by David Almond
They also believe that the whole of the universe hatched from a single egg. This makes total sense to me. Why shouldn’t the universe have hatched from one of the most astonishing weird magical objects in the universe? An egg. A single egg! And if that is somehow true, then the whole universe is like a bird, flying through time. And each time it lays an egg itself, a whole new universe is created. And so there is universe after universe – a flock of universes flying through time.
IF MY SOUL, WHEN I DIE,
IS TAKEN BY THE BODY OF A BEAST,
I PRAY THAT THE BEAST WILL BE A BIRD,
AND THAT MY SOUL WILL BE UPLIFTED
BY THE BODY OF A LARK.
Sprouts, Sarcasm & the Mysteries of Time
I love afternoons like that, like when we talk about things like metempsychosis, when we learn so much, and wonder so much, and explore so much, and ideas grow and take flight, like the idea about the universe and the egg. I love being homeschooled, when we don’t have to stick to subjects and timetables and rules. We’ve been doing it for nearly a year now, ever since the dreaded SATS Day. It seems much longer – maybe because it feels like we’ve got so much freedom and so much space and time. And we’re very happy with it. Mum says it can’t last forever, though. She says I’ll become too isolated, especially as I’m an only child. She even says that schools aren’t really prisons and cages. Yes, they bloody are! I tell her. She shakes her head and grins. Language! she says.
I love being on my own and with her (and with whisper the cat and with the blackbirds and the owls). She knows that, and she says I’m coping very well, but just the other day she sat me down beside her and said,
“There’ll come a time when you’ll need more than this.”
“No, I won’t.”
“Yes, you will. You’ll need some friends, for instance.”
“Friends?” I whispered.
She stroked my hair. She cuddled me, like I was tiny again.
“Yes, Mina. Friends. You’ll have some lovely friends once you get started. And one day soon, of course, you’ll even start thinking about boys.”
“Thinking about what?”
“About boys.”
I sniffed and looked away, even though I knew it was true.
“No I bloody well won’t!” I said.
She laughed.
“Language! But don’t worry. We’ll take things slowly, step by step.”
Is it true? Will I need to go to school again? I can’t imagine it. Mum says I’m too extreme, but in my view schools are prisons and always have been and always will be. Here’s a poem. I wrote it a couple of years back. I’ll paste it into my journal now.
I love this poem! I love this poem!
I wrote the poem after stupid Mrs. Scullery (or Sculley or whatever her name was) was trying to teach us about tenses, and about the differences between the present and the past and the future.
“Now listen carefully, children,” she said, like we were slow and stupid or really young or something. “If I do something in the present I say I do it. If I say I did it in the past I say I did it. If I say I will do it in the future I say I will do it. Verbs are doing words[5], and they have tenses – past tense, present tense and future tense. I have prepared an exercise for you. You must change the tenses of the verbs as indicated. You understand? Of course you do. It is very plain.”
And she handed some worksheets out. They contained a very boring story about a girl walking through a town and meeting lots of people along the way. Yawn, yawn. We had to change the present tense into the past. We got lots of sheets like that from Mrs. Scullery – sentences with gaps where we had to stick in the missing words, or sentences with the words all mixed up and we had to unmix them to get them to make sense. They were all dead easy and all dead stupid. Usually I’d just put up with it and get on with it, but that day I must have clicked my tongue or something.
“Yes, Mina?” said Mrs. Scullery. “You have something to say?”
Usually I’d just say, No, Miss, but on that day I said, “The thing is, Mrs. Scullery, that it really isn’t very plain at all. The past and the present and the future are much more mysterious than you say they are.”
“Oh, are they? Then please do enlighten us.”
That was so typical of her. SARCASM! I HATE SARCASM! Especially the kind that’s done by teachers.
If I had anything to do with the running of schools, I’d have a big notice put into every single classroom:
Anyway, I did enlighten her.
“Yes, Miss,” I said. “They are much much more mysterious. The past, for instance, was present to the people who lived in it. And the future will quickly become the present and will just as quickly become the past. And in our thoughts, the past and the present and the anticipation of the future exist together.” She stood with her arms folded, waiting for me to go on. So I went on. “Right from the beginning of time, people have attempted to understand time, and they have not managed yet.”
She sighed.
“Finished yet?” she said.
“No. So the mysteries of time cannot be reduced to a worksheet about tenses.”
She sighed more deeply. She stared out of the classroom window into the darkening afternoon. I could see she was thinking that it would have been better for her to be something like a traffic warden or a police constable. Or a sprout, maybe.
“And that’s to say nothing of our dreams,” I said.
“Now you are finished. So please shut up! We are not doing Philosophy, Miss. McKee. This is an English lesson. So do your work!”
I did my work. I seethed inside. What about the dead? I wanted to ask her. They’re supposed to be in the past but what if they’re around us still (even as flakes of dust, for instance, to say nothing of souls)? Are we present when we’re alive and past when we’re dead? And what about the notion that we will rise again? What does that say about the present and the past and the future being different things? The things that the Mrs. Scullerys of the world take for granted and that they think are so plain are not plain.
I scribbled my stupid worksheet. Scullery sat at the desk and dreamed about being a sprout. I grabbed a piece of clean paper and started composing my concrete poem.
That day was near the end of my school days. Not much longer to go till I was at home with Mum. Before that, though, there’d be SATS Day. O my God, SATS Day! That’s another of the tales I’ll have to write. Then there’d be the day at the Corinthian Avenue Pupil Referral Unit. Now that’s a day to write about.
EXTRAORDINARY ACTIVITY
Write a poem that repeats a word and repeats a word and repeats a word and repeats a word until it almost loses its meaning.
(It can be useful to choose a word that you don’t like, or that scares or disturbs you.)
Even though I hate school, I sometimes think it’d be very interesting to work in one. Or even to run one. I’d make sure there were some really interesting lessons, though I wouldn’t call them “lessons.” That’s what my “Extraordinary Activities” are – much more exciting and productive than the worksheets put out by the Mrs. Scullerys of this world!
Here is another. I expect I will put in others as I go along.
EXTRAORDINARY ACTIVITY
(DAYTIME VERSION)
Touch the tip of the index finger to the tip of the thumb, making a ring. Look through the ring into the sky[6]. See the great emptiness there. Contemplate this emptiness. Wait Don’t move. Perhaps there is a tiny dot in the emptiness, which is a skylark singing so high up that it’s almost out of sight. Perhaps not. Perhaps there really is just emptiness. Sooner or later a bird will appear for a second in your view and will fly away. Something appears in nothing, and then disappears. Keep looking. Sooner or later another bird will appear to take its place. Keep looking. It may be that several birds appear together. Keep looking. Keep looking. Allow the extraordinary sky into your mind. Consider the fact that your head is large enough to contain the sky. That is all, and it is hardly
anything at all. No need to write anything down unless you would like to. Just remember. And wonder. And do the activity again when you have a moment. Do not worry about staring into space. It is an excellent thing to do.
EXTRAORDINARY ACTIVITY
(NIGHTTIME VERSION)
Touch the tip of the index finger to the tip of the thumb, making a ring. Look through the ring into the sky[7]. See the great abundance there. Contemplate this abundance: the stars and galaxies, the planets, the great great darkness, the stars so far away in time and space they look like scatterings of silver dust. Consider the unimaginable amount of space and time that is circled by the ring you have made. Consider that this unimaginable amount is just a tiny fragment of the universe, of eternity. Keep looking. Keep looking. Things will move across your vision: a flickering bat, a swooping owl; the high-up light of an airplane, the slow slow flashing of a satellite. Keep looking. Keep looking. Allow the abundant night into your mind. Consider the fact that your head is large enough to contain the night. That is all, and it is hardly anything at all. No need to write anything down unless you would like to. Just remember. And wonder. And do the activity again when you have a moment. Do not worry about staring into the dark. It is an excellent thing to do.
Persephone, Daftness & Absolutely Nothing
Night again. Spring is strange. The year’s supposed to be moving towards summer, but sometimes it seems to be turning right back to winter again. The sky was the color of steel all day. There was frost in the morning and it stayed all day under the trees and on the shady side of the garden wall.
I went out and climbed into the tree but the bark was icy and the breeze was bitter and even with two fleeces on I was freezing cold. The blackbirds didn’t seem to care. They went on flying in and out of the tree, singing and squawking. But what if this year the spring didn’t come at all? What if something dreadful had happened to the seasons for some awful reason?
I jumped down to the ground. Not a soul to be seen. I knelt on the grass and banged the ground with my fist and said,
“Come on, Persephone! Don’t give up, Persephone!”
Persephone, who I thought I might meet during my journey to the Underworld, spends the winter in Hades with Pluto, the King of the Underworld. When it’s time for spring she makes her way back up to the earth again. Spring doesn’t start until she’s back. In ancient Greece, they had music and dancing and singing to call her back, to make sure that spring arrived again.
“Come on!” I said, more loudly. I punched the ground again. I imagined her coming up through the earth’s endless complicated tunnels. “Keep going! Don’t get lost! Don’t give up!”
I looked up and there was a woman, staring down at me. I think I recognized her from somewhere nearby. She had a checked green coat on, a woolly scarf, a yellow hat, white hair, and very kind eyes. She had a shopping bag on wheels with her.
“Are you all right, my dear?” she said.
“Yes, thank you.”
“You’ll catch your death down there,” she said.
“I’ll be all right. I’m just calling for Persephone.”
She made a little laughing sound.
“The goddess of the spring!” she said.
“You know about her!”
“Of course I do, dear. Doesn’t everybody?” She cupped a shaky hand around her mouth and whispered, “Come on, Persephone! Come back up to the world again! We’re freezing cold up here!” She giggled. She looked around. “Folk’ll think we’re daft.” She looked at me. “Do you think we’re daft?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Good. What’s a world without daftness in it?”
“What’s your name?” she said.
“My name’s Mina.”
“Hello, Mina. My name’s Grace.”
“Hello, Grace.”
She smiled and reached across the garden wall and took my hands in hers. Her hands were bony, dry and cold.
She winked at me.
“I’ve seen you in your tree, Mina. You look quite at home up there.”
“I am.”
“I used to love climbing, when I was a girl. I used to dream of climbing trees all day, stepping and swinging from one to the next, never once coming down to ground.”
“Did you ever do it?”
“Not enough trees, Mina. But I made a lovely little circuit in my garden. From the corner of the outhouse, onto the apple tree, onto the top of a wobbly stepladder, then back to the outhouse again.” She lifted her foot and giggled and groaned. “And these days I can hardly get up the blooming stairs.”
An icy gust of wind blew along the street. She winced.
“Sometimes you look sad up there in your tree,” she said.
“Do I?”
“Yes. But sad’s all right. Sad’s just part of everything.”
She winked.
“Persephone!” she hissed. “Come on!” She said it again as if she was singing a little song, and I joined in with her.
“Come on, Persephone!
Come on, Persephone!”
She moved her hips like she was dancing and I joined in with her. She groaned softly and gritted her teeth and closed her eyes. Then she grinned.
“Bad bones,” she said. “But never mind. They’ll be fixed up soon and then …”
Suddenly she put her hand to her mouth.
“Goodness gracious!” she said.
“What is it?”
“I just remembered, all of a sudden. I dreamed about you last night.”
“About me?”
She laughed.
“Yes. You were in your tree and you said, Come on up here, Grace! So I climbed up beside you. You had tiny little feathers on you, just like a baby bird. Like a fledgling! Goodness gracious, we both did!”
She laughed again.
“That was all. I think.”
I smiled back at her. It was lovely to think of being in Grace’s dream.
“Isn’t it funny,” she said. “I’d forgotten all about it, and suddenly it all flooded back. Ah, well. That’s how dreams go.”
She squeezed my hands again. She took a deep breath and winced.
“She will come back again, Mina,” she said. “She always does.”
She tugged her scarf tighter on her throat.
“Got to keep moving,” she said. “Bye-bye, Mina.” She winked. “Maybe I’ll dream about you again, eh?”
“That would be nice. Bye-bye, Grace.”
She hesitated before she turned away
“Remember – she wants to be with us as much as we want to be with her. Keep calling her.”
“I will.”
She left the street. I thought about being in her dream. It was very strange. Maybe we’re all in somebody’s dream. Maybe everything’s a dream, and nothing else.
I thought about that for a while, then I looked down at the ground again. I stamped on the ground.
“Persephone!” I hissed. “Come on back, Persephone!”
Then a loud banging noise started. I looked up and there was a man standing on the wall at Mr. Myers’s house. He had a massive hammer in his hand and he was thumping a post down into the garden.
Thump! he went. Wallop! Thump! Smash!
Excellent, I thought. Persephone’s bound to hear that. Thump it harder, mister.
He must have heard me. He thumped again.
Then he gripped the post and shook it. Steady as a rock …
He nailed a sign to it:
He jumped down and stamped the ground hard around the foot of the post. Then he briskly rubbed his hands together and grinned and walked away.
I punched the earth one more time, I stamped one more time.
“Come on, Persephone!” I said.
I imagined her, working her way past fossils and the remains of ancient cities. I looked up at the steel-gray sky. Not a chink of sunlight. I looked down again.
“Pay attention, please!” I said to her. “The world is in need of you!”
T
hen I came inside.
Mum was busy, writing an article for a magazine. That’s what she does, articles for newspapers and magazines. She’s even written about me sometimes, and about homeschooling. She says there are many good things about schools (which I do not agree with, of course!) but she also says that some schools, like some people, simply don’t understand some simple facts about children.
CHILDREN HAVE TO BE LEFT ALONE SOMETIMES!
THERE’S NO NEED TO BE AT
THEM ALL THE TIME!
THERE’S NO NEED TO KEEP WATCHING THEM,
CHECKING THEM,
CRAMMING STUFF INTO THEM,
YANKING STUFF OUT OF THEM!
THERE’S NO NEED TO KEEP ON SAYING:
LEARN THIS, LEARN THAT!
DO THIS, DO THAT!
ANSWER THIS, ANSWER THAT!
SOMETIMES CHILDREN MUST BE
LEFT ALONE TO BE STILL AND SILENT,
AND TO DO
EXTRAORDINARY ACTIVITY
Write an empty page. This is quite easy. Now look closely at the emptiness. This is quite easy, too, and quite delightful.
Fig Rolls, Pee, Spit, Sweat & all the Words for Joy
Mooched about. Had chocolate milk and two biscuits.
I know that some people do not like fig rolls – Sophie Smith, for instance. She was a girl at school that I sat next to for a while. She was almost as small as me. She had curly blond hair and blue eyes and she walked with a limp. I offered her a fig roll one breaktime.
“No thank you,” she said. “I find them rather sickly.”
“Sickly?” I said. “Rather sickly?”
I couldn’t believe it.