Following Flora

by Natasha Farrant

  “Have you heard from his mum?” I asked, and he said, “No, still nothing.”

  “What’s happened to his mum?” I asked.

  Zoran shrugged and said she had vanished again.

  “And what about Mr. Rudowski? Did you speak to him again?”

  Zoran said yes he had, but he wasn’t comfortable talking to me about it, because it was inappropriate.

  “But I want to know,” I said.

  “It’s private, and it’s not fair to Zach.”

  I thought about this for a bit. “I think it’s not fair to Zach if you don’t tell us,” I said at last. “How else are we supposed to understand what he’s going through?”

  Zoran sighed. “She’s ill, Blue, and she’s incredibly possessive of Zach. She hates to see him with other people, even though she’s never around.”

  “But I still don’t understand . . .”

  “People like that need help, but they don’t always want it. It’s hard for them and it’s hard for the people around them. It killed Mrs. Rudowski.”

  “Wanda killed Zach’s grandmother?”

  “I didn’t say that.” Zoran smiled faintly. “I just meant that worrying about her daughter didn’t help Mrs. Rudowski’s cancer. And now that’s enough. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

  Zoran looked exhausted. I gave him a nudge.

  “He looks all right now,” I said, nodding at Zach gazing up at nearly naked Flora. Zoran laughed.

  “I just have one last question,” I told him, and he groaned.

  “Flora says Zach’s mother was watching her when she was with Zach. And the other night, I thought I saw her outside the house. Don’t you think that’s weird?”

  “I think that one day, with that fine imagination of yours, you’re going to make a very fine writer,” Zoran said.

  “No, but seriously,” I said.

  “Seriously. A great writer.”

  He nudged me back, and I couldn’t help laughing.

  It was nice, sitting there and believing that.

  THE FILM DIAIRIES OF BLUEBELL GADSBY

  SCENE SEVEN (TRANSCRIPT)

  DRESS REHEARSAL

  The Gadsby living room. Chairs are arranged in two neat rows upon which sit FLORA, ZACH, TWIG, DODI, and ZORAN. All the lamps in the room have been assembled by the piano, where JAS stands in a pool of light, looking like the proverbial trapped bunny. The rest of the room is in darkness.

  (Applause)

  JAS

  Shall I start?

  FLORA

  Don’t say “shall I start.” Survey the room and wait for silence. Command our attention. Then, when you have it, begin.

  DODI

  (whispering, to Twig)

  How’s it going with Maisie?

  TWIG

  (whispering back)

  What’s it to you?

  DODI

  (trying not to snigger)

  Just that I heard she was hanging out with Justin Murphy after school last Wednesday.

  TWIG

  (a lot more loudly)

  I heard you don’t know how to mind your own business.

  ZORAN

  (in a very loud stage whisper)

  Please show respect to your sister and be quiet.

  JAS, to everyone

  I actually don’t see the point of this rehearsal at all.

  FLORA

  SILENCE IN THE HOUSE, PLEASE!

  JAS

  I can’t do this.

  ZACH

  Of course you can.

  JAS

  I really can’t.

  Zach rises to whisper in her ear. Jas gulps, nods, takes a deep breath, and tilts her chin as she turns back to face the camera. She opens her mouth to begin, but is put off by a scuffling noise from behind the door.

  TWIG

  (whispers)

  I bet that’s the parents listening.

  NOTE: parents have been banned from the rehearsal on the grounds that grown-ups will only make Jasmine even more nervous.

  Flora frowns and steps toward the door. The scuffling stops.

  Flora orders Jasmine to continue, but Jasmine is already at the door, which she flings open. PARENTS tumble into the room as Jasmine runs out.

  Zach, after a brief hesitation, goes after her. Flora starts to follow them, but he shakes his head and she remains.

  Camera goes black.

  SUNDAY, JANUARY 12

  The room stayed silent for about fifteen seconds and then it exploded.

  “What were you thinking?” Flora yelled at the parents. “You put her off the whole rehearsal!”

  “It was your father’s idea,” Mum mumbled. “I didn’t want to listen.”

  “And yet there you were. Listening,” Flora pointed out.

  “It’s not fair to exclude us,” Dad declared.

  I explained about adults making Jas nervous.

  “Zoran’s here!” Dad protested.

  “He’s not a real adult,” Flora said.

  The whole point of filming was for Jas to watch herself afterward and correct any mistakes. “We’ll have to do it again,” Flora said, but when Jas finally came back down, she just said no, she knew what was wrong and she was on it.

  “No more rehearsals,” she said.

  “But you’re not ready . . .” Flora started to say, and then Zach wandered into the room with his guitar.

  “Tell them,” Jas ordered.

  “We’re good,” Zach said, and that is when I knew that Zach is exactly the right boyfriend for Flora, because even though he doesn’t shout and he’s not particularly cool or tough like some of her previous boyfriends, all he has to do is shuffle into a room and say “we’re good” and she shuts up.

  Zoran took me aside. “You know she can’t go through with this,” he said. “Even if they don’t disqualify her because of her age, they’ll eat her alive.”

  “She’ll be fine,” I said.

  “Unlike your parents, I do my research! She’s a child, for God’s sake! She’s competing against adults. I don’t approve of this secrecy. I’ve a good mind to tell them what’s going on.”

  “Jas is changing,” I said. “If she has decided she wants to do this, no one can stop her.”

  WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 15

  Today I found two red roses in my locker. Dodi admitted almost immediately that she had given Jake the combination to my lock.

  “You have to stop encouraging him,” I told her.

  “But he loves you so much!” she cried.

  “This is getting ridiculous,” I said. “When I like him, he doesn’t like me. Now that I don’t like him, he does like me. Why is that?” Dodi said she didn’t know, but that it was a shame, and maybe it was because opposites attract.

  “So if I’m nice to him, he might go off me?” I asked.

  “I still don’t understand why you want him to go off you,” Dodi said. “I think he’s lovely.”

  “Because he’s ANNOYING!” I cried. “And if you like him so much, why don’t you go out with him?”

  Dodi went a bit red and said, “It’s not me he likes,” and I felt mean because Dodi doesn’t like to be reminded that she’s never had a boyfriend.

  “Well he’s an idiot,” I said, and she cheered up a bit.

  I thanked Jake for the flowers as we waited to go into Math.

  “It was very thoughtful of you,” I said. It was the first time I’d spoken to him since the Milk Shake Incident, and his whole face lit up like it was on fire.

  “Did you like them?” he asked.

  “They were very pretty,” I said, and then I went to sit right at the back of the class by the window, where none of the teachers allow him to go.

  “I’m coming to your sister�
��s performance on Sunday!” he called out as Mr. Math came in.

  “Whenever you’re ready, Jake,” said Mr. Math.

  Maybe my theory is wrong. Sometimes, if you’re nice to people, it only makes them like you more.

  SUNDAY, JANUARY 19

  Zach and Zoran were late. They were meant to meet us at home at six thirty, but by quarter to seven Dad said we couldn’t wait any longer. He phoned Zoran and told him we were leaving and to meet us at the recital. He also told him to get his act together because this was the most important night of his daughter’s life and she needed all the support she could get.

  “Stop being so jumpy,” Flora said. “You’re only making her more nervous.”

  Dad said he couldn’t help it. He said he felt responsible for Jas, because she must have inherited her writing genes from him. Mum reminded him that this wasn’t about him.

  “I’m sure there’s a good reason for their lateness,” she added, but Dad still wouldn’t calm down. “They are selfish, thoughtless, and incompetent,” he said as he tried to bundle us out of the house.

  Twig announced Jas had just run upstairs to be sick.

  The West London Open Evening of Poetry took place in a church with salmon-pink walls and dark green woodwork and paintings of angels in gold and blue above the altar, which sounds hideous but wasn’t, as I had plenty of time to observe through what for the most part was a long, dull evening. The first thing I noticed when we went in was how big it was. Also, how many people in West London appeared to like poetry, and how old everyone was compared to Jas. I don’t think I ever realized how young nine was before tonight. A lot of the people in the room looked like our next door neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Bateman, who are way past sixty and wear beige and do a lot of gardening, or else they were people Mum’s and Dad’s age in long colorful shawls and no makeup, who looked as though they might like to walk barefoot through fields on beautiful dewy mornings, chanting hymns of praise to the sunrise. There was a man in his twenties pacing up and down waving his arms doing some last minute rehearsing, and a girl wearing a nose ring and a yellow jumpsuit who looked a bit confused, but there was absolutely nobody as small and terrified as Jas.

  “Tickets are ten pounds each,” said a lady in a maroon dress with long gray hair and no bra. “Are you here to support one of the acts?”

  “Where are all the other children?” asked Mum.

  The ticket lady looked baffled, but we’d rehearsed this. Flora took control. “Jas Gadsby,” she said to the ticket lady, and at the same time she turned toward the parents. “Dad, why don’t you give me the money for the tickets and take Mum to sit down?”

  “You do look tired, Mum,” said Twig.

  “Let me help you,” I offered as Flora reached into Dad’s pocket for his wallet.

  “Well come along, young star!” Dad draped his arm around Jas’s shoulders. “Where do the performers sit?” he asked.

  “Anywhere near the front.” The ticket lady still looked puzzled.

  Jas took her seat in a daze and said she was going to be sick again.

  “Keep it in, shrimp,” said Flora, when she joined us. “This is your big night.”

  “I still don’t understand why there aren’t any other children,” Mum said.

  “Your boyfriend’s here, by the way,” Flora smirked at me.

  “I don’t have a boyfriend,” I said.

  “Tell him that. He’s sitting two rows back.”

  I sneaked a look and it was true. Just across the aisle, two rows back, Jake and Dodi were sitting together. Dodi beamed. Jake gave a little wave, then blushed scarlet. I turned back around to the front.

  “I’m going to kill her,” I muttered. “I didn’t think he would actually come.”

  Flora snorted.

  Zoran slid onto the end of our bench just as the lights were dimming.

  “Where have you been?” Flora asked. For all her stomping about, she was almost as nervous as Jas.

  “Everything’s fine,” Zoran said.

  “And where is Zach?”

  “He is coming, isn’t he?” Jas whispered.

  “I’m here.” Zach slid in next to Zoran, who put his arm around his shoulders.

  “All right, mate?” I heard him ask.

  “Yeah, fine,” Zach answered. Zoran squeezed him and let him go.

  “Do we have to be so squashed up?” asked Twig.

  I feel a little sad writing it, because I hate to give up on anything, but I’m not sure poetry will ever be my thing. The long-haired brightly shawled ladies came and went, along with the gray-haired, beige cardigan–wearing older people. The young man in the business suit cried as he recited a poem written when his wife got married for the second time. “Not to me,” he added, in case we hadn’t understood why he was sad.

  “This isn’t a children’s competition!” Mum remarked. Dad gulped and looked like he was going to be sick.

  “Jas will be absolutely fine,” Zoran said firmly.

  The girl in the yellow jumpsuit must have realized she was in the wrong place and vanished without a trace. Twig and I both fell asleep and were woken by Flora with a sharp elbow in the ribs because the master of ceremonies had just called out Jas’s name and she was rising from her seat, white as a ghost and shaking like a leaf, staring at the front of the church with Zach standing next to her holding his guitar.

  “Ready?” he mouthed. Jas tried to smile.

  “Jas Gadsby!” The master of ceremonies called again, and Jas and Zach walked down the aisle together, Jas in her usual uniform of black dress and leggings and silver high-tops and Zach with his guitar on his back.

  “I don’t understand.” The master of ceremonies frowned when they reached the front.

  “Neither do I,” murmured Dad.

  Flora sighed as Zach reached out to take Jas’s hand.

  Jas suddenly seemed to grow about six inches and took the microphone.

  “Just because I am nine years old,” she announced, “does not mean I can’t write poetry.”

  A lot of people started to laugh. Dad put his head in his hands. Zach smiled, stepped onto the stage, and began to play. Jas stood very still at the front of the stage looking tiny, waited for the audience to be silent, and began.

  There is a gravestone where I like to sit . . .

  A stony relic of one long dead.

  Something about it seems to fit

  The creature that lives inside my head.

  “She’s good!” Dad breathed.

  “It rhymes,” Twig whispered.

  “Shut up, both of you,” Flora hissed.

  Jas went on, Zach still strumming softly along with her.

  Around the graveyard the city roars

  The steady beat of human living.

  Deep inside a creature claws,

  A creature who is not forgiving.

  This creature belongs to the night.

  This creature shies away from light.

  This creature must keep out of sight,

  Who lives inside my head.

  The grave is strewn with moss and flowers.

  Here birds can sometimes come to nest.

  I sit here often and for hours.

  Here the beast inside me likes to rest.

  I know I’m biased and also that I slept through a lot of others, but Jas’s number was the best by far. She and Zach repeated the This creature belongs to the night verse several times together, like a chorus, so it sounded more like a song than a poem, and maybe that, as well as it being Zach and Jas, is why I liked it. But I wasn’t the only one. There was a moment of stunned silence at the end, because I’m not sure the audience was expecting something quite so dark from one so young, but then they were all on their feet, cheering. A journalist from the local paper was trying to take photographs and write in hi
s notebook at the same time. Jas beamed and hugged Zach, who grinned and hugged her back. Dad yelled, “That’s my daughter! That’s my daughter!” punching the air with his fist; Twig and Flora and I jumped up and down on our seats to get a better look; Zoran held Mum as she cried her eyes out. Behind us I could hear Dodi and Jake cheering too.

  “She was amazing!” Dodi yelled when I turned around.

  “Amazing!” Jake echoed. I forgot about him being creepy and waved.

  A lot of the time my family drive me mad, but tonight wasn’t like that. Tonight was absolutely brilliant.

  She didn’t win, of course, just as Zoran said she wouldn’t. First prize went to one of the shawled ladies for a sonnet about cats, and the second prize went to one of the old men for a ballad about the love of his life being like a vampire, which made the young man in the suit cry even more. Afterward, just before the local journalist asked to take a photograph of all of us, the competition organizers gave Mum and Dad and Jas a long lecture about all the rules she had broken, and how she had abused their trust by entering false details, and how this disqualified her from winning. “But your work shows promise,” the lady organizer said, with what I think was the most patronizing smile I have ever seen. “I am sure you will mature into a very interesting young poet.”

  Flora blew a raspberry behind her back. We all laughed. Gloria and Bill turned up, Bill still looking like a bum, Gloria stunning in head to toe tight-fitting black. She told Jas her poetry was even better than her riding and Jas beamed even more. Dad and Zoran both gaped at Gloria. Twig sniggered. The local reporter took our photograph, and we all spilled out of the church into the night. Zach lifted Jas onto his shoulders and she screeched for him to put her down, but she was still laughing. Flora stood on tiptoe to kiss him on the lips. Mum leaned on Dad’s arm, and they were both laughing.

  It was brilliant.

  And then everything changed.