by David Almond
I keep on trying to laugh, but I’m nearly crying now.
She holds me tight.
“You should have told me at the time,” she says.
“I’m telling you now.”
“And you really saw a dog?” she asks me.
“Yes. A man and a dog. I thought the dog was Cerberus. I thought the man was some kind of guardian of the Underworld. I thought I was going down to Hades!”
“Oh, Mina!”
I manage to laugh again.
“He was probably just one of the workmen,” I say. “The dog was probably just a stray.”
I even manage to giggle now.
“Take me further, feet,” I say, and we keep on walking in the light as I remember walking in the dark.
“I thought if I kept on walking and walking,” I tell her, “I’d see Pluto and Persephone!”
“Oh, Mina! What a girl!”
“I had it all planned in my mind, I think,” I say.
“And what would you have said to Pluto and Persephone?”
I laugh.
“Give him back! Give him back!”
She shakes her head.
“Give him back!” she murmurs.
We keep on walking. We’re silent for a while. We listen to the birds and the city all around us.
She asks if I’m OK, if I’m really OK.
“Yes.”
I want to shut up but I find myself telling her about Sophie’s visit as we walk.
“That was nice of her,” says Mum. “Maybe she’ll come again.”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe she could be your friend again.”
I shrug.
“Maybe.”
And I want to be clear and calm but I find myself thinking about the boy from the family standing in the street, and I find myself telling her about him, too.
“And does he look interesting?” she says.
I shrug.
“Maybe.”
She smiles and seems about to say something more, but then she just takes my hand and squeezes it and says, “I’m sure he is.”
I turn my mind away from the underworld and from Sophie and the boy. I concentrate on the calming rhythm of walking.
My feet will take me where they wish to go
My feet will take me where they wish to go
My feet will take me where they wish to go
As I breathe the syllables at every step, the rhythm turns the words into a kind of music. The walking turns into a kind of walking dance.
We don’t ask each other where we should walk, but we walk upwards, on the pathway by the stream that runs through the park. It rushes and gurgles at our side. A road bridge carries noisy traffic over us. We pass a little field where boys are playing football and yelling wildly at each other. “Cross it! To him! To me! On me head! Yesss! Oh, no!” We come to the little petting zoo where there are little goats with little horns and potbellied pigs and beautiful glistening noisy peacocks. There are tiny children sitting in buggies, and toddlers holding their mums’ hands. They lean down and whisper to the goats and pigs, just like I once did, and I watch, and it’s like looking back through time. I think of the new baby in the street. I think of the baby as “she.” She will come here, before too long, to lean down and whisper at the goats and pigs. Maybe I will bring her here. Maybe I will hold her hand and walk with her through the park and take her home again. I catch my breath at the joy of the thought of that. A little girl in our street. A little girl to be my friend!
We walk again. We climb the path towards the exit from the park. The birds are noisy in the hedges and the undergrowth. We step through the park gate. There’s a parade of small shops outside. A hairdresser named Kurl Up ’n’ Dye, a Chinese takeaway named Wok This Way, and Pani’s Pizza & Pasta Place.
We keep on walking. We don’t ask where we should walk to but we both know where we’re going now. We pass the shops. We walk by a busy road.
The traff-ic is so noi-sy at our side
The traff-ic is so noi-sy at our side
The traff-ic is so noi-sy at our side
We arrive at another set of massive gates and we step through into the graveyard. We pause for a moment. So many graves, so many bodies, so many souls, so many people gone. Rows and rows and rows of them. And monuments, and angels, and crosses, and flat tables, and carved names and dates, and pots with flowers in them, and a great big sky above. And people like us, walking slowly by the graves, standing still, leaning down at particular ones, whispering and praying.
We hold each other’s hand and walk again. We come to Dad and stand there side by side.
“Hello, Dad,” I whisper.
“Hello, love,” Mum whispers, too.
I pick up a sweet wrapper that’s blown onto the ground above him. Mum tugs away a little weed. I remember him holding me as he read to me. Mum closes her eyes, clasps her hands, remembering, too, I suppose, or praying, or maybe even telling him about Colin Pope.
I love you, Dad, I whisper.
I do shed a tear. I do know that wherever he is or whatever he is now, there’s no way for him to come back again. There’s no Underworld to go to. There’s no Pluto to go to. But it’s lovely standing there, the two of us, sharing the memory of Dad. I think of his breath in the air around us, the molecules of his water in the drifting clouds, the echo of his words in my memory as he read to me.
The sky’s so huge, so blue. There are blackbirds singing, and a single loud and lovely lark. I try to see it, but it’s so so high and so far away that it can’t possibly be seen. I look down again and a single white feather is tumbling slowly past our feet. Mum stoops down and catches it. She presses it against my shoulder.
“A perfect fit,” she says. “Must be one of yours, Mina.”
“Must be.”
She hands it to me. I spread my arms and pretend to fly, holding the feather out with my fingertips. Then I let the feather go. It falls slowly towards the earth and drifts away again across the pathways and graves.
“Now the breeze is taking the feather for a walk,” I say. “And it won’t know where it’s going till it gets there.”
We stay a little longer. We murmur more words, then we whisper goodbye and we walk away.
Time’s passing fast. The sky’s already reddening as it heads to dusk. I feel so light, so loose, just like a feather on a breeze, like a word wandering without any definite rhythms, like a weaving wandering line. The air’s so gentle. It feels like Persephone’s really on her way.
“Let’s treat ourselves,” says Mum. “Pizza? Or a Chinese to carry home?”
She looks at the menu of Wok This Way.
“Fried King Prawns in Kung Po Sauce!” she says. “Spring Rolls! Pork Cha Sui!”
I look at Pani’s.
“Spaghetti Pomodoro! Pizza Quattro Stagione!”
She laughs and guides me to the door of Pani’s Pizza & Pasta Place. A waiter greets us like we’re long-lost friends. He calls us two fine ladies. He gives us both a red rose. We sit at the back of the restaurant, the only ones at first, then other little families and couples start coming in. Music’s playing, someone singing “O Sole Mio.”
She sings quietly along for a line or two.
I order a pizza margherita with anchovies and olives and garlic.
Mum orders angel-hair pasta with clams and shrimps.
We grin at each other. She drinks white wine. I drink lemonade.
The food comes and is delicious.
“Fantastico!” she sighs.
“Marvelloso!” I say.
“O sole mio!” she quietly sings.
The day continues to darken outside.
I have pistachio and strawberry and vanilla ice cream. Mum has Panna Cotta con Caramello.
“For the sound of it as much as the taste of it,” she says. “Say the words: Panna Cotta con Caramello.”
We say the words together. With two long-handled spoons we eat the sweets together. We sigh at such deliciousness.
Mum drinks coffee, then we go out into the gathering night. We retrace our steps towards home, go down into the park again. We follow the stream. We hear birds settling down in the hedges and the undergrowth. A couple of cats, black beasts, are prowling, hunting.
We sit on a bench by the stream in the dark.
“That was lovely, wasn’t it?” says Mum.
“Delicioso!”
“And the walk? And the visit to Dad?”
“Fantastico!”
“You are OK, aren’t you?”
“Yes, mostly.”
“Mostly’s pretty good.”
She puts her arm around me. We watch the stars intensify. We stand up and slowly walk on. We follow the footpath.
“When you grow up,” I said, “do you ever stop feeling little and weak?”
“No,” she says. “There’s always a little frail and tiny thing inside, no matter how grown-up you are.”
“Like a baby?” I say.
“Yes. Or like a tiny bird, right at the heart of you,” she says. “It’s not really weak at all. If we forget it’s there, we’re in deep trouble.”
We walk on, heading for the gates, but she takes my hand and turns me away from the path.
We walk to the darkest part of the park, beyond the swings and the bowling green. A few lights mark the pathways behind us. Lights from Crow Road and Falconer Road and from the city twinkle through the trees. The night’s dead still. I think again of the Underworld, and I shudder, then I turn my thoughts away. I feel the solid earth under my feet. I feel the air on my skin. I lift my eyes to the sky, to the millions of stars.
Mum shows me Saturn and Venus. She points out the constellations: Virgo, Cancer, Leo. She shows me the cluster of the Pleiades. We try to look further, further, through the stars that are scattered like dust across eternity. We try to make out the beasts and weird winged beings that the Greeks described up there: bears and dogs and horses and crabs and Pegasus and Daedalus and Icarus. We imagine a sky filled with beasts and beings.
“We’re looking across billions and billions and billions of miles,” she says. “The light from some of the stars has taken millions of years to reach us.”
“We’re time travelers!” I say.
“Yes.”
“And we’re made of the same stuff. The stars and us.”
“Yes. No matter how far away we are from each other.”
We stand dead still and we listen to the night. The city drones. An owl hoots and a cat howls and a dog barks and a siren wails.
We let the stars shine into us.
I stare. Is there anyone else out there? There has to be. Are they like us? Is there another Mina and another Mum looking toward us through the darkness that goes on for billions and billions and billions of miles and billions and billions and billions of years? Are their joys and their pains the same as ours? Will we ever know the answers to things like that? And how did everything get here, anyway? And why? And will it go on forever? And what’s right out there at the very edge of the stars and the darkness? And what’s at the very heart of things?
Mum cups her hands around my head.
“Look,” she murmurs. “I can nearly hold your whole head in my hands, Mina. Your head holds all those stars, all that darkness, all these noises. It holds the universe.” She holds me against her. She rests her head against mine. “Two heads, two universes, interlinked.”
After a while, we make our way back towards home. She holds my hand as we walk and she’s happy at my side.
We hold each oth-er’s hand and walk back home
We walk back home and hold each oth-er’s hand
We …
We come to a lamp beside the pathway, and suddenly we stop our walking, and we start to dance, and we glitter in the shafts of light, like stars, like flies, like flakes of dust.
EXTRAORDINARY ACTIVITY
Take a line for a walk.
Find out what you’re drawing when you’ve drawn it.
Take some words for a walk.
Find out what you’re writing when you’ve written it.
Take yourself for a walk.
Find out where you’re going when you get there.
EXTRAORDINARY ACTIVITY
Stare at the stars. Travel through space and time.
Hold your head and know that you are extraordinary.
Remind yourself that you are dust.
Remind yourself that you are a star.
Stand beneath a streetlamp.
Dance and glitter in a shaft of light.
EXTRAORDINARY ACTIVITY
Listen for the frail and powerful thing at your heart.
A Dream of Horses
Later, just before I go to bed, I look out of the window. There are lights on in the house I still call Mr. Myers’s house. Shadowy figures move behind the windows. I think of the baby and hope that she’s sleeping peacefully. I keep the curtains open. The moon rises and its maddening light falls on me. I tremble. Does everybody feel this excitement, this astonishment, as they grow? I close my eyes and stare into the universe inside myself. I feel as if I’m poised on the threshold of something marvelous. I drift to sleep at last.
I dream. Such a weird dream! I see the night sky filled with beasts and extraordinary beings, all the beasts and beings imagined throughout history. As I stare up to watch them, they start to fall towards me.
I DREAMED OF HORSES FALLING FROM THE SKY
I DREAMED OF SERPENTS FALLING FROM THE SKY
I DREAMED OF BEARS AND GOATS AND CRABS
AND LIZARDS FALLING FROM THE SKY.
I DREAMED OF CENTAURS, OF PEGASUS
OF DAEDALUS AND ICARUS
FALLING FROM THE SKY.
I DREAMED OF THE ARCHAEOPTERYX
FALLING FROM THE SKY.
I DREAMED OF OWLS AND LIONS
BATS AND BULLS AND FISH
AND RAMS AND ANGELS
FALLING FROM THE SKY.
AND ATT THE HORSES AND THE SERPENTS
THE BEARS, THE GOATS, THE CRABS AND LIZARDS
THE CENTAURS AND THE LIONS
AND PEGASUS AND DAEDALUS
AND ICARUS AND ARCHAEOPTERYX
AND OWLS AND BATS AND BULLS AND FISH AND
RAMS AND ANGELS
LANDED IN MY ROOM
AND GATHERED BY MY BED
AND WHISPERED IN MY EAR
WAKE UP, MINA. WAKE UP. IT’S TIME TO WAKE.
And I wake. And it’s dawn. And I’m still so close to the dream that I can nearly hear the snorting and the stamping and the rustling of wings, I can nearly feel the heat of the beasts by my bed. Then the after-dream disappears and there’s just me and the room and silence. But not true silence. There’s the drone of the city. There’s the beat of my heart. There’s Mum breathing gently in the room next door.
I go downstairs. Make chocolate milk and toast. Delicious. Go to the front door and stand there. The street’s empty, just cars lined up against the curbs. The sky’s empty, just a few clouds and passing birds. The dream repeats in my memory and the sky is filled again for a moment with falling beasts. I sip the lovely chocolate. I listen to the birds, to the dawn chorus, to what might be the voice of God.
I move to the tree, and I stand beneath it, against the trunk. The blackbirds squawk, but they know it’s only me and they soon calm down. I close my eyes and listen closer, deeper. And I hear the sound I want to hear, tiny and distant, as if it’s from another world. It’s coming from the nest. It’s the sound of tiny cheeping chicks. I smile. And then there’s another sound, just as tiny, just as far away, just as urgent.
The baby crying.
Suddenly, the miserable-looking doctor drives into the street in his miserable-looking car. He pulls up at the house just as he did when it was Mr. Myers’s house. He scans the street with his miserable-looking eyes, then the door’s opened to him and he goes inside. Then a nurse appears, walking quickly, much too quickly, from the end of the street, and goes into the house, too.
&
nbsp; I listen. No sound. Just my heart, just the chicks, just the city.
Then Mum’s at my back.
“Mr. Myers’s doctor’s come,” I tell her.
“Mr. Myers’s doctor?”
“Yes. For the baby.”
“You can’t know it’s for the baby.”
“A nurse came, too.”
“A nurse? It’s just routine, I’m sure it is.”
“I heard the chicks,” I tell her. “Then I heard the baby crying.”
As we stand, another car pulls up. Another nurse goes in. I chew my lip. I tremble slightly. It’s so weird. I feel like I’ve just been born myself, as if I’m at the edge of a huge adventure. But the doctor’s face. And the nurse’s. And the lines of worry on Mum’s brow.
“It’s probably nothing,” she says. “Little baby, a few days old.”
The blackbirds squawk. I see Whisper prowling in the shadows below the garden hedge. I hiss. I wave him off. He slinks backwards, further into the dark. But his eyes continue to shine from there.
Mum draws me back inside. We eat toast and drink tea. I keep going to the front window. An hour passes. More. Then the first nurse comes out and walks away. I tell Mum. She comes and we watch again. Then the other nurse comes out. She looks at her watch, rubs her eyes, gets into her car, drives away.
But no doctor. Nobody else.
“If we were outside we’d be able to listen for the baby,” I say. “We’d be able to hear if she’s OK.”
“It will be OK. Sometimes getting into the world safely can be difficult, that’s all.”
I see Whisper slinking out from the shadows, turning his ear towards the nest. I tap on the window. I bare my teeth. He looks at me, decides to ignore me, and slinks forwards again.
Then at last the doctor comes out. He stands with the dad at the door and they shake hands. He casts his miserable gaze along the street and drives away.
“Thank Heaven,” says Mum. She sighs with relief. “It must have been nothing.”
“Nothing,” I echo.
I hiss at Whisper.
“No!” I tell him. “No!”
She looks at her watch.
“I’ll go along later, see if I can help.”