Violet Mackerel's Personal Space

by Anna Branford

  While everything is drying in the sun, Dylan and Vincent sit beside the tent, and Vincent opens the purple cloth bag. Violet watches closely through her bedroom window. Inside the bag is some red, stiffish material; some needles; some green thread; a pair of scissors; and something that looks a bit like a tube of toothpaste, only smaller. Vincent cuts two pieces of material about the same size, and Dylan squeezes stuff from the tube onto them. They put a piece on each side of a hole in the tent and press hard. Then they cut more pieces and stick them over the other holes. Later on, when the stuff from the tube has had time to dry, they sew all around the patches with the needles and green thread, and put more of the stuff in the tube on top of that.

  By the time Violet has finished her breakfast, Dylan’s tent is covered in red patches with green stitching. And by the time the patching is finished and the tent is back up again, most of Dylan’s wet things are almost dry. Violet thinks the tent looks even better with the patches and stitching.

  After that, Dylan decides to stay in his tent. Mama, Nicola, Vincent, and Violet wish that he wanted to come back inside the house, but they are glad that at least the tent is not leaky anymore.

  All through the day, Violet admires the patchy tent. Later on, in the nighttime, when Violet wakes up, wishing they could all stay forever in their house with the nice smell of ginger cake and the small kitchen spider, she tiptoes over to the window and looks at the tent in the garden. Dylan is awake too and is reading with his flashlight, making the patches glow like stained glass.

  It is the day before the wedding, and the Mackerels and Vincent are nearly ready.

  They have found a new house with enough rooms for everyone and also room in the back garden for Dylan’s tent if he would like to put it up again. Mama says there is enough space for the dining table, and Vincent says it should stay coolish in the summer as long as everyone remembers to pull down the blinds. So now no one has to house hunt anymore, which Violet is glad about. But it does mean that they are really, definitely moving houses, which is a thought that gives Violet’s heart a slight squeezing feeling. But everyone except Dylan is busy organizing the last of the special things for the wedding, so there is not much extra time for worrying.

  Vincent is finishing the wedding arch, and all there is left to do is to wind ivy around it and put white flowers on, which they will do in the morning just before the guests arrive, so that it will look nice and fresh. Violet thinks it would look even nicer if it did not have to go next to Dylan’s tent. Mama says no one is going to make Dylan move it if he doesn’t want to. Violet wonders if he would mind her decorating it with ivy and white flowers so it could at least match the arch.

  Mama is adding the finishing touches to her wedding dress. It is long and has a train and tiny pearls sewn on the front called seed pearls, which were from her mama’s wedding dress.

  Violet and Nicola are making sparkles for Mama’s hair by gluing some of Nicola’s sparkles onto hairpins. And they save some sparkles to glue onto Mama’s white slippers so they will match too. When Mama tries it all on, Violet thinks she looks like a lady in a magazine. She and Nicola both stare and stare.

  Mama looks at herself in the mirror and twirls. Violet has never seen Mama twirl before, or even look in the mirror much, except when she has been hugging someone who was eating toast and she is checking to see if there is jelly on her. But this is a different sort of looking and twirling. Mama looks like a princess.

  At first Violet was a bit disappointed that Mama wasn’t going to have wings on her wedding dress, but then Mama had the good idea that Violet’s dress could have wings if she liked. So they have sewn some onto one of Mama’s nightgowns and trimmed it to the right length and that is what Violet is going to wear for the wedding.

  Nicola is going to wear a party dress that got too short (after she got quite tall). Mama has helped her make some matching pants that go under it.

  Vincent is going to wear a waistcoat that Mama made for him. He says he might comb his hair, but he is not making any promises. Violet has never seen Vincent with combed hair before, because when you are a backpacker, you don’t bother much with combing. Mama says she doesn’t really mind as long as there aren’t any actual leaves or twigs in his hair, which there sometimes are when he has been out in the garden working on the wedding arch.

  In the evening, when everything is as ready as it can be, Mama writes a letter to Dylan. She puts it in an envelope with a photo. Mama does not show Violet the letter because it is just for Dylan, but she does show her the photo. It is of Mama, Dad, Nicola, and Dylan camping in the tent when it was new, before it got leaky and musty. Mama is holding Nicola’s hand, and Nicola is smaller than Violet is now. Even though Dylan is quite a small toddler, he is the tallest in the photo because he is sitting up on Dad’s shoulders, smiling and waving.

  “Where was I?” asks Violet.

  “You hadn’t been born yet,” says Mama.

  It is funny seeing photos of your family before you were born, Violet thinks, but it is a nice photo, especially of Dylan.

  Later on, when she is supposed to be in bed, Violet looks out into the garden from her window and sees Mama unzipping the door of Dylan’s tent, just enough to post the letter inside.

  Violet wakes up very, very early on the morning of the wedding. She thinks about her dress with wings, which is an exciting thought. She also thinks about the new house, which is a worrying thought. Neither thought is very helpful for getting back to sleep. Violet gets up and looks out her window.

  Dylan is sitting in the garden by his tent, looking up at the little bit of morning light starting to creep into the sky. Mama says that when people are in their personal space with the door shut, it means they want to be by themselves. But Dylan is outside, not inside. Violet puts on her dressing gown and slippers and tiptoes downstairs.

  “I woke up and I can’t get back to sleep,” says Violet, sitting down beside her brother, just in case he is in the mood for talking back.

  “Me neither,” says Dylan.

  He doesn’t seem to mind Violet being there.

  “How do you go to the bathroom when you live in a tent?” asks Violet.

  She has been wondering that for quite a long time.

  “You dig a hole if you’re doing real camping,” says Dylan, “but usually I just sneak inside when you’re all busy or out house hunting.”

  Then they don’t say anything for a little while, just think and watch the creeping light. Even though they are not saying anything, Violet wonders if they might be having the same sorts of thoughts. She is thinking mostly about all the different things they have done in the garden together, like the time Dylan made her a teepee out of sticks, and the time he grew mushrooms in a special box and Violet helped him pick them when they were big enough to have with dinner. Violet wonders if, like her, Dylan is wishing and wishing that it could be their garden forever.

  “Dylan,” says Violet. “Do you have any small things that are a bit special but that you don’t really need?”

  “Is this for one of your theories?” he asks.

  “Sort of,” says Violet.

  Dylan rolls his eyes, but then he goes inside the tent and rummages. He comes out with an extra pawn from his chess set and a spare key from his violin case.

  “Are these okay?”

  Violet nods. She puts the cream-colored chess piece and the tiny silver key in her dressing-gown pocket and takes them over to the fennel plant where she once buried a dead pet ladybug in one of Nicola’s special matchboxes. There is a small part of Violet there, and a small part of Nicola, and Violet would like there to be a small part of Dylan, too. Dylan watches.

  Violet scoops some earth away with her fingers. Then she buries the chess piece and the key and pats the earth smooth on top. The fennel patch looks just the same as it did before, but it is not.

  “What’s your theory this time?” asks Dylan.

  “It’s the Theory of Leaving Small Things Behind,” says
Violet. “When you leave something small behind, maybe a small part of you gets to stay too.”

  Dylan rolls his eyes again. But then he smiles—just a small smile—for the first time since they were at the beach house.

  Violet and Dylan sit for a bit longer. The light has crept over most of the sky now and there are only a few stars left.

  “I don’t want to leave this house,” says Violet. “Even if my theory is right and part of us does get to stay here.”

  “Me neither,” says Dylan.

  “But I do want to be where everyone else is, even if it’s not this house.”

  “Me too,” says Dylan.

  After a while Dylan gets up and starts pulling up the tent pegs.

  “What are you doing?” asks Violet.

  “I think the garden might look nicer for the wedding without the tent,” he says.

  Violet helps Dylan to pack everything up, and they carry it all upstairs to his room as quietly as they can. Then they go back outside and Dylan rakes up some leaves and Violet sweeps the path, and they both look a bit worriedly at the rectangle of brownish, yellowish dead grass that had been underneath the tent. Dylan has the good idea of covering it with the picnic blanket. It doesn’t look too bad, Violet thinks, because it has flowers on it and is quite gardenlike.

  “What are you two doing?” asks Nicola, coming out in her dressing gown.

  “Getting the garden ready,” says Violet.

  Nicola has a good idea too. She goes back up to her room and brings down some of her extra paper cranes. She threads them on long silver strings and Dylan hangs them from a tree in the garden.

  Violet sprinkles some glitter on the path for Mama and Vincent to walk down.

  A bit later on Mama comes outside, yawning, with a cup of tea in her hand. “What are you all— Oh!” gasps Mama.

  Mama looks around at the freshly raked garden and sees the paper cranes dangling on silver threads, the flowery picnic blanket where the tent was, and the glittery path sparkling in the morning sun.

  When Dylan walks over to her and gives her a hug, it almost looks as though Mama is sparkling too.

  “Thank you,” says Mama, hugging back and smiling and nearly crying a little bit.

  There are quite a few other things to do before the wedding begins. They all help Mama bring out the dining table to put the food and drinks on. Dylan and Violet bring out every chair in the whole house, so that all the guests will have somewhere to sit. Nicola ties white ribbons around each of the chairs so that they will sort of match. When Vincent arrives, they put up the archway and decorate it with leaves and flowers.

  Then everyone has to get dressed in their wedding clothes. Violet puts on her new dress with wings, and Nicola puts on her dress with matching pants. Vincent puts on his waistcoat and combs his hair, and Dylan puts on the tie that Mama bought him to wear last year when he won a certificate for violin-playing. Mama puts on her beautiful dress. Nicola puts Mama’s hair sparkles in, and Violet sprays perfume on Mama. It is all very exciting.

  When the guests begin to arrive, Mama and Vincent stay upstairs so it will be a surprise when they all see Mama in her wedding dress and Vincent with his combed hair. Violet, Nicola, and Dylan have to open the door and show everyone where the garden is and which chair is whose.

  Nicola’s guest is her best friend, Lara. Violet’s guest is the old lady Iris MacDonald. They met when Violet was in the hospital having her tonsils out. Iris MacDonald has a beautiful flower garden, and she has made Mama a bouquet with lilies and forget-me-nots. Mama has said it’s not too late for Dylan to invite a guest too, so he has asked Tim from next door.

  Mama’s sister arrives wearing a big hat with flowers and carrying a huge platter of fruit and bread and special cheeses.

  Then Vincent’s best friend, Buzz, arrives with a cooler full of drinks and ice. Violet has never seen a person with curlier hair or bigger feet than Buzz. And if you say, “Hello, Buzz the Fuzz,” he says, “Hello, Violet the Pilot,” and pretends to be an airplane and lets you fly him. Violet quite likes Buzz.

  Then the celebrant arrives and it is time for the wedding to begin. All the guests go quiet, and Violet feels a bit nervous. The old lady Iris MacDonald has brought Violet and Nicola each a basket of petals to throw. Everyone is waiting.

  Finally Mama and Vincent come out of the back door and everyone claps and Violet and Nicola throw the petals. Mama and Vincent walk along the sparkly path and under the special archway holding hands, and someone whispers, “Don’t they look lovely?”

  Violet listens to the celebrant doing lots of talking and Mama and Vincent saying “we will” and “I do.” Sometimes the celebrant has to say things twice because her voice is softish and Vincent is a little bit deaf. Then Buzz gives Vincent the ring to put on Mama’s finger.

  “I now pronounce you husband and wife,” says the celebrant.

  Dylan quickly gets up from his chair and goes inside. Mama and Vincent look worriedly at each other. Violet and Nicola look worriedly at each other too.

  “Shall I go on?” asks the celebrant.

  “Yes, please,” says Mama.

  “Well, then,” says the celebrant, “you may now kiss.”

  Just then there is a loud bumping noise and everyone, including Mama and Vincent, turns around and looks up. Dylan is in Violet’s room, opening the upstairs window as wide as he can. Violet wonders even more worriedly what he is doing.

  But then suddenly the garden fills with a lovely sound. It is a tune called “Pachelbel’s Canon,” and Dylan is playing it on his violin. Mama and Vincent look up with the biggest smiles of all.

  “You may now kiss,” says the celebrant, laughing.

  Mama and Vincent kiss while the music plays and everyone claps and Violet and Nicola throw the rest of their petals.

  All afternoon, while everyone is chatting and eating and looking at their paper cranes and Violet the Pilot is flying Buzz the Fuzz like a plane, people keep saying it was a beautiful wedding.

  Violet is quite sleepy from her early start, but she thinks it was a beautiful wedding too.

  On her very last day in the house Violet has lived in her whole life, it hardly feels like her house at all. Vincent and Buzz have been moving furniture in Buzz’s truck, driving it to the new house. Nearly all of the smaller things have been packed up in big cardboard boxes to go in the truck too. The pictures have been taken off the walls and the rugs have been rolled up. Mama is even painting over the special place in the doorway where she used to measure everyone on their birthday and draw a line and write their name and their new age next to it so they could see how much they had grown since last year. She says the new people in the house will probably prefer a doorway without writing and lines.

  Mama asks Violet if she would like to help to paint the doorway. Violet definitely would not. What she would like to do is sit on her bed and have a little cry, but her bed is in the truck. So she goes upstairs to where her bed used to be, in the room that will be her personal space for a few more hours. There is one box there. Inside are some of Violet’s books and puzzles, a doll, some pencils, and Violet’s Box of Small Things, which is mostly full of beads, buttons, and bits of ribbon that she has found and kept. Everything else has been taken down into the truck already. Violet sits next to the box. She does not close the door because she would actually quite like someone to come in and sit with her, even though they would have to sit on the floor. But everyone is busy.

  Violet can hear Mama and Nicola downstairs, talking about the new house. Nicola is quite excited because her new bedroom is going to be bigger than her old one and she has been wanting a bigger room for a long time. Mama is quite excited too because there is going to be a room for her knitting and her sewing things, which have been in baskets and boxes and all over the dining table for too long, she says. Vincent is very excited because he is planning a vegetable patch in the new garden and he has already bought some seedlings and a book about compost.

  Dy
lan has been packing the very last box of things in his room. He is just walking past Violet’s room to take it downstairs when he sees her.

  “Are you all right in there, Violet?” he asks.

  “Yes,” says Violet. But a big tear is trickling down the side of her nose. Dylan puts his box down and comes in and gives her a hug. There was no furniture in his tent either, so he doesn’t mind sitting on the floor.

  “Our house is all empty and echoey,” says Violet. “It doesn’t even look like our house anymore. It feels as if none of us have ever lived here.”

  “I know what you mean,” says Dylan. All the tissues are packed away in boxes, but he wipes Violet’s big tear away with his sleeve. He doesn’t say anything, but Violet thinks that just knowing someone else feels a bit the same as you do can be just as helpful sometimes.

  After a while, Dylan says, “Want to see something?” Violet does, so Dylan takes her into his room.

  He shows Violet a little space where the windowsill doesn’t quite meet the wall.

  “I was thinking about the Theory of Leaving Small Things Behind,” he says. He has tucked a tiddlywink in there, from the tin Dad gave him when he was much younger.

  “Now maybe a part of you will get to stay here forever,” says Violet.

  “That’s what I thought,” says Dylan.

  Just then Vincent calls up the stairs, “Come on, you two, we’re loading the last boxes into the truck now.”

  “I’d better take our boxes down,” says Dylan. “Will you be all right?”