‘Are you alright, dear?’
Gwyneth Fox-Rutherford is waving her hand in front of my face. I must have been daydreaming. Everyone is staring at me. Jemima is loving every second of it.
‘I’m fine.’
‘I’ll open a window. The air will revive you. And then we will begin our retelling of the wonderful legend, The Witch Called Winter.’
No.
Groans from the class and a discontented mumble. Gwyneth bounds over to the windows, oblivious to the fact the class don’t like her choice any more than I do. She’s too short to reach the window latches so some of the children have to help her. Jemima is staring at me like she knows how weird I am. There is a cold sheen of sweat on my skin. I manage a weak smile. Everything tastes of Mae’s lemonade. Bitter and sharp and medicinal.
Gwyneth sits cross-legged on the edge of the stage again. ‘Focus in, folks. Let us begin with our terrible tale of witchery.’
‘Miss, can’t we do Spiderman or something?’
‘Seriously, we’ve been doing Winter in assembly since we were born.’
‘What about Titanic, Miss?’
‘The suffragettes. Were they terrorists or freedom fighters?’
‘Mary Anning and her fossils.’
‘Rosa Parks.’
‘Martin Luther King. I have a dream.’
These all get whoops from the class. I’m impressed too and am going to add about Amelia Earhart being the first woman to fly the Atlantic and landing in south Wales, but Gwyneth holds her hands up patronisingly. She shifts position and looks doleful.
‘Such a shame. All this calling out is making me feel very uncomfortable on the inside.’
She shifts position again. She is clearly uncomfortable on the outside too.
‘I can’t share with you young people unless you are willing to listen. This makes me feel very sad.’
‘Yeah. Listen, everyone.’ Jemima has a way of stopping people talking. I don’t know why everyone listens to her. They just do.
‘Thank you, Jemima.’
‘You are very welcome, Gwyneth.’
Jemima smugs in my direction.
I imagine saying to her, No, I’m not weird. I’m perfectly Normal, thank you. That thing where I zoned out? I just don’t feel very well. It’s probably a stomach bug. You know what schools are like for incubating germs.
A crow flies into the hall through the open window and lands in my lap. Chaos erupts.
After ten minutes of arms and wings, Gwyneth Fox-Rutherford still stands centre stage, cowering with her hands up to her face.
‘Miss, it’s gone, Miss.’
She unpeels her fingers and shudders, then straightens up and looks very proud of herself.
‘Did you see how I played the part of a person who is afraid of birds? Did you? Convincing, wasn’t it?’ She beams at us. ‘I think it deserves a small mark of appreciation.’
Starting the clapping off herself, she gets a smattering this time and lots of doubtful faces.
‘Now, focus in, guys. Good news! A proclamation! Because it is so ridiculously hot today, we have Mr Ricketts’ permission to work in the yard.’
A mixture of cheers and the groans which seem to be Year Six’s speciality. Everyone starts calling out complaints about bee stings, anaphylactic shock, sunglasses, lack of water, skin cancer, as we all stand up and check our clothes for peas. Gwyneth is ready with suntan lotion and instructs everyone to slather it all over themselves. Some end up looking like ghosts.
‘Let us enjoy the open air and give our drama to the sun.’
The class traipses out, Gwyneth leading the way. I lag behind and try to stop myself shaking. Why did the crow have to land right in my lap? Why not someone else’s?
I’m so tired of causing trouble everywhere I go. I want to be happy. Can I get rid of the weird here or will it be with me for life?
3
Raised voices skitter upstairs. I ask Mrs Danvers, ‘Seriously, who has the energy in this heat?’
Mrs Danvers answers me by jumping on to the bed, where she curls up like a comma, then stretches into an exclamation mark, her tail tapping the dot. We are beginning to tolerate each other.
‘I suppose I’d better go down and find out what’s going on.’ I close the folder on pictures of Peru and put it back on the shelf. I spoke to Dad earlier. He’s glad that I’m doing a Page to Stage project at school because he thinks it will make me happy. I suppose because theatre made my mum happy. I didn’t tell him it’s about witches.
I change out of my uniform, smelling the armpits of my shirt to see if it will last another day, nearly vomiting, and throwing it in a ball on the floor. I put on my favourite black T-shirt and a pair of black shorts and check myself in the mirror. Something shifts at the corner of the silver glass. I spin around.
Nothing. The heat up here is making me hallucinate. I need to cool down.
Some old-person track is turned on in the kitchen. Creeping downstairs, I startle a duck having a nap in the hall. Animals turn up in every nook and cranny here. I share the bathroom with a field mouse and when I went to brush my hair this morning there was a frog sitting on the bristles.
Peering into the drawing room I see a big dog loping about with his tail wagging, his ears so long they practically scrape the floor. I put my knuckles to his nose so he can smell me. He leans in to let me give him a good scratch behind his ears. The name on his collar reads ‘Denzel’.
‘Hello, Denzel.’
He licks my hand hello then lopes off to lie under the piano. I hear loud voices again and find Mae teetering on a chair in the kitchen, trying to reach some daisy-shaped flowers on a high shelf. She must have been shouting at herself. There are flowers everywhere. It smells like a wedding. She takes a deep gulp of some blue, bubbly concoction.
‘How many of those have you had?’
‘Too many and also not enough. Would you like one?’
‘I’m fairly sure it’s against the law for me to drink.’
‘Oh, for goodness sake. Who cares about laws?’
‘Normal people.’
‘Who wants to be normal? It’s more than a little dull.’
Dull sounds good to me. Epic, in fact.
She’s in a mood because they’ve employed Gwyneth Fox-Rutherford to do the drama project. Mae has run some of their other drama productions and when I told her about this new one, she was furious. That’s why I’ve been hiding out in my room.
Mae gets down from the chair and sprays her face with the stuff she’s been using for the flowers. ‘Ah, essence of gardenia. Do you think it’s wrong to spray a flower with another flower?’
‘Why don’t you ask them?’ I smile sweetly.
‘Ask the flowers. Of course. Why didn’t I think of that?’
I open the door of the fridge and try to fit myself in it.