“It’s yours, if you want it. Oh, you may leave it here for now. You can hardly hump it onto the bus with your crutches and all. But it’s yours. Only . . .” He paused, then said wistfully, “Would you come back and play it for me sometimes?”
“I’d like that,” said David. “But there’s one thing that still bothers me. How can I play rock music on a harp?”
“I’ve heard it said that love will find a way,” said Geraint Davies, smiling.
That night, David lay awake for a long time. If he had to go forward, how should he begin? How could he make his life tight, with no holes for doubt and despair to creep through?
He’d tell his dad he’d stay, of course, even for the extra year his father had planned. How could he leave anyway, still tied to the place by his heartstrings as he was? It wouldn’t be easy with his father. But maybe he could make something good come out of it—study music, learn more about the harp.
That was something. But not enough.
He reached over and tugged open the drawer of his bedside table and drew out paper and pencil. He hesitated for a long time. Then, he wrote.
Dear Jamie,
I guess you’ll be surprised to hear from me after so long. Maybe you’ll tear this letter up. I hope not, though, because I want to say I’m sorry about Jeannie. For what I did. I know just saying that doesn’t make it all right. I know it’s not that easy. But saying it is where I have to start. I hope someday you’ll both be able to forgive me . . .
SEVENTEEN
David returned to school. His father had said he didn’t have to. There were only six weeks of term left anyway. But anything was better than sitting alone in their flat. So he went.
It was awkward dragging his way around on crutches. The break had been a bad one, and it would be weeks yet before the cast could come off. But people were kinder than he’d thought they’d be. Someone would hold a door open or offer to carry his books to the next class. Girls he’d found stand-offish now batted their eyelashes and asked him if his leg hurt very much. It was as if stealing something and getting into trouble had made him into some sort of hero. It was kind of embarrassing.
Hwyel, of course, had spread the word about the accident all over the school. Luckily, the bike had not been too badly damaged, and Paul Baird had paid to have it fixed. Hyw boasted that he even got some things fixed that hadn’t worked before the accident. David, wincing at the cost, had promised to pay his father back—someday.
“Nicked our Hywel’s bike and belted away on up past Abergavenny, I hear,” said a boy named Evan Jones, walking beside David as he stumped along on his crutches to their next class.
“Um,” said David.
“He did that. Must have been going like a bleeding bat, the coppers said,” added another boy. “My da heard it all from one of them and told me. Ran straight into something, you did, though they couldn’t figure out what. Lucky to be alive you are, they said.”
“Guess I am at that,” said David.
“Cor!” said another admiringly. “Didn’t think old Hyw’s bike had it in it! Bit of a joke that old boneshaker’s always been.”
David settled into his seat, his leg stuck out at an awkward angle. It was a relief when the teacher arrived.
If I told them I’ve been running around ancient Britain with King Arthur, they’d say I was nuts, he thought wryly. Even if Professor Davies didn’t.
Not much more than a week later, he was standing in the hall half-listening to Evan and the others clowning around. Someone galloped past them down the stairs, heading for the main doors. Out of the corner of his eye, David glimpsed a tall girl disappearing as the doors swung shut. Something about her made his heart leap into his throat.
“Who was that?” he gasped, grabbing Evan by the arm.
Interrupted in the midst of an account of the latest Leeds United-Arsenal match, Evan gaped at him foolishly. “Eh, what?” he asked.
“Someone—a girl—ran down the stairs just then. Did you see who it was?”
Evan shrugged. “Can’t say I noticed,” he said.
“New girl, that was,” said another boy, named Dai. “Transferred in a while back. Right snarky piece, say I. Tried to chat her up, just being friendly and all, and she nearly bit my head off.”
“What’s her name, though?”
Dai shook his head. “Can’t say as I know. She’s not in any of our classes. “Anyway, who cares? Keep your distance, that’s her motto!”
“Find out, will you?”
“Worth 50p to you, would it be?” asked Dai, grinning.
“Sure, stinker,” said David.
“Then I’m your man,” said Dai.
As it turned out, David saw her again after school the very next day. Suddenly, she was there ahead of him in the corridor, but before he could struggle through the crowd to her, she had gone out through the front doors.
He dropped his books and swung frantically after her on his crutches. “Meri!” he shouted at the top of his voice. “Meri!”
By the time he came out on the steps, she was halfway across the grounds.
He cupped his hands around his mouth and bellowed, “MERI!” She paused and looked back. Desperately, he waved one arm at her. Then he started hobbling down the stairs. In his haste, he set a crutch wrong, staggered, and almost fell. But he recovered his balance and kept on going.
The girl hesitated, as if she would rather go on. Then she walked back a few steps.
“Meri!” he panted, coming up to her. Then, his heart sinking, he stopped short and stared. It wasn’t Meri. How could he have thought it was? She was tall, like Meri, and broad-shouldered with it. But that was all. Her cropped hair was a coppery red under her peaked cap, and her eyes were hazel-green.
And she was scowling at him. “My name’s not Mary. It’s Bronwyn Evans. And I don’t know you. What d’you mean hallooing after me like that?”
“I’m sorry,” said David unsteadily. “For a moment I thought . . . I . . . I . . .” To his horror, he felt his eyes fill with tears.
“Well?” she said. “I haven’t time to stand about all day and have you gawp at me, have I? I only stopped because I thought you might fall and hurt yourself. I might have known it was some stupid prank.”
“Not a prank,” said David unsteadily.
She peered at him. “Here,” she said. “You’ve gone an awful fish-belly colour. You aren’t going to faint, are you?”
“It wouldn’t be the first time,” he managed to say.
She hesitated, then, “You look knackered. Maybe a cup of tea will set you up.”
David groaned. These people thought tea cured anything, body or soul!
She ignored his protest. “Just don’t think I’m picking you up or anything. It’s pure charity. Though you’re probably no better than all the other randy lads around here.”
She looked down at his leg. “But I guess you can’t do too much harm with that whacking great cast on. So come along. There’s a place at the corner that’ll do.”
David nodded, too numb to resist. She turned, and he swung into step alongside her. They crossed the grounds and headed for the corner.
“You must be the twit who stole someone’s motorbike and crashed it,” she said unsympathetically. “The story’s all over the school. What a daft thing to do!”
“It was.” David shrugged.
She gave him a sharp sideways glance. “And you’ve got a funny accent. American, is it?”
“Canadian.”
She sniffed, clearly not impressed. “Much of a muchness, I’m sure.”
“That’s not fair,” he shot back. “You Welsh don’t much like it when people get you mixed up with the English.”
“That’s not the same thing,” she snapped. “We have our own language and culture and all.”
“Ouch!” said David.
A bell tinkled as Bronwyn pushed open the door of the tea shop. “Cream teas for two,” she told the waitress, as they settled down at a table. The
n, looking David straight in the eye, “I’m starved, happen. But don’t worry, I’m paying for my share.”
“No, really,” he protested. “I’d be glad to pay for us both.”
Her full lower lip set stubbornly. “I don’t let strange boys treat me to tea, or anything else, thank you very much.”
David grinned. He couldn’t help it. She was so . . . so . . .
She frowned. “Here, you shouldn’t keep staring at me as if you know me. It’s rude. I suppose I look like some girl you know.”
He shook his head. “Not really,” he said.
“You act daft,” she said, with a toss of her head.
“If I told you all about it, you’d know I was daft.”
Two furrows of puzzlement appeared between her eyebrows. Then, as the waitress brought their teas, with bowls of clotted cream and jam, and a plate of scones, she shrugged and tucked in.
David ate nothing, but just sat watching her.
“You’re not having your tea. Money wasted, that is,” said Bronwyn, glancing at him.
You’re prickly and impossible, he thought, feeling better than he had for weeks.
“So, go ahead, tell me, then,” she demanded, pushing her plate away.
“Tell you what? And you’ve got jam on your nose.”
She dabbed it off with a napkin. “About that girl. What’s-her-name.”
“Meri. Her name is . . . was . . . Meri. I . . . well, maybe I’d like to tell you about her sometime. But not now. What I want to know is where you come from. I never saw you at school before—I’d remember if I had. And Dai said you were new.”
“Is he the one with the fast talk and the busy hands? I sent him off with a flea in his ear, I did,” said Bronwyn, a suspicion of a smile lurking at the corner of her mouth.
David laughed. “So he said. But where do you come from?”
“Upriver. Little dot of a place south of Abergavenny.”
“Have your people lived there long?”
“Time out of mind, they have,” she said. Then added, “Why are you so interested anyway?”
“I . . . I used to have friends up that way,” said David. “A long time ago.”
She was watching him now, her head cocked on one side and her brows still furrowed. Then she shrugged. “Weird, you are,” she said, retrieving her book bag and rootling in it.
David got awkwardly to his feet, fumbling for change for his part of the bill.
The little bell jangled again as they left the shop.
“Well,” said David. “See you again, then?”
She tossed her head. “Daresay you will. Seeing that we go to the same school and all.”
David swallowed. “I guess what I meant was—would you go out with me again sometime? I’d like to talk to you.”
“Well, you’ll just have to ask me then, won’t you?” she replied. “And we’ll see.” Her voice was crisp, but the hint of a smile was back at the corner of her mouth.
Just as she was turning away, he noticed what was pinned to the front of her cap. It was a tiny brooch in the shape of an owl. The sparkling stones that were its eyes flashed in the sun. Almost, he thought, as if the owl winked.
And a remembered voice spoke within him. Fate is a gift, both bright and dark. The wise accept it whole.
Yes, thought David. Yes, Emrys. You were right after all. Thank you, Lady of Flowers.
He leaned for a moment on his crutches, watching Bronwyn swing away up the street, bag slung over one shoulder, cap set at a jaunty angle. Then he closed his eyes, turning his face up to the May sun. It poured over him like liquid honey. And out of that moment, deep inside him, words and music began to spin themselves into a song.
It wasn’t right yet, he told himself. It would take time—maybe a lot.
But then he had that, didn’t he?
All the time in the world.
Sharon Stewart was born and raised in British Columbia. She attended Simon Fraser University and did graduate work in London, England and at the University of Toronto. She later taught English for a year in northern China. She now lives in Toronto where she works as a freelance writer, researcher and editor. The Minstrel Boy is her first novel for young adults.
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