The Making of May

by Gwyneth Rees

  My brother looked sympathetic as he answered me, but his voice was firm. ‘Life can’t be an adventure if you don’t take a few risks, May. Moving to Thornton Hall was a risk too, remember. It’s only now that it feels like a really safe place to be.’

  It was the sort of answer I’d have expected from Louise, not Ben. Ben was preparing me as best he could for my journey out into the big wide world without him, I could see that. But half of me didn’t want him to. Half of me just wanted him to hang on to me and tell me I wasn’t allowed to go after all.

  As I sat on the plane waiting for it to take off, I really wished that I had Ben sitting beside me. Or Louise. Or even Alex. There was an old lady, but she was wearing an eye-mask and she sounded as if she was having to concentrate especially hard on her breathing.

  I suddenly remembered something. Alex and I had given each other presents (as well as exchanging email addresses) when we’d said goodbye. I had given him a new sketch pad and a brand new set of pencils from the art shop in town, but he hadn’t let me open the gift he had bought for me. Instead he had made me promise to wait until I got on the plane.

  ‘What’s in it?’ I’d asked, shaking the flat package to see if I could guess. It felt like a book to me.

  But he had just grinned and replied, ‘One last secret.’

  Now that I was sitting on board with my seat belt fastened, I took the present out of my bag and started to unwrap it, pretty certain that I already knew what it was. I was sure that Alex had given me the book of The Secret Garden. I still hadn’t got round to reading the actual book yet, though in a funny way I no longer felt I needed to, now that Mary Lennox and I had sort of gone our separate ways. I liked to think of Mary after the story finishes, growing up in her big house with all her new friends and her garden that didn’t have to be a secret one any longer. And my story was continuing just as happily, I thought now – happily, but differently.

  So I got a surprise when I undid the wrapping. Inside was a notebook with a yellow rose on the front, and when I flicked it open I saw that Alex had written inside the front cover: This is so you can keep a diary of all your adventures – I reckon you’ll have lots of time to start writing it while you’re on the plane!

  ‘It’s Mary, isn’t it?’ An air hostess was bending down over me to introduce herself. As she checked to see that my seat belt was fastened properly she asked, ‘Is everything all right?’

  I nodded. ‘But everyone calls me May,’ I said.

  ‘What a lovely name!’

  ‘Yes,’ I agreed, smiling because May was suddenly the name that made me feel most real.

  ‘Well, is there anything I can get for you, May?’

  I started to shake my head, then stopped as I thought of something. ‘Have you got a pen, please?’ I asked her.

  She gave me one and I settled back in my seat and opened the notebook Alex had given me. Inside – on the page opposite Alex’s message – I wrote my name and the date. Then I began to write down everything I could remember about what had happened this summer so that I’d never forget it. It was going to take me a while, but I had plenty of time. There were loads of pages in my new diary, which was lucky, because I knew I needed to leave plenty of space for all the exciting things that were going to happen to me in Australia.

  The videos and DVDs that May talks about in The Making of May are based on real books.

  The Secret Garden is by Frances Hodgson Burnett and published by Puffin Books.

  Rebecca and Jane Eyre are really for older readers, but you might enjoy them.

  Rebecca is by Daphne du Maurier and published by Virago Press.

  Jane Eyre is by Charlotte Brontë and published by Penguin Books.