Feather Boy
Page 17
I stopped the idea right there. Because of course I didn’t want that at all. I wanted what Mrs Sorrel would have wanted, “A Boy Who Can Do Anything Day”. And I realised you can’t really have days about that, it’s something that comes from inside. Something that comes from a touch or a belief or a hope. Something that takes root when you stand up and say “No” to a boy like Jonathan Niker.
Jonathan Niker. I’d like to say that we became, if not friends, then respectful of each other. That did happen. Not, finally, because of any action of mine, but because of something he did. The day after Mrs Sorrel’s funeral, there was a knock at my door. I answered it to find Niker and Kate standing on my doorstep.
“Johnny has something for you,” said Kate.
As soon as Niker reached for his pocket, I knew what it was. What they were. The feathers. Niker brought them out, the grey and broken Chance House feather and the white one from the beach.
“He did have them,” said Kate. “Clenched in his hand when he fell.”
Niker extended his hand, palm open and presented the feathers. “And others say,” Niker said, “that when he awoke the following morning he found two golden feathers shining on his pillow, and these feathers brought him courage and love and luck for all of his life.”
He said it gently, seriously, and I knew he meant the gift not just for me but also for Mrs Sorrel. “Thank you,” I replied. And then I added, just in case: “It wouldn’t have made any difference. She would have died anyway. You know that?”
He nodded.
Later I took the feathers to my room. Love – I am blessed enough in that. Courage – I plan to learn more of. And luck. Luck. If Mrs Sorrel taught me anything, she taught me that you make your own luck. I put the feathers in a drawer.
And then there’s Kate. I expect you want to know what happened between me and that angel with the dimple? Sorry. I can’t tell you that. At least not right now, because, well, it’s kind of a long story…
Acknowledgements
Stories don’t come out of nowhere. This one came from my son Roland who said one day, “Why don’t you write something for my age group?” He was eleven then, twelve by the time we’d finished the book. I read it to him chapter by draft chapter. His criticism was exact and wise. I thank him.
I’m grateful to my 10- to 13-year-old “test” readers: Sam Bull, Natalya Wells, Felix Faber, Clare Liddicoat and Matilda Kay. I sent them the first half of the book and a nervous questionnaire. They responded with intelligence (of course), but also with enthusiasm – which was a gift. Matilda even drew pictures.
I thank my sister Jackie. I’m thirteen years older than she is and I used to tell her stories. Now she tells me stories. She told me about an art project she was doing with the residents of St Edberg’s, Bicester. I was privileged to listen to some of the Elders. I acknowledge their wisdoms. I also thank my Great Aunt Dorothy, aged 91. With her great gentleness she told me about memory.
I’m grateful to Dan Yashinsky, whose wonderful book, The Storyteller at Fault (Ragweed) led me to the Silent Prince and the Firebird stories. Yashinsky retells the stories from the Cree and the Iroquois and I retell them from him. Thus go stories.
I thank my agent, Clare Conville, for her faith, her energy and her openness. They mean a lot to me.
And I thank the chance that led me, one day, to a huge, derelict house in downtown Hove and the powerful feeling that I just had to go in…
About the Author
Feather Boy
Nicky Singer was born in 1956 and has worked in publishing, the arts and television. She began her writing career at the age of 15, with lyrics for a cantata Jonah and the Whale, and has since written four adult novels – To Still the Child, To Have and to Hold, What She Wanted and My Mother’s Daughter – and two works of non-fiction – The Tiny Book of Time (with Kim Pickin) and The Little Book of the Millennium (with Jackie Singer). She was co-founder and co-director (1987–1996) of Performing Arts Labs, a charity dedicated to training new writers for theatre, screen and opera. In 1995 she presented BBC2’s highly acclaimed documentary series on women’s fertility, Labours of Eve, and wrote the preface to the book which accompanied the series. Nicky Singer lives in Brighton with her husband, their two sons and a daughter.
Praise
“feather boy is more than just a story about Bullying. It’s bigger than that. It’s about finding your voice, shouting from the rooftops about something you believe in, refusing to back down, never giving up. It’s enormously uplifting.”
John McLay
“Inventive, original and full of surprises, feather boy is the sort of dazzling debut novel that most publishers would fall over themselves to snap up…”
T2
“You won’t be able to put feather boy down until its emotional, thought-provoking climax. Fabulous.”
Funday Times
“feather boy is simply fabulous… an emotionally intense suspense novel of the highest order.”
Michael Thorn, Achuka
“Cleverly and economically written, this witty, observant and moving book is a comic and contemporary drama about courage, love, memory and the power of stories.”
Sunday Times
“Powerful and inspiring.”
Financial Times
Copyright
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books 2002
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Text copyright © Nicky Singer 2001
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