Mira in the Present Tense
Page 22
I thread a piece of navy blue ribbon through the holey stone, measuring its length against mine, threading it through, looping it around and pulling it tight. Then I start to wrap layer upon layer of tissue, just enough so that she won’t make out the shape. I choose silvery gray paper…the color of the sky on the day I found this holey stone.
Now I am twelve…
I glue a love-heart shape onto the top layer of tissue and sprinkle it with the leftover glitter from Nana’s funeral. Now I get it, why Nana spent so much time and care and love wrapping…presents are the giver’s secret, just for a moment, until they pass from one hand to another.
The letterbox clanks. I take the stairs in threes, hurling myself down, flinging open the front door. Standing there, with a worried look on her face, is Millie, but before she can say anything I order her to close her eyes and hold out her hand, pressing my secret parcel into her palm. She opens her wise owl eyes and giggles as she slowly unwraps my present…it’s the moment before you actually know what’s inside that’s the most exciting. Millie traces the stone with her fingers through the thin layers of tissue paper.
“A holey stone! You found me one!” Millie throws her arms round me and clamps me in the tightest hug, as if I’ve given her the most precious jewel in the whole world. When we unclasp each other, she tips her head forward, letting her hair ripple toward the ground in a golden wave so that I can tie the leather lace in a tiny knot at the nape of her neck.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t here for the funeral,” she says.
“It’s OK!”
I check my watch. It’s still so early, not even eight o’clock, but we walk into school anyway. The first person we see is Orla, waiting on a bench outside the school gates. When we’re halfway down the path, she turns, and for a minute I think she looks pleased to see us.
“Sorry about your nana, Mira.”
“Thank you.”
“I heard her on the radio. My mum and me…on the program about the pope. Why didn’t you tell us she was famous?”
“She wasn’t really,” I shrug. I don’t know what to say. Orla has never ever been this nice to me.
“What’s that?” she asks, pointing at Millie’s holey stone necklace.
Here goes, I think. Now she’ll go in for the kill.
“It’s a present from Mira.”
Then Orla notices my holey stone, which I’ve forgotten to tuck inside my blouse.
“My nana and me, we used to collect them on the beach.”
Orla nods.
“Could you get me one?” she asks, smiling shyly at me.
I can’t believe that Orla Banks wants me, Mira Levenson, to find her a holey stone!
“Looks like your nana’s started a new craze,” laughs Millie.
At break we sit on our wall, Millie and me, as if nothing’s changed…
“You found your charm then?” Millie points to my wrist to get a closer look.
“Turns out I never lost it,” I say.
She tells me about her holiday and I tell her about Nana Josie’s funeral. I want to tell her about pretending to go to hers for tea but going to Jidé’s instead and about Jidé and his sister and Pat Print turning up at Nana’s funeral…and about my dreams…but somehow I can’t think of a way to tell her any of these things. Suddenly I remember my deal with Notsurewho Notsurewhat the day I saw Pat Print on the beach; the day I found Millie’s holey stone.
“Do you believe in ghosts?” I ask Millie.
She shoots me one of her “Do you have to be so random?” looks.
“No, Mira, definitely not.”
That’s what I love about Millie. She’s always so sure about everything.
“How about spirits or angels then?”
“I spy with my little eye…” Millie stares through her new holey stone, scanning the sky for signs of spirits or angels.
“None that I can see,” she laughs, focusing her gaze closer to home until it comes to rest on Ben Gbemi.
And through the eye of my holey stone I spy Jidé Jackson striding toward me, closer and closer…Nana Josie’s voice fills my head…
“People who need charms, you’ll know them when you meet them.”
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this book or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2011 Sita Brahmachari
Cover design by Jenna Stempel
Cover image by John Lund/Sam Diephuis/Blend Images/Getty Images
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