It was an amazing start to the morning and the day improved when Harpreet came up to me at break and said, ‘Sorry about the other day. I was stupid and I didn’t know what I was saying. I don’t think you’re dangerous. You just got mad, that’s all, and you had a right to. Is that what made you run off? What we said?’ she asked, looking at the floor.
‘It was only a small part. Don’t worry about it,’ I told her.
Others had now clearly seen the cast list because a few of them came over to congratulate me, including Mona, who’d been given the role of Lady Macduff.
Jemima was cast as the messenger and Lou was assigned to the team building the set.
I could see her scowling in the corner of the classroom, but I no longer cared.
In art, Mr Leah congratulated me too.
‘I saw the great news,’ he said, coming over as we were finishing our project on the interpretation of dreams. Today, the dark figure in my painting looked far less menacing.
‘Your mum would be proud,’ Mr Leah said. ‘I’m sure she would have wanted to commemorate it in some way.’
His words sparked an idea in my head.
‘Is it all right if I borrow some paints?’ I asked him.
‘Yes, of course. You know where they live,’ he said, sweeping his hand across to the cupboards.
‘Thank you.’
‘And, Izzy?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s good to see you smile.’
That day I ran home with my bag filled with tubs of acrylic paint, which I emptied out in a heap on my bedroom floor. The first thing I did was to use the white and yellow to soften the edges of the dark ragged storm that I’d created when I’d painted the Blackest Day.
Then, in the clear space on the other side of it, I began to paint the next scene.
I drew the outline of the riverbank surrounded by seeping brown mud. Then the emerald-green of the river plants and the smudge of Milo running around on the bank. Next came the outline of Toby, busily hooking scraps on to the end of his fishing rod. His glasses had, as always, fallen down his nose. I was beside him, sitting with my trousers rolled up and my feet bare, ready to wade into the water to feed Spike, who was perched on the veranda of his new home, his feathers ruffled against the wind.
Next to this picture, I had left a special place that could be painted in time.
I surveyed my work of art. It wasn’t even close to Mum’s standards, but I think she would have liked it nonetheless.
I was adding the finishing touches to Spike’s wings when the doorbell rang.
Toby sat outside with an enormous grin on his face.
‘She got the job!’ he shouted when he saw me. ‘She got the job!’
‘That’s incredible! Does that mean that you’re definitely staying?’
‘Yep. Mum’s decided that she’ll use some of her first month’s salary on renovation. We’ll start by doing her bedroom and then mine. I’ve already volunteered you to help. I hope that’s OK.’
‘I’d love to!’
But first, of course, we went to the river, to check in on our favourite feathered friend.
‘I saw him this morning,’ said Toby. Then he suddenly clamped his mouth shut, as if remembering that he wasn’t supposed to tell me anything.
The weekend had brought with it a sudden cold spell, and a lot of the mud beneath us had turned to ice.
I scanned the water. There was no sign of the swans.
‘Look, there,’ said Toby impatiently, pointing in the direction of Spike’s house. I crept closer and watched and within moments, I burst out laughing.
Because there was Spike, sitting in his house, stuffing his beak with something delicious. Two of his siblings were trying to force their way into his home to steal his food, but our hero was having none of it. He fought them off with his wings, and after a short scuffle, to my amazement, they backed away.
‘Where did he get that from?’ I asked Toby, trying and failing to make out what Spike was eating.
‘I don’t know.’ Toby shrugged. ‘I didn’t give it to him and the mother swan is nowhere in sight. Which can only mean one thing – that he managed to get it for himself.’
‘Spike, you did it!’ ’
‘Absolutely. We’ve got proof now.’
‘He’s going to be all right, isn’t he?’
‘Of course. I told you, didn’t I? All he needed was a bit of help.’
Macbeth was on in the last week of school before Christmas. Milton High School had always been unusual when it came to theatre. Other schools had Christmas plays and carol concerts, whereas we had Shakespeare. I was glad we did. The month in the run-up to the production was filled with rehearsals. They were on almost every day after school and I had to be in almost every single one of them.
I spent any free time helping Toby with his room. Anna and I took apart Toby’s clunky old bed and replaced it with a new one, which was smaller and easier for him to get in and out of. Then we dismantled the old boiler cupboard and put in a new desk which Toby could use for everything from schoolwork to building things.
When I was leaving I noticed a box lying among the pile of things at the end of the corridor, ready to be put into Toby’s room. There were a couple of paintbrushes in it, a menu from Anna’s new restaurant, Balti Towers, slats of wood from the building of Spike’s house and the photo that Toby took of me feeding Spike on the veranda.
The Box of After, it said on the side.
And, of course, I visited Mum. She still lay in the same bed, a shadow of her old self. The doctor had told Dad a few days earlier that the swelling in her head had gone down, though, which was a good sign. There was no day set yet for bringing her out of the coma, but there was real hope that it would happen.
The sight of her room no longer frightened me. I barely heard the beeps of the machine.
I’d taken her Spike’s feather a while back. I’d twirled it in between her fingers so she could feel how it was strong and soft at the same time, and then I’d popped it in a tiny vase on her bedside table.
‘People might think that you’re weak,’ I’d said aloud. ‘Or that you’re not going to make it… but then it turns out that you’re stronger than you think. And sometimes you just need a bit of help. I brought you this from Spike, who proves it’s true. I think you two would really like each other.’
And as I talked, an image formed in my head of going down to the riverbank with Mum to introduce her to Spike. We would get there just as he was spreading his wings, wings which by now would be almost completely white. Maybe he would fly just a short distance to begin with, as nothing ever seems easy the first time you do it, but then he would try again and again and each time he would fly a little higher.
Today I told Mum about how excited and scared I was about playing Lady Macbeth and I gripped her hand tightly, in the way that I would normally do before going on stage. And even though she couldn’t squeeze back, I could almost hear her saying, as she always did, ‘You’re going to whizz them away. You’d better watch out that you don’t lose your hearing from all the clapping.’ And deep down I knew she was right – I didn’t have to be scared. Of anything.
Nineteen
It was the opening night of the play. I was waiting behind the curtain with Frank, who was backstage, when he should have been in the lighting box.
‘Bet you’re petrified,’ he said.
‘Frank, shut up.’
‘I’m only saying it because I know that you’ll be awesome.’
‘I haven’t rehearsed enough. What if I forget where to go, or even worse, what if I forget my lines?’
‘You’re fine. Remember to repeat “out” twice in “out, out damned spot”. That’s the only thing you got wrong on Friday. Other than that you memorised everything.’
Frank had stayed after school every night the previous week, directing me to where I should be standing in each scene and testing me on my lines. There is no way I would’ve learned them in time
without his help.
‘Go on, you’re up, you’re up!’ he said now, and motioned for me to step forward.
It all happened so quickly. Just two steps and suddenly the lights illuminated me and I’d no doubt that I could do this. I no longer felt bland and grey – I felt coloured in, in full technicolour and I wanted to do this for Mum. Even the tightness of the corset of my dress, or the beads of sweat on my forehead didn’t matter, because the words came out as they were always meant to. I moved around the stage with ease, and remembered every single word. There was one thing that was different, though. I could still imagine Lady Macbeth’s guilt – it was a feeling I’d known so well for so long, but I knew now that I was nothing like her. She had deliberately gone out to hurt people, and that wasn’t me at all.
I was half-aware of the cheering by the end of the scene, but it wasn’t over yet. It was only with the final curtain call that I allowed myself to breathe properly and to look out at the audience. I was searching for some very important spectators. My eyes scanned the rows of chairs. And there they were – at the front, right behind the Sergeant, who caught my eye and gave me a thumbs-up. She looked far less frightening in her casual clothes, without her ‘army uniform’. Toby was whistling and clapping like mad. Next to him Anna, Aunty Lyn and Uncle Tom beamed with pride.
And on the other side of Toby, Dad was on his feet, giving me a standing ovation. He looked at me, our eyes locked and he winked.
He was waiting for me at the door of the Green Room after the play, where Mona and Harpreet were helping me out of my corset.
‘You were even more specsational than I expected,’ he said, and I saw real laughter in his eyes. ‘Even Lou said so.’
‘Lou came to see it?’
‘Yes, she was sitting just a few rows behind us with her mum. And did you see that Simon came too, with his wife? He said you were the best Lady Macbeth he’d ever seen.’
Dad had been back at work for a week now and things were going well. Project Elephant was already preparing for a trip to Kenya in the spring to visit a new elephant sanctuary to see how it could be supported.
Dad whispered in my ear, ‘You know she’s always incredibly proud of you, don’t you? She would have loved this.’
My heart sped up for a moment then, but I squeezed his hand and nodded because I knew it was true. And she’d been right about the clapping – it had been the loudest that I’d ever had. I would go back again tomorrow to tell Mum about how everything went and I knew, somehow, I knew she would be well again. She just needed a little bit of help.
As we left, I found myself in a crowd of classmates all wanting to congratulate me, among them Mr Winch, who shook my hand and told me, ‘I’ve already got a great role in mind for you for next year’s show!’
Then Aunty Lyn came over and gave me a hug.
‘I can’t put into words how good you were,’ she told me. She brushed her hand against her left eye causing a mascara smudge. ‘I’m going to miss you.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, I think you and your dad are going to do all right without me. You will. And you know I’m always at the end of the phone if you need me. I’ll come straightaway, anytime.’
‘Yes, I know. Thanks for staying with us,’ I said. ‘It made a big difference.’ I smiled at her, because I realised how true it was.
‘I’m glad to hear you say that. And you know what? I’m going to see you in a couple of weeks anyway, because we’ll all descend on you for Christmas.’
‘You’re coming here? That’s great.’
‘Yes, if you don’t mind. I thought about inviting Anna and Toby too, because Anna mentioned that they wouldn’t be going back north, as they’d originally planned.’
I hadn’t dared think about Christmas. I knew, of course, that it was coming in the not too distant future, but I just couldn’t imagine it with Mum still in hospital. It had always been the four of us – me, Mum, Dad and Milo.
Toby was waiting for me in the corner of the car park, Milo asleep on his lap.
‘I’d better get used to this place,’ he said. ‘I’ll be spending a lot of time here next term.’
‘You got accepted?’ I felt as if there were fireworks going off in my stomach. I couldn’t believe that he’d waited this long to tell me.
‘Yep. Your school passed all the tests for ramps and good wheelchair access so I’ll be here from January.’
‘No way!’
‘Do you think they’ll let us sit together?’
I was going to answer yes, but then I remembered that I had a very loyal desk companion already.
‘Sure, although I currently sit next to Frank…’
‘Ah, the one from the lighting box?’
‘You know him?’
‘We talked a bit after the show. He seems all right. I’m only kidding, you know – it doesn’t matter where I sit. Everyone I’ve met so far seems great.’
‘They are.’
And I meant it. There was the possible exception of Lou, but she strangely didn’t bother me that much now. The old Lou belonged to the world before the Blackest Day. Maybe she would return one day, but at the moment I was just fine without her.
I spent the next half an hour hugging and chatting to everyone who had come to see the play and I still felt a rush of victory as I skipped along next to Toby on the way home, just a bit ahead of Dad, Aunty Lyn and Anna.
Soon, the laughter and shouts grew distant and all I could hear was the sound of Toby’s wheels turning on the pavement. I breathed in, savouring the smell of the cold December night. And I could have been imagining it but somewhere from the direction of the river, I thought I could hear the faint flutter of wings. I wondered if it was Spike, showing everyone who was boss. After all, my lucky feathers had come from those very wings.
We hope you enjoyed this book.
For more information, click the following links
Acknowledgements
About Ewa Jozefkowicz
About Zephyr
Acknowledgements
A big thank you to my amazing editor Fiona Kennedy and the wonderful team at Head of Zeus, who brought this book to life. An equally big shout out to my patient and encouraging agent Kate Hordern who believed in it from the start, even when it needed a lot of work.
Thank you to my first readers, Giles, Deeps, Suzie, Poppy, Beth, Helena, Will and Francine, to my supportive and constructively critical creative writing group from Curtis Brown Creative, and to everyone who encouraged me to persevere with finally finishing the manuscript, especially my mum, Agata and Sophie.
A belated thank you also to my dad, who inspired my love of books from an early age. I hope he would have liked this one.
It’s been a long but exciting journey.
Ewa Jozefkowicz
London
January 2018
About Ewa Jozefkowicz
Ewa Jozefkowicz grew up in Ealing, and studied English Literature at UCL. She currently works in marketing, and lives in Highbury, north London, with her husband and twin girls.
Find me on Twitter
About Zephyr
Zephyr is an imprint of Head of Zeus.
At Zephyr we are proud to publish books you can read and re-read time and again because they tell a brilliant story and because they entertain you.
That’s why we've launched the Zephyr Review Crew. We'd like to hear about the things you love in our books and what you think we could do better.
Join our review crew and be the first to read the very best new books. Members will receive exclusive author content and chances to win signed books. Just drop us a line at [email protected]
Visit Zephyr now
Find us on Twitter
Find us on Facebook
Find us on BookGrail
First published in the UK by Zephyr, an imprint of Head of Zeus, in 2018
Text copyright © Ewa Jozefkowicz
Artwork copyright © Sophie Gi
lmore
The moral right of Ewa Jozefkowicz to be identified as the author and Sophie Gilmore to be identified as the artist of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
9 7 5 3 1 2 4 6 8
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN (HB): 9781786698940
ISBN (E): 9781786698933
Cover illustration by Sophie Gilmore
sophieillustrates.com
Author photo: © Ruta Zukaite
Zephyr
an imprint of Head of Zeus
First Floor East
5–8 Hardwick Street
London EC1R 4RG
Visit Zephyr now
Visit Head of Zeus now
The Mystery of the Colour Thief Page 11