by Sarah Webb
I arrange some of the photos on the desk: Elizabeth Taylor, Grace Kelly, Maureen O’Hara and Audrey Hepburn, all posing in different ways. Elizabeth Taylor is wearing a full-length crimson evening gown and smiling at the camera. Her eyes are the most amazing colour – almost violet. The picture of Grace Kelly is an elegant black-and-white head shot. Her hair is so perfectly styled in a ballerina’s bun that it looks like it’s been sprayed on. They’re all dead now, apart from Maureen O’Hara, who’s an old lady. She’s Irish and has red hair like me.
The Audrey Hepburn photo is my favourite. Granny Ellen was only my age when she wrote to her, and Audrey sent her a photo of herself hugging a kitten. She signed it: “To my young Irish fan Ellen McCarthy. Fond regards, Audrey.” I put that one on the bedside table, propped up against the reading lamp.
Then I take out my movie-star book and put it beside Audrey’s photograph. After that I start to unpack my clothes, but I get bored of that pretty quickly. Instead I sit on the window seat and watch a bird flying past in the twilight. It’s so quiet in this house. I listen out for Nan, but I can’t hear her. In our apartment there’s always some sort of noise: Flora chatting on her mobile or singing along to a song on the radio, our neighbours’ baby crying, dogs barking outside, traffic. Here there’s nothing. It’s spooky and unnerving. Another world. I feel like Dorothy landing in Oz. I wish I had a little dog to hug, like she did. After picking up Audrey’s photograph again, I run my fingers over the image of her cat. It’s all I have.
“Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas any more,” I whisper.
Chapter 4
When I wake up the next morning, Nan’s digital clock says it’s 6 a.m. Six! I groan inwardly. Why does my body think it’s time to get up? It’s practically the middle of the night.
I didn’t sleep very well because I kept having nightmares and then sitting up in a panic, my heart racing. In one of them all my teeth fell out and I swallowed them and a load of blood – yuck! In another I was dangling over the edge of a cliff. The earth was crumbling beneath my fingers and I was whispering, “Don’t let go! Don’t let go! Don’t let go!” And then the ground gave way and I started to fall, but before I landed I woke up.
I try to go back to sleep, but it’s no use. I’m wide awake. I lie in bed for a while reading my movie-star book. It’s heavy and my arms start to ache from holding it sideways, so I sit up to read it, but then my shoulders get cold. Eventually I’m so chilly I climb out of bed and put on my hoodie. I draw back the curtains a little and peer out of the window. All I can see is inky blackness.
Then I take down a photo album from the bookshelves and open it. “Ellen, 11” is written on the inside cover in neat handwriting. There are two photos tucked under the plastic on the first page − faded colour snaps of Granny Ellen and my Great-Grandpa PJ playing football in Nan’s garden. I recognize the stream and the humpback bridge in the background. I sit down at the desk and start to flick through the album. Some pages are empty, but the others are full of snapshots of Granny Ellen and PJ: digging rivers and dams on the beach; standing with arms around each other, squinting at the sun; PJ holding a spade proudly and Granny Ellen buried in the sand beside him, grinning, her body a mermaid’s made out of sand. She has huge sand boobs covered with shells, and dark green seaweed hair. I smile to myself. It’s a bit rude and funny, just the kind of thing me and Granny Ellen used to get up to on the beach near her house. Feeling a wave of sadness and longing for her, I pick up the album and kiss the photograph.
There’s a knock on the door and Nan’s head appears around it. “I thought I heard you stir,” she says.
Startled, I drop the album, which falls onto the desk with a clatter. The mermaid photograph falls out.
“Sorry,” I say, quickly slotting it back into place.
“Not to worry − nothing broken. Interesting, aren’t they?”
I nod. I hope Nan didn’t see me kissing Granny Ellen’s photo. She’ll think I’m a right baby. I can feel my cheeks hotting up.
But if she noticed she doesn’t mention it. “You’re up early. I thought teenagers were supposed to be nocturnal creatures. Especially at the weekend.”
I stare down at the photo album. I don’t want to tell her about my bad dreams so I stay silent.
When I don’t reply, she adds, “I have dozens more albums downstairs if you ever want to take a look. We’re so lucky having digital cameras and mobiles these days. Getting film developed used to cost me a fortune. Do you like taking photos?”
“Sometimes.”
“You can borrow my camera if you like. It’s a good one. It takes great pictures.”
“Can you use it for taking videos?”
“Yes. Are you interested in making movies?”
I shrug. “Kind of. I’ve made a few Lego stop-motion animations with my friend Shannon, but they’re not very good.” My stomach rumbles. Even though I was ravenous last night my stomach felt funny, all knotted and twisty, so I couldn’t eat much dinner. “Can I have some breakfast?”
“Of course. How about buttermilk pancakes?”
Granny Ellen used to make those too. I nod. “Yes, please. I’ll just get dressed first.”
Once Nan’s gone, I rummage in my bag for my black jeans and my favourite black-and-white stripy top. I love black-and-white stripes. Granny Ellen used to say, “Here’s my little zebra girl again,” whenever I wore them.
Nan reminds me quite a lot of Granny Ellen. She went to a lot of trouble last night to make the dinner table look nice. She’d set it with sparkling glasses and cutlery, baby-blue place mats and matching napkins. I think she has a bit of a thing for blue! There was a vase of yellow flowers that looked like tiny daffodils and a (blue!) ribbon tied in a bow around the back of my chair. Granny Ellen was just the same. She loved using place mats and real napkins. She said it made people feel special and welcome. Flora’s idea of setting the table is to open a Chinese takeaway carton and hand me a plastic fork. We mostly eat off our laps in front of the telly.
Dinner was delicious – beef and Guinness stew with mashed potatoes and then chocolate pots for dessert. It was a shame I couldn’t eat much. Afterwards I asked if I could go straight to bed. Nan seemed a little disappointed. I think she wanted to ask me more questions about Dublin and Flora.
“Of course you can, child,” she said. “It’s been a long day for you. Don’t let the bed bugs bite.”
As I walk into the kitchen for breakfast, I can smell butter sizzling in a frying pan. Nan is at the Aga and there’s a glass bowl on the counter beside her, half full of pale yellow batter mix.
“Would you like to make them while I set the table?” she asks.
“OK.”
“Have you made buttermilk pancakes before, Mollie? Some people call them drop scones.”
“Yes, lots of times,” I say.
Nan smiles. “I’ll put the plates out then. We’ll make a good team, you and me. Wait and see.”
Over breakfast Nan asks me if there’s anything I’d like to do today.
I stop myself from saying, “Go home, please.” Instead I shrug. “Not really. Maybe talk to Flora later.”
Nan smiles. “I think we can arrange that. She said she’ll ring us from the airport once they get to Singapore. It will be some time this evening. They have a two-hour stopover there before flying on to Sydney. In the meantime, I thought we could go to the cafe for a hot chocolate after lunch. I’ve invited a few of the girls from the island who are your age to come and meet you. Alanna’s laying on some cupcakes.”
My stomach clenches at the thought of meeting lots of strangers, and I chew on my lip.
“Don’t look so worried, child,” Nan says. “There are only four of them. Lauren, Chloe and Bonny all go to Bethlehem Heights – that’s the senior school on the mainland where you’ll be going. And I hope Sunny will come along, too, although she might not. She’s very shy. She’s home-schooled.”
Four girls around my age − that doesn�
��t sound too bad. But I’m still nervous.
The morning crawls by. That’s what you get for being up with the birds, I guess. After helping Nan wash up (I remembered to offer. Granny Ellen would be proud of me), I finish unpacking my clothes and then sit down on the window seat, wondering what to do until lunchtime. Yet again there’s nothing to see outside apart from birds and − yes, how exciting – a green tractor. I watch it trundle across one of the fields and then disappear down a laneway. I try ringing Shannon, but her phone isn’t on, so I text her instead. Hey, Shannon. What are you up to? It’s really quiet here and I’m soooo bored. Are you going to basketball this morning? Mollie
There’s a knock on the door and Nan appears again. “How’s the unpacking going?”
“I’ve finished.”
“Good for you.” I notice she’s carrying another photo album. “When she was little, Ellen loved playing with paper dolls. She used to spend hours cutting them out and dressing them in different outfits. I kept her favourite ones. I thought you might like to take a look.”
She hands me the album and I flick through the pages. Each plastic pocket holds a different cut-out doll: Audrey Hepburn in her black Breakfast at Tiffany’s cocktail dress, Marilyn Monroe in a pink satin evening dress. I remember playing with paper dolls with Granny Ellen when I was little. They were quite fiddly − some of the tabs were tiny and I used to accidentally cut them off − but we loved doing them together. She also found dolly-dressing sticker books in a local bookshop, but I didn’t like them as much. There’s something very satisfying about cutting out the dresses yourself.
“I see you’ve got some of her movie-star photographs on your desk,” Nan adds. “I’m glad they found a good home. They’re very special, those photos. And I thought you might like to keep that too.” She nods at the album.
“Thanks,” I say, thinking of Flora. I’m so glad I stopped her selling them. And now I have something else to remind me of Granny Ellen. Maybe this morning won’t be so bad after all.
“Mollie, this is Lauren,” Nan says. I look at the girl sitting in the middle of the sofa at the Songbird Cafe. She’s very pretty with a button nose and glossy chestnut-brown hair. She’s flanked by two other girls, one dark-haired, the other blonde.
“And this is Chloe and Bonny,” Nan adds. All three of them are wearing practically the same outfit: tracksuit bottoms low on their hips, tight sports tops with the collars turned up, unzipped hoodies and expensive trainers, like some sort of “sporty-cool” uniform. I feel self-conscious standing there in my jeans and stripy top.
The blonde girl, Bonny, gives me a friendly smile and says, “Hi, Mollie.”
The other two are staring at me suspiciously as if I’m some sort of dangerous animal that should be in the zoo − a poisonous tree frog or a tarantula.
“Hi,” Lauren says after a few seconds.
“Yeah, hi,” Chloe adds.
“Why don’t you join the girls, Mollie?” Nan gestures to the armchair opposite them and I sit down reluctantly.
“What are you all having?” she asks. “My treat.”
“Cool, three skinny cappuccinos,” Lauren says immediately. There’s a long pause before she adds, “Please.”
“And you, Mollie?” Nan says.
“Hot chocolate, please. With marshmallows and cream.”
“Oh, can I have one of those instead?” Bonny says. “Sounds delicious. With extra marshmallows, please.”
Lauren and Chloe roll their eyes at each other.
“Of course,” Nan says. “Is Sunny here yet?”
“She’s at her usual table,” Bonny says, tilting her head towards the far side of the cafe, her curls bouncing like tiny springs.
I look in the direction Bonny indicated. There’s a girl with long dark plaits sitting in the conservatory, watching us. As soon as I catch her eye she dips her head and starts scribbling in her notebook.
“Did you ask her to join you?” Nan asks.
Bonny opens her mouth to say something, but Lauren jumps in before she can speak.
“Of course we did,” she says. “But I think she’s cool over there.”
“OK, as long as you asked,” Nan says. “You can go over and say hello to Sunny later, Mollie. I’ll just pop into the kitchen and give Alanna the order. Back in a minute.”
As soon as Nan has gone, Chloe gives a snort. “So much for the diet, Bonny,” she says. “Extra marshmallows? Really?”
Bonny goes red and starts playing with one of her curls. I feel sorry for her. She’s bigger than the other girls, but she’s certainly not fat.
“She’s just trying to save you from yourself, babes,” Lauren says. “You know that.”
Bonny nods, but doesn’t say anything. Then Lauren turns her attention to me. “Hey, Mollie, if Nan is your great-granny, how come you’ve never been to the island before?”
I shrug. “Flora, that’s my mum, she loves the sun. We always go to hot places for our holidays, like Italy or the Caribbean.” Flora is great at picking up these amazing last-minute holiday deals on the Internet. We never know where we’re going till the day before we leave.
Bonny’s eyes widen. “You’ve been to the Caribbean?”
“Yes, twice,” I say. “We’re going to Paris in three weeks too.”
Bonny gasps. “I’ve always wanted to go to Paris. Lauren’s mad about Paris, aren’t you, Lauren?”
“No, I’m not,” Lauren says.
“But you have that poster of the Eiffel Tower on the wall in your—” Bonny stops mid-sentence as Lauren glares at her.
“I used to like Paris,” Lauren says. “But Paris is so over. The shops in Manhattan are way cooler.”
“Have you been to New York?” I ask Lauren.
“No,” she says. “But my mum says she’ll take me next year.”
“I thought you said you were going for your sixteenth,” Chloe says.
Lauren gives her an icy look. “I’ve changed my mind.”
“You’re so lucky,” Bonny says wistfully. “I’ve never been anywhere cool. Not even Dublin city.”
I stare at her. “You’ve never been to Dublin? It’s only a few hours away.”
“I know!” Bonny says. “I keep telling my mum that, but she won’t listen.”
“I go into town every weekend with Flora,” I say. “We practically live there. We go shopping and then catch a movie and eat in a restaurant.” Every weekend is a bit of an exaggeration, but Lauren is starting to annoy me with her “Paris is so over” stuff.
“It sounds amazing,” Bonny says.
“It is amazing,” I say. “That’s why I’m finding Little Bird so weird, I think. It’s really quiet here, and what on earth do you do during the holidays? Birdwatching? Tractor spotting?”
Bonny’s still smiling, but Lauren and Chloe’s faces are stony.
“I mean, Little Bird’s nice too,” I add quickly. “All the lovely, um, nature and stuff.” It sounds feeble even to my ears.
I’m insanely grateful when Nan reappears with Alanna just behind her carrying a tray.
“Two skinny cappuccinos and two hot chocolates, both with extra marshmallows,” Alanna says, placing the Songbird Cafe mugs on the coffee table in front of us.
Nan is holding a cake stand with three tiers. She sets it carefully in the middle of the table.
“And a selection of my finest cupcakes,” Alanna says, pointing at each delicious-looking layer. “Lemon drizzle, red velvet and the Songbird.” The Songbird cakes look the best. Each one is covered in delicate pale blue icing with two tiny white wings rising out of the top. They’re stunning.
Bonny is almost jumping up and down in her seat. Like me, she’s clearly a cupcake fan. “Thanks, Alanna,” she says. “I’ll go back on my diet tomorrow.”
Alanna laughs. “Diet, schmiet. You don’t need to diet, Bonny. You’re perfect the way you are. Nothing wrong with a treat now and then. Enjoy, girls. I’m just going to borrow Nan’s brain for a few minutes, but I’l
l see you in a little while.”
I’m not sure I want to be alone with Lauren and Chloe any longer, especially after what I’ve just said about their precious island.
Nan squeezes my shoulder as if reading my mind. “I’m popping into the kitchen to help Alanna with her accounts. I won’t be long, pet.”
When she’s gone, Lauren says, “I’ve just remembered, we all have to work on our school project. Isn’t that right, girls?”
Bonny looks confused, but Chloe adds, “Yeah, an English project on our favourite writer. As if we actually have one.” She gives a laugh.
“But that doesn’t have to be finished until the end of term,” Bonny says.
“My mum’s making me work on it today,” Lauren says. “So not cool.”
“Mine too,” Chloe says. “And yours said the same thing, Bonny, remember?”
Bonny still looks perplexed, but before she can say anything else Lauren starts wrapping the cupcakes up in napkins. “We’ll take these to go. Come on, girls. Nice meeting you, Mollie.”
“See you on the school ferry on Monday,” Bonny says. Lauren and Chloe are already practically out of the door. “Sorry we have to go,” she adds.
“That’s OK,” I tell her. She seems nice. If I’d just kept my big mouth shut, maybe we could have been friends. I didn’t mean to insult Little Bird − it just popped out. And now I’ve annoyed the only girls my age on the whole island. Great! I press my head into the back of the chair and close my eyes. When I open them again, Alanna is perched on the sofa arm.
“Nan says she’ll be with you in a few minutes,” she says. “She’s looking over my accounts for me. She’s really good with numbers. I see your new friends have skedaddled, along with my cupcakes. Everything all right?”
