Tell It to the Moon

by Siobhan Curham

  “All right, mate’?” The man stopped by the Mad Hatter stall and looked Rose up and down.

  Rose’s middle finger twitched, ready for action. She was so not in the mood for any old-aged perverts today.

  “You must be the new girl in town.” The man stepped towards her and held out his hand. “I’m Melvin, but you can call me Mel – the Mad Hatter.” He gestured at the stall.

  “Oh – right.” Rose shook his hand. “I’m Rose. Good to meet you.”

  “Good to meet you too – especially if you do mate’s rates on them cakes. They look well nice.”

  Rose smiled. “Thank you.”

  “This your business, is it?”

  Oh, if only she could say yes. “No. It belongs to a friend of mine. She owns a cake shop in Camden. But I’m looking after the stall for her.”

  “Nice one.” Mel started opening his boxes and placing rows of hats on his table. He had everything from shiny top hats to felt fedoras and fat bowlers and trilbies. Amber would love it. But before Rose could text her about it, Francesca returned. She was wearing a Fifties-style dress in a tulip print and bright red stilettoes. She looked incredible. Something that Mel the Mad Hatter had clearly clocked too, judging by his goggle-eyes as she walked past.

  “The last one,” Francesca announced, placing the box of cakes behind the stall. She looked at Rose, her eyes wide with concern. “I hope we did not bring too many. It is so hard to tell how it will go.”

  “It’ll go great,” Rose said, but she felt nervous. The market would be open soon. People would be arriving. What if nobody bought the cakes? What if the stall was a failure? She clenched her hands into tight fists. There was no way she was going to let that happen. This was her big chance and she wasn’t going to blow it. Francesca placed a hand on her arm, setting off a chain-reaction of tingles that travelled all the way to the tips of her toes.

  “Thank you so much for doing this,” she said.

  Rose could barely shift her gaze from Francesca’s lips. They were so red and shiny and … kissable. “I haven’t done anything yet,” Rose mumbled.

  “No, but you agreed to do this and you’re going to be wonderful.”

  Rose looked into Francesca’s eyes. They were so brown and—

  “’Scuse me, are you the boss lady?” Mel called over, breaking Rose’s trance.

  Francesca spun around. “What? Oh, yes.” As she went over to introduce herself, Rose sighed. There was no doubting how she felt about Francesca but did Francesca feel the same about her? Was there a spark between them or was it just one way? Rose glanced back at the jewellery stall. The purple-haired girl was looking at her. Rose smiled. She guessed she ought to make friends with her other neighbour – it was probably good market etiquette.

  “Hey, I’m Rose.”

  The girl nodded curtly. “Yeah, I heard.” She turned away.

  Rose stared at the girl’s back. What the hell was her problem? But before she could say anything she felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned to see a woman in front of the stall, holding a purse.

  “Could I have a couple of the orange mocha cupcakes, please?” she asked, pointing to the display.

  Rose started grinning like a fool. She had her very first customer.

  Amber let herself into Retro-a-go-go. The store’s owner, Gracie, herself an example of prime vintage, was sitting behind the counter on a Seventies barstool, pretend-puffing on her empty cigarette-holder – her bizarre way of beating the habit. Old-time jazz was crackling from the record player in the corner.

  “All right, darlin’?” Gracie rasped. Her perfectly set white hair was tinted pink and she was wearing matching baby-pink lipstick. “You’re gonna be very pleased with me. I only went and got a new stash of books at the antique fair yesterday. They’re out the back. You get first dibs before we put them out for the punters.”

  “Cool!” Amber slipped behind the counter and smiled at her.

  “Do me a favour,” Gracie said, before taking an extra-long inhalation. “Give the stockroom a bit of a tidy up while you’re out there.”

  “Of course.” Amber was glad for a reason to be tucked away from the customers for a while. She was still feeling slightly unsettled after her bad dream. She went into the cluttered back room and looked around. As usual, it was a treasure trove of vintage clothes, handbags and shoes. And there, in a corner, was a fresh pile of old books. Amber breathed in the musty air. She didn’t understand why people flocked to gleaming, soulless shopping centres every Saturday when they could be coming to places like this. Chain stores were so bland and samey. But vintage stores were full of wonder. Every item had a past. Every trinket told a story.

  She started looking through the books and a familiar name leapt out at her from one of the spines. Oscar Wilde. It was a copy of his play The Importance of Being Earnest – an early edition by the looks of the yellowing pages and fraying spine. Amber began flicking through and a slip of paper fluttered out and landed on the floor. Amber picked it up and caught her breath. Someone had written a quote in pencil. It was really faded but she could still make out the words.

  “I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read on the train.”

  It was a quote from the play – Amber recognized it immediately. She stared at the paper. It had to be a sign. Normally she was the one who asked Oscar for advice, whenever she played her “What Would Oscar Say” game, but today it was as if Oscar was talking to her of his own accord. First in her dream and now this. But what was he trying to tell her? She studied the quote again. He was telling her that he wanted her life to be “sensational” – for the things she did to make a riveting read.

  As if talking to Oscar himself, she whispered, “But how?”

  Sky came out of her sun salutation and into child’s pose.

  “Shall we do a shoulder-stand?” Liam asked.

  She nodded and smiled. It was ages since they’d practised yoga together. After all the tension of the past week it felt great. True yoga – the kind that had been practised in India for centuries before it became the latest fitness craze in the West – was all about getting your body and mind in harmony so that you could connect with the universe or the divine. But in their practice this morning Sky had felt it was all about re-connecting with her dad. She pushed herself up into a shoulder-stand, supporting the small of her back with her hands. As the blood rushed down her legs, she felt all of the tension of school seeping out through her shoulders. Give your tension to the mat, her dad would say when he was teaching a yoga class. Feel it soaking into the ground.

  I wonder if he’s texted back. Sky tried to push the thought from her mind and lift herself higher into the pose. It didn’t matter. If it was meant to be, then he would. If he didn’t, then she wouldn’t have lost anything. When she felt ready, she came out of the pose and lay on her mat.

  “I’m going to have to skip savasana,” Liam said, getting to his feet.

  “Tut tut, bad yogi,” Sky said with a grin. Savasana, or lying still in the corpse pose, was considered the most important part of a yoga routine. Time for your body to integrate all the movements it had been through and for the mind to be still. As Sky lay there she felt a warm glow spread through her, as if her whole body was giving a relieved smile. Outside, on the tow-path, she heard a child giggle and the ducks quack. All felt well with the world.

  When she was ready, Sky slowly got to her feet and wrapped her blanket round her. She put the kettle on the stove and popped some bread in the toaster. Then she went to her cabin and looked at her phone. The notification light was blinking. It’s probably from one of the Moonlight Dreamers, she told herself as she picked it up. But in that place deep inside her she already knew it was from Leon.

  I’d love to! What are you up to today?

  Chapter Nineteen

  As Maali watched Namir climb the slide for what felt like the four-hundredth time she started to wish she’d been raised a Buddhist rather than a Hind
u. If ever a situation called for the Buddhist teaching of patient acceptance, then this was it. They’d been in the freezing-cold park for so long she’d lost all feeling in her hands and feet, and her will to live was draining by the second.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to do something else?” she called to her brother.

  “Like what?” he called back.

  Maali stared at him blankly. That was the trouble. There was nothing else to do. They’d been to the cinema and had Happy Meals in McDonald’s. What else could they do? Her mum had told her to stay out for as long as possible so that Namir didn’t go stir-crazy cooped up in the flat. She looked at her phone. It was only two o’clock and there was still no news from the hospital about her dad.

  “Can we go on the swings?” Namir cried as he shot down the slide and landed in a heap at the bottom.

  “Sure,” Maali replied.

  The chains were rusty and the seats were cold and damp, but at least swinging might warm her up. Maali gave Namir a push, then she sat on the swing next to him. It had been years since she’d actually been on a swing and she’d forgotten how much she used to enjoy it. As she pushed herself higher she felt her gloom ease a fraction. The cold wind felt refreshing as it whistled through her hair.

  “Let’s pretend we’re pterodactyls!” Namir shouted, swinging past her. “And we’re flying off to kill a deadly T-rex.”

  He looked so happy and excited. And all just from being on a rusty old swing in the middle of a cold, grey park. Maali felt the sudden urge to capture the moment in a photograph. She fumbled for her phone and switched it to camera mode.

  “I can see the T-rex,” Namir said, pointing to a huge Alsatian running through the park. He laughed as he swung himself higher. As Maali swooped past him she took a picture. Then she took another and another. She loved the way Namir slipped into the world of his imagination so easily. She loved seeing the joy it brought him. And she realized that while you had your imagination you still had hope. Because in the world of your imagination, anything was possible. You could fly like a bird. You could become a roaring dinosaur. Your dad could get better.

  An hour later they made their way back along Brick Lane. As usual for a Saturday, the narrow street was crowded with map-reading tourists and bearded hipsters. The hope Maali had felt on the swing was allowing her to dare to imagine that there might be some good news from her mum when they got home. But as soon as they walked into the shop and she saw the grave look on Uncle Dev’s face, her hope faded.

  “Have you heard from Mum?” she asked.

  He nodded. “Sita will tell you. She’s in the kitchen.” He turned to Namir. “You stay with me, little man. Help me serve some customers.”

  Maali slipped behind the counter and into the back of the shop, her heart pounding. Auntie Sita was standing by the cooker, looking at her phone.

  “Maali!” she said, coming over to give her a hug.

  “What’s happened? Uncle Dev said there’d been news from the hospital.”

  Auntie Sita nodded. “Yes. Your dad needs to have … a brain scan.”

  Maali leaned against the counter as she tried to absorb this latest development. “What? Why?”

  “The doctors think it might be something in his brain that’s causing the sickness.”

  “But how? It has to be his stomach – the vomiting virus – doesn’t it?”

  Auntie Sita shook her head. “He should have been getting better by now but he isn’t responding to any of the treatment. And one of the doctors who saw him today said that sometimes when there is a problem with the brain it can affect the balance and cause nausea.”

  “But what kind of problem?”

  Auntie Sita smiled at her reassuringly. “We don’t know yet – that’s why they’re doing the scan. All we can do is pray it will be OK.”

  Maali nodded but the last thing she felt like doing was praying. She’d prayed enough already, hadn’t she? And look what had happened. “Is it OK if I go up to my room for a while?”

  “Of course. We’re here if you need us.”

  “Thank you.”

  Maali marched up the stairs to her attic bedroom. The pale sun was shining down on her Lakshmi figurine, exposing a thin layer of dust.

  “Why is this happening?” she yelled at the statue. “Why are you doing this?” Lakshmi stared back at her blankly through her painted eyes. Maali couldn’t believe she’d put so much faith in the goddess before; confiding all her secrets and problems and asking her advice. It seemed so pointless. The goddess seemed nothing more than a toy. Maali looked around her room, tears spilling from her eyes. She grabbed a scarf from the back of her chair and shook it out. Then she went over to her shrine and flung the scarf over it. There was a dull thud as the statue toppled onto its side.

  Chapter Twenty

  “If you had to pick five words to live your life by, what would they be?”

  Sky looked at Leon questioningly. “To live my life by?”

  He nodded and stretched his legs out, staring at his snowy-white trainers.

  Sky leaned back against the bench and looked up at the sky. Huge pale grey clouds were building on the horizon, like fantastical mountainous worlds. When they’d met earlier at Euston station, neither of them had known where to go. So Leon had placed his hands over her eyes and got her to point randomly at the Underground map. They would go wherever her finger landed – like a travel version of the party game Pin the Tail on the Donkey. They’d ended up in Pinner, a small London suburb near the end of the Metropolitan line. At first Sky had been disappointed: Pinner didn’t seem to have much to offer other than the standard high-street shops, but then they’d come across this beautiful park.

  “Poetry,” she said as she looked at the line of tall fir trees on the far side of the duck pond.

  “Yeah.” Leon nodded enthusiastically.

  “And nature.”

  Sky watched a small terrier tugging on its lead, eager to chase a squirrel. What else would she like to live her life by? “Love.” She immediately blushed, but Leon was looking at her intently as if he wanted her to go on.

  Sky thought of the Moonlight Dreamers. “Friendship.” She had one more word to choose. What else did she want to live her life by? She thought of school. “And courage.” She looked at Leon, eager to shift the spotlight. “How about you?”

  “Why courage?” he asked.

  She swallowed hard and looked away. Should she tell him? “Because you can never create the life you want if you don’t have courage. If you don’t have courage you end up living everyone else’s dreams.”

  Leon nodded in agreement but he suddenly looked sad.

  The whole time they’d been together, Sky had swung between moments of feeling really close to Leon and remembering that they really didn’t know each other at all. This was starting to feel like one of those moments.

  “Whose dreams are you living right now?” he asked.

  “What, right in this moment?”

  He nodded.

  “My own.” She felt the tips of her cheeks start to burn.

  “Me too.” He grinned at her and suddenly she was back in the security of feeling like she’d known him her whole life. “But when you’re not here in – what’s this place called again?”

  “Pinner.”

  “When you’re not here in Pinner, picking words on a park bench, whose dreams are you living?”

  It was like he knew what she was going through.

  “My dad’s. The school’s. The government’s.”

  “And that’s a bad thing?”

  She nodded. “My dad recently made me start secondary school for the first time in my life.”

  “What? You’d never been to secondary school before?” His gape-mouthed look of surprise was almost comical.

  “No, he’d always home-schooled me, but now he needs to work more and he’s worried about me getting good grades in my GCSEs and A levels so I’ve had to go to school.”

  Leon whist
led. “That must be … interesting.”

  “Yeah – it is. But the weirdest part is that I wasn’t prepared for how angry it would make me feel.”

  “Because you were made to go there against your will?”

  “No. Well, that made me angry too, but it’s more school itself. I wasn’t prepared for school to make me angry. I thought it would make me bored or fed up or lonely but it just seems so … so …” Sky searched for the right word … “so harsh. And backward.”

  “Backward? You mean the people?”

  “No! The system. It’s like it’s built to destroy people – well, to wear them down.”

  “It is.”

  Sky looked at him questioningly.

  Leon sat forwards and pulled his hoodie up against the cold. “Think about it. Society doesn’t need a bunch of free spirits who know their own minds and follow their own paths. Society needs a bunch of sheep to blindly do whatever it tells them. School’s where it all begins. It’s where we get trained to be good little sheep.”

  “But why don’t people do something about it? Why do they just accept it?”

  Leon shrugged. “They’re too afraid? Too dumb? Too busy playing Xbox or watching TV?”

  Sky sighed. “It’s so depressing.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It depends where you stand. If you’re one of the sheep it’s depressing. If you’re one of the free spirits –” he looked up at the sky and grinned – “if you’re one of the free spirits you can be the change.”