As she reached school she could almost see Sally as she had been in Year Six in her school, she felt she could give anything to see Sally agin. So did Sally, who was now hard at work writing a letter to Claudia It went like this:
Dear Claudia,
I miss you so much and think about you every day. I had a maths exam today and I did all right but I could have done better if I hade seen you befor. How are things in England?
Love,
Sally, your friend
TO BE CONTINUED.…
Nory showed the page to Pamela the next day, and Pamela read it over twice carefully. ‘One very important thing you should know is that here we don’t say Mom, we say Mum, and we spell it with a u,’ Pamela said. ‘And I think you shouldn’t describe Claudia by her interests, but by how she looks. You probably should rewrite the beginning including a bit more about her appearance.’ That was Pamela’s complete reaction. She didn’t say ‘Good,’ or ‘Nice try,’ or ‘Well done,’ or anything like that. (If you fell or dropped something, sometimes the boys would call out, ‘Well done!’)
Nory thought to herself, ‘If you don’t want to write it, Pamela, fine, but don’t refuse to help write it and then tell me to rewrite it. I did the best I could.’ But maybe Pamela was a little embarrassed by the mention of the two of them being best friends, since they’d never actually talked about being best friends.
They chatted about the book quite a number of times after that, but the first page was the one and only page that got written down. Oh well.
51. The Wind
Mostly Nory and Pamela spent more and more time together at school as friends. Actually at times there were four friends total, since Pamela had an I.F. named Leyla (I.F. stands for Imaginary Friend), and Nory thought it would be a friendly gesture to have an I.F. herself, too. She thought for a long time and came up with Penny Beckinsworth as her new I.F. She liked the name Penny, and Beckinsworth sort of sounded like a person you would think was worth beckoning for. She made up a song that she sang to the rhythm of ‘She’ll be coming round the mountain’: Penny Beckinsworth I reckon is a friend. Penny Beckinsworth I reckon is a friend. Penny Beckinsworth I reckon. Penny Beckinsworth I reckon. Penny Beckinsworth I reckon is a friend. But Nory had never been too good at keeping up with imaginary friends. For example, if you write an I.F. a letter, you never get one back, unless you write it, too, which takes some of the fun out of it. On weekends in particular, Nory sometimes missed having someone real over to play with. Just simply to play with, period, end of discussion. It hadn’t happened very much this year, strangely enough. Her parents were happy to watch her perform a play in which she dressed up Littleguy as a dog or a swan or an airplane engineer, and they were happy to listen to a story she had made up or play Battleship with her, and Battleship was quite fun, even when you were hit, because you could think up a new way to say you were hit, such as ‘Ouch, I seem to have developed a yawning hole in my forecastle,’ or ‘Yikes, hoist out the rubber dinkies, she’s a-going down!’ But it wasn’t the same as having your very own friend over to play. Littleguy also missed his best friend from school in Palo Alto. His new friend Jack spit onto the steam engines and that was not good to do, he said. But he had a different friend, Oliver, who he said was ‘a very nice shy boy.’ Littleguy had gotten into the usual habit of walking up to a stranger in the toystore and saying, ‘Hello, I’m shy.’
Nory played some with her dolls but she was desperate just to have another nice girl her age in her room. Pamela refused to give Nory her phone number because she said she wasn’t supposed to give out vital information such as her phone number unless her parents said it was okay, and she kept forgetting to ask them if it was okay. Her number was ex-directional, which means that you can’t get it by calling 192. 192 sounds like it would be the same as 911 in America but actually it’s the same as 411. Nory had Kira’s number but she and Nory were not getting along all too well. They had just enough of a shred of friendship left to want the other person to act the way they wanted them to, rather than just not caring.
On Sunday afternoon Nory’s mother took Nory and Littleguy to a playground near the Cathedral. There was a nice little child who was Littleguy’s age for him to play with, but as usual, no child Nory’s age. Nory’s mother went over to supervise Littleguy on the slide, and Nory swang on the swings, which always made her feel lonely feelings unless there were tons of other people swinging on them, and then she sat anonymously on the bench. She started flipping through a catalog that her mother had brought along. There was a wind that day, and Nory liked the wind. Whenever she had a chance in a drawing or a painting, she included a tree with long flexible branches being blown by the wind, because it was one of her favorite things to paint or draw in all art. She noticed the pages of the catalog rustling and thought, ‘I know, I can try being friends with the wind!’
She held the catalog open on her lap. She asked the wind, ‘So what do you think, do you think I’d look good in this dress?’ And the wind would either turn the page or not turn the page, or rattle the page a little without completely turning it. If the wind didn’t turn the page, it meant yes, it liked the dress. If the wind only rattled the page, it meant that it still hadn’t reached a decision. And if it did turn the page, Nory would look at the new page and say, ‘Oh, so you think I’d look good in that dress? How interesting. I’m not so sure, but maybe.’ The wind was not all that chatty, but it seemed nice and it had definite ideas about the fashions Nory should wear. That was kind of fun, although it had something of a lonely feeling to it, too.
That night Nory had a bad dream, not horrible, but not exactly enjoyable. It came to her probably because the light in her bathroom had burnt out again and it was windy, which meant that squeakings kept coming from outside. She dreamed her winding way through old dark and deserted buildings and found a room where there was a giant ring of black metal, with black metal hooks all the way around it. She knew they were the hooks you use in a slaughterhouse, where you would hang up the meat. The ring was turning, slowly, but it looked as if nobody was in the building except Nory. That was the frightening thing.
She got up and paddled into her parents’ bedroom and asked them if it was morning, or if it wasn’t morning could she possibly read because she’d had a scary dream. They lifted their heads and croaked out that they were sorry she’d had a scary dream but everything was all right and yes, she could read. She went back into her room and turned on the light to read some of Puppies in the Pantry. Then she stopped reading and remembered a really good speech at Cathedral service. Mary, Jesus’s mother, had been frightened and someone told her, Do not be frightened, the Lord is using you as his servant, and we all must do as Mary did and strive to serve the Lord and be helpful to him. ‘I will strive to serve the Lord, I will strive to serve the Lord,’ Nory said to herself, and when she had said it she felt infinitely happier and smiled her way deep down into the pillow and closed her eyes. Before she went back to sleep, she had a strong wish to tell a quick story to herself about a girl who met a princess. Nobody had anything else for her to do, since it was plum in the middle of the night, so that’s what she did.
52. A Story About a Girl Who Meets a Princess
It was a bright, sunny day in May. A girl, by the side of a large creek, sang. She was happy and playing. She was totally content. She was an orphan; she lived on the street, or places like that. She ate wheat straight from the kernel, and whatever she could find in her wanderings. Except meat, which she did not care for.
She was not very big for her age. She was what’s known as a small, young girl, to most people. To herself, she was not young at all. She was very smart and had lived awhile. She had no recollection of what had happened in her younger days, but when she was ten years old, she got her dog, a big golden retriever. He was the person she looked after, and he looked after her. He was the person she knew best in the world. She loved him. He came along wherever she went. They were content.
Now she wa
s in her thirteenth year, with jet black hair that hung in huge sausage curls down her back, which were tied up at night with long grass peels, and were wetted by pure lake water. Her hair was as gleamy and fresh-looking as ever. And when she tied it up with grass, she was careful to put basil in it, that would take the odors from the wet lake away from it, and make it smell so good you would want to just take one of the locks and eat it—maybe. She had never thought of doing that, but other people must have.
And now, she was playing. Playing, singing, and finding conkers, throwing them across the country to her beloved dog, Flame. He would jump and collect them, and run back with them. It was wonderful. He would be very careful not to miss the conker, for if he did, it could fall into the lake, and then he would not be able to have a conker, or a horse chestnut. We’ll call them conkers. Real chestnuts were harder to get, for though the horse chestnuts came in spikey shells, they were not so spikey that you couldn’t get them out. The chestnut shell was so spikey that you had to stamp on it. And when you tried to get the chestnut out after the shell was cracked open, it still could prick your finger. So the dog was being very careful not to lose them in the lake. And indeed he was good at jumping and catching them. He caught them almost every time.
Suddenly something awful happened. She threw the conker and it hit a tree, which rumbled and shook. Tons of conkers fell on the poor dog. She’d hit the largest conker in the largest conker tree, so that it had made the branch shake and all the fresh conkers in it fall all over poor Flame. Oh, how it bruised him, for they were huge ripe conkers. The girl picked up every single one. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry.’ Then Flame rolled over and they laughed together. That would be a good dinner for them, all those conkers. They were not very tasty on their own, but she found that if she let them sit in the sun all day, then put some parsley in, which grew very near by, mixed it with corn, and then added a bit of pepper in, it made a good dinner for them. Pepper was hard to buy, but she could get a job, whenever she wanted, and work, and buy some. As soon as she had enough to get the pepper she would say, ‘Thank you very much,’ keep on working for a while, and then go off.
As she picked the conkers up under the tree, she noticed something. There in the grass was a large purse of blue silk, with ruffles on it. Inside it were a number of precious things like a silver brush, and a tiny sewing kit, with scissors in the shape of a bird, and spools of gold and silver thread, and thimbles and needles so bright you could see them a mile away. She wanted to confiscate that purse, but she knew she could not. Just then, a ringing bell charmed in her ear. She looked up. What she saw was nothing but a lovely princess about her age.
The princess had neatly, neatly brushed hair. Her hair was in thick curls, and it was yellow. Shiny yellow hair. The girl loved the sight of that hair. The princess’s shoes were fancy and her dress, oh her dress, it was the most beautiful lavishing color of blue—turquoise blue. It was a lovely blue. Puffy sleeves, so gorgeous, and it reached down at her ankles. And little roses at the end. It was puffy beyond belief!
‘Hello,’ the princess said quietly. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Oh, ah, urn, uh—’ The girl was speechless. She was dressed thoroughly in rags and did not think it was a good idea to talk to this distinctive person. But then she thought she must answer. She didn’t have a name, though, she’d never had one. What was her name? she wondered. ‘Ah, mm, I don’t have one,’ she said finally, stuttering. ‘Urn, your majesty,’ she said. For the princess was obviously of royal vintage.
‘Hah, don’t bother about it,’ the princess laughed. ‘Don’t bother. I’m not very much a relative of the Queen, you see. My dad’s brother was related to the Queen so I trace back from the Queen, yes, it’s true, but not really closely …’ she said.
‘Oh wow,’ said the girl. ‘But, please—your name?’
‘Oh, urn, just call me, urn, just call me—’ The princess seemed to be thinking, too. ‘Just call me, well, most people call me Mademoiselle Saram Shi-Kah, but just call me Shee, for Shee-Kah.’
‘All right, Shee,’ the girl said. ‘Shee, how is it spelled?’
‘Oh, Shee,’ she said, ‘well, it’s spelled as She is normally spelled.’
‘And, and how is that?’ The girl looked a little scared.
‘Well, to be quite honest,’ the Princess said, ‘it could be spelled “she” but that’s probably not how it’s spelled. To be quite honest, I’ve never thought of it. I think I’d like it if you’d spell it, S-h-e-e. Notice the doubled e.’
‘Oh, right,’ the girl said, ‘Of course. And—what does an “e” look like?’
The Princess took the ruffled purse that the girl handed her and opened it up. In it she found the most beautiful notepad, with lovely marbled silk outside, and if you lifted the silk off there was beautiful Chinese paper, embroidered. ‘Do you like it?’
‘Oh yes,’ the girl said.
The princess wrote down a lovely ‘e’—the kind of ‘e’ that only princesses would learn how to write. It was a gorgeous letter. ‘That’s how I write it. But you know some people write it this way.’ She gripped her pen; it was a lovely quill pen, too—a blue one to match her outfit—and wrote a smaller ‘e,’ not as fancy.
It seemed ordinary to the girl. ‘Yes, yes, that’s the one I’d be able to write,’ she said.
‘Right,’ the princess nodded. ‘That’s the one that most people write. But impress people with this one,’ she said, pointing to the one that she’d drawn first. ‘It’s really fun. It makes you seem so royal,’ she said. ‘What would you like me to call you?’
‘Well, um, well, I think my last name is …’
‘Oh, come on, don’t tease me,’ the princess said laughing, with a whiff of her hand. ‘You have to have a name.’
Well, I, er, don’t,’ she said. ‘You see, I’m, um, er, call me, urn, Sorsumpon …’ She tried to make up a name. ‘That’s what you should call me.’
‘Where does that name come from?’ the princess asked.
‘Um—my brain,’ the girl said nodding. ‘I don’t have a name. I’m a servant, I’m a peasant girl, an orphan,’ she said. ‘And, well, I don’t have a name at all. I wish I did, though. If you’d like, I’ll tell you what I’d like to be—actually, I think what I’d like is, call me Sally. It’s a nice name, I like it. It’s the only one I know,’ she confessed.
Then she talked the grownup way, the way she loved to talk, the way that she didn’t talk when she was scared. The more mature way, not the scared, childish way, but the grownup way—she spoke: ‘Now would you care to have some fresh conkers cooked in the heat of the sun?’ she asked.
‘Oh,’ said the princess nodding. ‘I, I’d love to. But I must return to the castle. Please come with me. Oh, but wait, I can’t go in the dining room with my hair like this.’ She touched one of her beautiful curls. ‘I just can’t, I can’t go in with my hair curled. Oh, why can’t mine be straight like yours?’
‘I was just thinking why can’t mine be curly like yours?’ the girl said.
‘Oh, you wouldn’t want curly hair,’ the princess said. ‘You’d be too embarrassed to go into a dining room with it.’
‘I’ll switch hairstyles with you,’ said the girl. ‘I’ll tell you how I keep it down—because I used to have somewhat frilly hair—and you tell me how you keep it up.’
‘All right,’ said the princes. ‘I just tie it up every day with silk bows. Oh, but you wouldn’t have any, would you?’ And she handed the girl five silk bows, one blue, one red, and one TO BE CONTINUED.
53. Good Result
The very next day two unusually wonderful things happened. First, Nory was the lucky getter of a letter. The mail in Threll was delivered by men on bicycles with big red packs strapped to their handlebars, and it came early in the morning, before breakfast-time. Littleguy brought the envelopes into the kitchen, saying ‘Mail livery! Mail livery!’ Nory’s father stopped singing to the microwave and said, ‘Something fo
r you, Nory.’ She read it:
Dear Eleanor,
How are you? Ive been making lots of strange things with FIMO latley, including tarts pies and cakes. I miss you too. I wish I could pay a visit but that’s not even a possibilility. So when are you coming back? Ms. Beryl is moving away so Ms. Fisker is coming back, maybe!!! I won second place in the soccer turnemint. Love from your friend, Deborah.
‘Aw, that’s so nice,’ Nory said, folding the letter to herself. It made her suddenly strongly love Debbie and miss her, and made her think, ‘How could I be letting such a good friend trickle away from my thinking just because there’s so much going on here in England?’ She hummed Ji Gong, the song about the crazy monk, on the way to school, looking down at her feet and remembering every detail about Debbie and her panda collection, and she thought about going back to school at the International Chinese Montessori School, and of how fun it was to know Chinese and to be able to point out to her parents some Chinese characters on the sidewalk in Chinatown that said something like ‘Warning, telephone here’ in orange paint.
Then, Wonderful Event Number Two, at school: towards the end of the day, Mrs. Thirm came up to Nory outside and said, ‘I’d like to give you this.’ It was a small piece of paper with a seal on it and a signature.
‘Thank you,’ said Nory, not by any means grasping what it was all about.
‘It’s a Good Result for being kind to Pamela,’ Mrs. Thirm said.
Nory’s face got a totally flabbledigastered look of complete amazement on it. She said, ‘Wow, you’re kidding, thank you, thank you!’
Nory only knew a little bit about Good Results. A Good Result was one of the best possible things you could ever get at the Junior School, higher than getting an Excellent, and if you got five of them in a row, you got a gift certificate to buy a special book of your choice. Good Results weren’t too unusual, though, since quite a few of the girls had gotten them for different things, like for music or science projects or maths or handwriting. But still, Nory had never even come close to getting one, and she never knew that it was possible to get one for something like being nice to Pamela. She was standing in some mud in a dazzle-and-a-half of pure delight, when Mr. Pears came up to her and pointed to the piece of paper and sort of gave her a wink and said, ‘That’s my favorite kind of Good Result, for kindness.’
The Everlasting Story of Nory Page 20