The Ice Garden

by Guy Jones

  ‘You live here,’ she said. ‘I mean, look at this place. It’s amazing. You’ve got ice-apples! You’ve got Flying Elephant Mice! My world’s nothing like this. It’s just . . . just normal. There’s nothing interesting at all. If I lived where you live, I’d never want to go anywhere else.’

  But that wasn’t true, she realized, even as the words left her mouth. Her world had jungles and mountains, and deserts that went on for hundreds of miles. It had weird little creatures with lights dangling from their heads that lived in the pitch-black at the bottom of the sea. She realized how strange the idea of an ocean would be to Owen, who’d never seen liquid water. Now she thought about it, even her little, nothingy town was something quite remarkable. It was full of people wandering around with all sorts of technology that they barely even thought about any more. It had the bizarre Madame Dobson, and Mr Olmos, with all his strange ideas. It had Davey, who somehow managed to be interesting despite the fact he was asleep the whole time! And of course it had her mother . . . All at once there was a hard lump in her throat.

  A high chirping erupted from Jess’s wrist. Three quick beeps followed by a pause and then three more. Owen groaned.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, shutting off her alarm and clambering to her feet. ‘Time’s up.’

  She didn’t try and write a story the next day. Instead, as soon as she’d finished a lesson on the history of canals with her mother, she got into the Hat and went across the road.

  When Mr Olmos answered the door to number thirty-three, Jess was alarmed to see him brandishing a large rolling pin in one hand. But, at the sight of her, the storm clouds lifted from his face and a toothy smile broke through.

  ‘Jessica!’ he exclaimed, moving aside and waving her past with the pin, like a policeman directing traffic. ‘You haven’t been round for a few days.’

  ‘What are you doing with that?’ she asked as she stepped inside.

  ‘What, this? Nothing . . .’ he said, not meeting her eye.

  ‘You were waiting for the postman, weren’t you?’

  ‘Postman? Ha!’ He pretended to spit. ‘He says he’s a postman, but is he really?’

  ‘Well, he walks around with a big bag of post.’

  ‘Which is clever, I agree. But you want my opinion – he’s not so much a postman as a demon.’ He caught Jess’s sceptical look. ‘A demon sent here to torment me by refusing to deliver my new apiary.’

  ‘Your what?’

  ‘A beehive! I’m going to start tending bees! Or at least I will as soon as that devil brings the things I’ve paid for fair and square. Fair and square, Jess!’

  ‘So you were going to hit him with a rolling pin?’

  ‘Well . . . I probably wouldn’t have hit him. Just, I don’t know, waved it around a bit.’

  As they spoke, Jess followed her neighbour through the lounge and into an airy kitchen at the back. As ever, she felt a thrill of excitement at being at Mr Olmos’s. Whereas her house was always kept neat and tidy, number thirty-three was a scene of unfettered chaos. Which is not to say it was dirty – not in the slightest. It was just that the remnants of half-completed projects lay on every table and were tucked away in the corners of rooms. There were bookshelves everywhere, bowing in the middle under the weight of their passengers. There was every type of tome imaginable, from leather-bound hardbacks that weighed half as much as she did, to yellowing old comic books. This was the perfect place to find a selection of things that would give Owen a taste of her world.

  Mr Olmos pulled the blinds shut as they went. ‘You can take that silly thing off your head now,’ he said. ‘Honestly, you look ridiculous – I don’t know why you insist on wearing it.’

  Jess grinned. Most adults were too freaked out by the Hat to risk making jokes.

  She watched as he poured boiling water into a mug containing a bizarre-looking selection of leaves and herbs. Within seconds an evil smell floated up on the steam that rose from the cup. ‘You want some?’ Mr Olmos asked, offering it to her. She screwed up her face.

  ‘Suit yourself,’ he answered with a shrug.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘This is what keeps me looking so young.’

  Jess considered this. Mr Olmos’s skin was the colour and texture of a walnut. His hair and beard were frizzy and greying. But his brown eyes were sharp, and hard and present.

  ‘My special recipe,’ he said and took a sip. ‘Tastes awful, but that’s not the point.’ Another sip. ‘But, my word, that really is terrible.’

  They chatted about the upcoming bee project for a little while until Jess explained that she’d like to borrow a few things.

  ‘What kind of things?’

  ‘Just things. You know, random things.’

  ‘Nothing here is random, Jessica, it just looks that way.’

  ‘I have a friend. He’s from . . . from somewhere else. I want to show what life here’s like.’

  ‘Where’s he from? Is he from where I’m from? If he is, you should bring him round.’

  ‘I don’t think so, exactly, no.’

  ‘Well, you should bring him round anyway.’

  ‘I’m not sure that would work.’ She waited. ‘I’ll bring everything back.’

  He regarded her for a few moments. She thought he was about to ask another question but eventually he shrugged. ‘Keep it all,’ he said. ‘My gift to you.’

  At that moment they both heard the sharp clatter of the letter box and Jess dived for the rolling pin before Mr Olmos could retrieve it.

  That night she filled her rucksack with the items she’d selected. Amongst them were an atlas, so that she could show Owen her whole world, and a book about Africa, for him to learn about some flesh-and-blood animals. There was a simple circuit board with a light attached, to show him technology, and a plastic model of an old fighter plane to explain that it wasn’t always used for good. And there was a French flag, carefully folded up. If he couldn’t visit France, then she’d have to bring it to him.

  Finally, she opened her sock drawer and rummaged around until her fingers closed around a jewellery box. She fished it out and retrieved a small parcel of tissue paper from within. Her fingers could just about make out the shape of the object wrapped up inside. This was the most important item – the one that would show Owen a little bit more of herself. She tucked it in her pocket and made her way out.

  ‘Thank you for my presents,’ said Owen.

  ‘En français, s’il te plaît.’

  He looked blank.

  ‘Merci,’ she said. ‘You say, merci.’

  ‘Mercy,’ he replied.

  ‘We can work on that.’

  They’d hung the flag from the branches of the Old Man. It looked strange there, dangling from the twisted ice oak. Every now and then a light breeze came waltzing through, sending ripples across the red, white and blue silk. The other items were stacked up against a bank. Owen had been giddy with excitement, leaping from one to the next like a starving man placed in front of a banquet table. In the end Jess had to insist on talking him through each in turn, but he had so many questions that after an hour they’d barely made it through a quarter of the atlas.

  ‘So this country’s called America.’

  ‘The USA, that’s right.’

  ‘What’s the USA?’

  ‘The United States of America.’

  ‘And the United States of America is in North America?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘But this down here, this is America as well?’

  ‘That’s South America.’

  ‘And this?’

  ‘Central America.’

  ‘And the whole thing together is . . . ?’

  ‘America, yes.’

  ‘So the country of America is in . . . America?’

  ‘I think you’re making it more difficult than it really is.’

  Owen frowned and flipped to Southern Asia.

  Jess rested her back against the rucksack and put her hand on the object
wrapped up in her pocket. She closed her fingers into a fist to stop them trembling. Could she really do it? Could she really show it to him? The thing that not even her mother knew about.

  ‘There’s one more,’ she said at last.

  Owen’s face lit up. ‘Another present?’

  ‘This one isn’t to keep. And it’s a bit strange, so you have to promise not to laugh.’

  ‘Strange how?’

  ‘It’s . . . it’s personal.’

  He put the atlas to one side and sat down next to her. Jess took a breath and retrieved the item from her pocket. She carefully opened up the tissue paper, revealing a cone-shaped seashell. It had fractured into two pieces.

  ‘What is it?’ Owen asked, his eyes darting back to the pile of books she’d brought him. ‘It’s broken.’

  ‘I know that, Owen.’

  He shrugged.

  ‘My dad gave it to me.’ Suddenly her mouth felt dry. ‘We were on holiday when I was little. He went for a walk one morning and when he came back he had this for me. I remember . . . I remember it sitting on his palm. There were little bits of sand stuck to his skin. His hand felt really warm as I took it from him. I remember how warm it was. He told me that an animal used to live in this shell.’

  ‘An animal? In there?’

  ‘And then when the animal died the shell was washed up on the shore. It might have been there for a long time, he said, just waiting for someone to notice it and bring it to their lovely daughter as a present. His lovely daughter, that’s what he called me. And then he kissed me on the forehead.’

  Her stomach twisted itself into a knot and she fought to keep back the tears.

  ‘I kept it on the table by my bed but after he left I knew Mum wouldn’t want to see it, so I hid it in my drawer. Every now and then I get it out and look at it and I think about those little bits of sand on his fingers, and the way he kissed me on the forehead.’

  ‘He’s not around any more?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why?’

  Because he realized I’d never be normal, thought Jess. And he didn’t like that very much. Didn’t like that at all.

  She shook her head and pointed at the shell. ‘It broke when we moved. I should have thrown it away, I suppose . . .’ Don’t cry. You don’t let them see you cry. Not ever. ‘Should probably have thrown it away.’ Don’t, Jess. Don’t. But she couldn’t help it. Tears splashed from her eyes and on to the frozen ground. ‘Sorry. It’s silly,’ she said.

  Owen reached out and rested his hand on hers. It felt like her veins flowed with freezing water. She looked up at him.

  ‘I don’t think it’s silly at all,’ he said. ‘Not at all.’

  She made her way along Weston Road and on to the High Street. She felt hollowed out and exhausted, and yet somehow stronger than before. Her arm still tingled slightly from Owen’s touch – painful and comforting all at once. She was walking with her head bowed as always, and stepped straight into someone coming out of the chip shop.

  ‘Excuse me,’ she muttered, trying to make her way round. The woman placed a firm hand on Jess’s shoulder. A rotten smell rose from her denim jacket. Jess shrank away in fear. ‘Excuse me,’ she said again, trying to keep the tremor out of her voice.

  ‘Late, isn’t it?’

  ‘Can I go past, please?’ Could she break her grip and make a run for it? Every part of her wanted to get away, to get home, to be safe.

  ‘Late for you to be out.’ The woman’s smile was unsteady. Thick fingers drummed a nervous beat on a shiny leather handbag.

  ‘I know.’ She jutted her chin out. Don’t let her see I’m scared.

  ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Does your mum know where you are?’

  ‘I’m twelve years old. What kind of a mother doesn’t know where her twelve-year-old daughter is in the middle of the night?’

  The woman’s mouth opened, creating various additional chins below it. Jess continued to meet her gaze, turning on what her mother called the Stare. Jess had a wide forehead, narrow chin, and large, light grey eyes. She had long ago learnt that her natural expression of concentration produced an unwavering gaze that many adults found unsettling.

  ‘You’re cute,’ said the woman eventually.

  This was, Jess knew, a lie. She could be cute. She could, if she chose, be nothing less than adorable, but not unless she intended it, and certainly not when she switched on the Stare.

  ‘Why don’t I wait with you until your mum gets back?’ the woman said. ‘Where is she again?’

  ‘I didn’t say she was here, I just said she knew where I was.’

  The woman looked uncomfortable at this but was interrupted by a shout of greeting from someone across the road. Reluctantly, knowing it was probably wrong to leave a little girl alone in the street at night but with no clue what she should do about it, she took her hand away. ‘Maybe you should just go home,’ she said, turning.

  ‘That’s where I’m going now,’ said Jess. ‘You don’t need to worry about me.’ Relief coursed through her.

  She started to move away but was stopped in her tracks by the sight of an extremely tall, thin man coming her way. He wore light blue scrubs, with an unzipped hoody over the top. It was Doctor Stannard, clearly on his way home from a shift. Her heart hammered upwards into her throat.

  He was closing the ground between them quickly. A phone glowed in his hand, and for now he was intent on the screen, reading as he walked. It would only take a single movement of the head, though. Just one glance in her direction and the game would be up for good. All at once Jess could see her mother’s face – skin drawn tight with worry, eyes red and sunken. There would be shouting at first, which would be bad. And then there would be disappointment, which would be worse. She would have to explain about her night-time walks, and any chance of slipping out again would be gone for ever. Gone for ever. She’d never see the ice garden again. She’d never see Owen.

  The doctor was no more than ten metres away. There was no other option: Jess threw herself into an awkward hug against the woman’s side, burying her face into the denim jacket. She could feel soft flesh squirming underneath. ‘I just don’t know where my mum is,’ she said in a small voice.

  ‘I thought you said . . .’ the stranger began, but Jess began to sob quietly, her shoulders hiccuping with little jerks. She could feel the tension in the woman’s body, but after a second a flat palm began to tap her back. ‘There, there . . .’

  She held on tight. From the corner of her eye she saw the doctor as he passed them. His high, bony cheeks looked stark in the cold light of his phone. Jess held her breath until the danger was past.

  She waited a few more seconds and then abruptly took a step back. The woman shifted from one foot to the other.

  ‘I’m fine now,’ said Jess, ‘thank you.’

  ‘But your mum?’

  Jess shrugged and offered a smile. Then, swiping a chip from the woman’s paper bag, she broke into a run.

  ‘I dare you.’

  ‘I dared you first.’

  ‘I double-dare you.’

  ‘You can’t do that.’

  Friendly competition bubbled up between them like water from pressed moss.

  ‘I bet you can’t eat three ice-apples in a minute.’

  ‘Give them here.’

  ‘I bet you can’t go down the slide forwards on your belly.’

  ‘Just watch me.’

  ‘I dare you to hang our flag from the top of that tree.’

  ‘What if I slip?’

  ‘If you don’t do it, I win.’

  ‘Then hand me the flag.’

  ‘Vive la France!’

  These bets were sealed with a solemn handshake, the winner gaining the right to set the next challenge.

  ‘I dare you to cross the bridge to the forest,’ said Owen, who was dangling from one of the arms of the Old Man.

  Jess didn’t look up, but her skin puckered and pimpled at
the thought.

  ‘Well?’ he asked.

  ‘Wait,’ she said. She broke a piece of milk chocolate from the bar in her hand and held it out to the Flying Elephant Mouse, which was sheltering under a nearby shrub.

  ‘You’re stalling.’ He leant down beside her.

  ‘Stop it, you’ll scare him off.’

  ‘I’m telling you that’s not the same one.’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I recognize him.’

  ‘They all look the same.’

  ‘I recognize him, Owen. He’s in training.’

  ‘You can’t be training him if it’s a different one every time.’

  ‘It’s not. This is Arnold.’

  ‘You called him Arnold? Why?’

  ‘Because that’s his name, of course.’

  ‘The bridge, Jess. If you don’t do it, then I win.’

  ‘Come on little friend,’ she cooed, ‘just take a nibble.’ She nudged the segment a fraction closer and the tiny creature’s whiskers vibrated with interest. It inched forwards, eyes darting from Jess to the food and back again. Eventually it rose up on its hind legs and rested its forepaws on the chocolate. It dipped its head and took a tentative bite. ‘Chocolate,’ she whispered. ‘I should have known.’

  The mouse began to eat in earnest, its translucent face now streaked mud-brown. She reached down and carefully placed a single finger on the fur of its back. It kept eating. ‘It’s not running away,’ she hissed, glancing up. Owen rolled his eyes. Jess began to stroke and the creature’s body relaxed slightly, allowing her to trace the curve of its spine. It’s happening, she thought. At last!

  What followed was lightning fast. The mouse’s eyes flicked up and Jess could have sworn they actually changed colour, from a brilliant blue to deep black. Its lips curled back and a throaty growl escaped. It leapt into the air, twisting to bring its mouth round to her finger. Jaws snapped and two rows of sharp, neat teeth sunk into flesh. She jerked away with a cry and the animal scuttled back to the safety of the flower bed. A few droplets of blood made blossoms in the snow.

  ‘Did you see that?’ said Jess.

  ‘Let me have a look.’ Owen made to take hold of her hand but Jess put a palm up to stop him.