there any more?” Kit decided to join in with the work, so he began scratching away the grey paint too. Juliet hung back and watched them.

  Maddie took a deep breath and then sighed it back out. While she did this, she looked down the slope, over the tops of the trees to where the waves rolled in. The sight seemed to calm her.

  “No. I left earlier this year. That’s when I started my pilgrimage.”

  “But why? Didn’t you like it there?”

  “Like it? I loved it! I loved each and every one of those children. I would have jumped in front of a speeding bus for any of them without a second thought. No, I left because I had to.”

  Juliet, who had been pretending to look at her phone until this moment, stopped now and sat cross-legged on the ground beside them.

  “Did you get fired?” Kit asked.

  “Kit!” exclaimed Juliet. “I’m sorry, he asks a lot of questions. You don’t have to tell us anything.”

  Maybe it was the fact that Juliet had joined the conversation, but Maddie started speaking differently. “Actually, I don’t mind. You’re the first person to dare ask me about it. Most people dance around the subject, dropping hints that they’re curious – and I can see why. It is a bit odd, a woman my age quitting her job and spending months hiking and staying in hostels and guest houses. But so far no one has had the guts to ask what happened. I don’t know how easy this will be for you to understand, but I’ve seen enough of the two of you this summer to know you’re both bright, so I’m going to do my best to explain.”

  Juliet looked solemn as she nodded, accepting the mantle of being mature enough to cope with whatever Maddie was about to say.

  “This time last year, the school recruited a new member of staff. Let’s call her… Elsie. Elsie was supposed to improve the school and its ratings. You know about Ofsted, safeguarding, government targets, and all that from your own schools, I’m assuming? Well, she watched us, to see what we were good at and what we were bad at.”

  Juliet shuddered. “I would hate that. Like having exams every day.”

  Kit pulled a face at his sister. He could not help it; he was irritated to hear her making everything about her exams, when whatever Maddie had been through was clearly much worse. Juliet hadn’t walked the length of the country in response to her troubles, so why did she pretend to understand? Maddie seemed not to notice, however, as she continued.

  “And I don’t exactly know why, but Elsie just didn’t like me. Everybody is different, and sometimes people just don’t click, for one reason or another. She gave us all ‘feedback’ on how to improve at our jobs, and some of the things she said about me were fair, I suppose. So I tried to take it on board. It’s always good to learn, to change, to try to improve. But it was like she could only see what was wrong with me. I don’t mean what I was doing wrong. No, that would have been OK. But she saw something she didn’t like in me and so that’s what I became.”

  “It sounds like she was bullying you,” said Kit. Back in the spring term, they had all been called into a special assembly to talk about bullies. Mrs MacAllister had marched up and down in front of them talking about how unacceptable it was to pick on other children. Kit had only half listened, because he knew her irate speech couldn’t be intended for him. He would never call someone names, and he couldn’t remember an occasion when anyone had ever bullied him either.

  “I don’t know,” said Maddie, and she really did seem torn in two directions. “I’m not the easiest person to work with. Lord knows I’ve given the owners here enough trouble during my stay. I doubt I’m the most popular person at Askfeld this summer. But I just can’t believe I’m every bit as awful as she made out.”

  She stopped working at this point and frowned, as if she still had not quite made up her mind on this matter.

  “I’m sure you’re not,” Juliet began, but she faltered, uncertain how to offer reassurance beyond basic politeness. Maddie smiled and waved away Juliet’s efforts, as if to say she knew full well it was not the responsibility of a teenager to help improve her confidence. Then she looked instead at the rowing boat, threw up her hands in surrender, and sat down in its shadow opposite Juliet.

  “Thanks for your help, Kit, but I think it’s time I accept this boat isn’t going to sea again. We can’t always fix everything.”

  So that was the line between what was salvageable and what was just driftwood. It lay in someone’s choice.

  “What did this Elsie woman say about you?” Juliet had thrown out her respect for people’s privacy and was leaning in.

  “First, she recommended I be given less important tasks around the school. The sort of things where it wouldn’t matter if I got it wrong: s
tapling bits of paper together or counting out pencils. She moved me away from spending time with the children and took over that herself. I would still see them, of course, in the corridor outside the photocopier room where I started spending most of my time, but I wasn’t supposed to have any sort of influence over them any more. That became Elsie’s role instead. But it didn’t stop there. She and I continued to have meetings where she would tell me her plans for the children, and in the next breath she’d tell me why I should not be a part of those plans.

  “In the end, she made it very clear that it would be better for the children if I left. She never fired me, never told me I had to leave, never really did anything I could have made a formal complaint about, but her views were plain enough.” Maddie put her hands to her face, stretching the skin back from her cheeks and then locking her fingers behind her neck.

  “But that’s not fair! You cared about those children. And you don’t seem like someone who would ever hurt anyone,” Juliet commented.

  “I did care about them. I do. I cared about what was best for them more than about keeping my home or a job that I loved.”

  Juliet frowned. “You mean, you didn’t stand up to this woman? You just… left?”

  Maddie smiled, and it was a gentler, less strained thing now. “Believe me, I wanted to fight it with all my being. I wanted to stand up and say, ‘This isn’t right!’ and I wanted to tell the children I wasn’t leaving them willingly; that I loved them all and would have gladly stayed for ever. I wanted them to know the truth – that there was an adult here who loved them unconditionally. But that wouldn’t have done any good. At the end of the day, it was clear to everyone that Elsie and I could not work together, so one of us had to leave to keep the peace. I was the lower-ranking worker there, even if I had been around longer. And I would have done anything to maintain some stability in those children’s lives, at any cost. Some of them have had horrible experiences by the time they arrive at the school, and others just find day-to-day life much harder than you or I would. The last thing a lot of them need is to feel caught in the fight between two adults’ egos. So I just said I was very sad to be going, but that I would always remember them.