“I’m sorry.” This time, he can hear me.
“It’s my fault,” he says. “I shouldn’t have gotten on.”
“I won’t make you do anything you don’t want again,” I promise him as the ride crawls to a stop.
“Never?”
“Never.” I kiss him on the cheek. I don’t tell him that I’m nervous now, that maybe we’ve been seen. He doesn’t look at me as we step down, my blood still spinning.
•••
The table in the food tent has two small benches free. Mrs. Wick sits down with Tom, and the others pile on and squish together. Chubbers is put in the middle of the table.
“Hot dogs all around?” Mr. Wick asks.
“I’ll come and help,” I say. Blister doesn’t look like he wants to eat. I’ve done this to him.
“You’ll feel better in a moment.” Mrs. Wick reaches up and pats his arm.
“I’ll be fine,” he says, but I know we both want to rewind time.
As I wait in line with Mr. Wick, I try not to glance around. If I don’t see the girls from school, then I can pretend that they’re not here.
“Shame your family couldn’t join us,” he says to me.
“Yes.” I look away. I don’t want him to bring Kathleen in here.
“What were they up to?”
“They’re busy. My dad says maybe next time,” I lie.
“You should bring them over one day. It seems wrong that we’ve never met them.”
“That’d be good,” I lie again.
I won’t say that Blister is still my secret, that his name has never been mentioned in my house. And that I’ll never let them know. One day, I’ll run away with my boyfriend and I won’t come back and they won’t know where to look for me.
“Blister doesn’t tell us much. Just that you’re not so close to Kathleen and Megan. Is that right?”
“I suppose.” We step forward, closer to the till.
“It seems a shame. To only have one sister and not get along.”
“She’s not really my sister.”
“I thought she was your dad’s daughter?” We move again and Mr. Wick takes two trays from the shelf and passes one to me. “Shows how much I pay attention.” He laughs lightly, before he leans toward the woman behind the counter. “Nine hot dogs, please.”
The woman smiles. “Big family?”
“Big enough.” Mr. Wick laughs again.
I watch as my tray is piled with food, and the word sister burrows its way somewhere deep where I don’t want it to go.
I stand next to the table with Blister, and I watch as Mr. Wick measures out Tom’s medicine and he drinks it up. He’s definitely more listless than earlier and I see Mr. and Mrs. Wick look at each other quickly when he starts to cough. But they hand out the hot dogs and Tom smiles as he bites into his, ketchup squeezing out the sides of the bun.
I still don’t like eating in front of Blister’s family. They never say anything, but I know what they must think.
I want to tell them. I want them to know that me being a bit overweight isn’t my fault. That I don’t want to eat everything that Kathleen puts in front of me but fear makes me do what she says. And that the older I get, the further away my dad seems to go and the less he can see. I wipe the mustard from my mouth. Blister is folding his empty napkin into smaller and smaller squares.
“Did you know, you can’t fold paper more than twelve times?” he says.
“I’ve folded one fourteen times,” Eddie says. Blister raises his eyebrows as he glances at him.
“Really?”
Mrs. Wick wipes Chubbers’ hands. “Where to next?” she asks no one in particular.
“There’s livestock judging at two thirty.” Mr. Wick lifts Mil from the bench. “So why don’t we look at the stalls for a bit?” He grabs on to the string attached to Chubbers before he can run away.
“Can I win something for Maggie?” Tom asks.
“You can try,” Mr. Wick says.
“She’d love that,” I say. I take his hand and Blister stacks up the trays and takes them away.
Outside the tent, the rain has stopped. The sky is still muddy, but for now it’s dry.
Tom needs me to walk slowly. I don’t like the way his breathing sounds.
“You OK?” I ask. He looks up at me and nods. “Are you hurting at all?” He shakes his head.
“Please,” Si whines, and we all stop at the coconut toss.
“OK. But that’ll be it for you,” Mr. Wick says. “Are you sure you want to spend it on this?”
Si screws up his nose.
“This’ll be easier.” Mrs. Wick points to the fishing ducks on the other side of us.
“You could do this one, Tom,” I say. The children are already grabbing rods and I help Tom squeeze into the middle so he can pick one too.
Blister isn’t with us, though. I see him pass money to the man at the coconut toss and he’s given three wooden balls. He glances over at me and holds them high, smiling.
He misses with every single one.
I’m laughing when he comes back to me.
“I wanted to win you something,” he says. I think his pride might be hurt, just a little bit.
“I don’t mind,” I tell him.
“June, I’ve got one!” Tom shouts. At the end of his hook is a duck. I reach over to help him hold it straight and we pull it back to take the plastic animal from the end. Underneath it is a red sticker. “Have I won?” He starts to cough. His whole body shakes and he holds on to my arm as he folds over.
Mrs. Wick passes Chubbers to Blister and she kneels down so that Tom can sit on her legs. I hate watching him hurting so much. I hate that people are looking over and there’s nothing we can do.
“I think we’ll get you home,” Mrs. Wick says gently. Tom looks up at her.
“But I won a prize,” he says weakly.
“We’ll get your prize.”
“It’s a red sticker,” I say to the man, as I pass him Tom’s duck. He reaches for a tray and holds it close to the edge.
“You can choose one thing from in here,” the man says, glancing over his shoulder to watch the boys who’ve arrived on the other side.
Mrs. Wick holds Tom up. There are cards, wands and swords, but he reaches for something in the middle. It’s a big ring, with a plastic green heart set in its center.
He passes it to me. “Is it for Maggie?” I ask.
“It’s for you,” he smiles, but his fragile lungs make him cough again. He doubles over on his mom’s lap as her hands gently hit his back to help him breathe more easily.
“Time to go,” Mr. Wick says.
And none of the children complain. Mrs. Wick picks up Tom and we weave in and out of the happy crowd toward the car.
Blister holds my hand. In my other palm, I hold my little heart ring tightly.
•••
On Monday morning, the whispers start at the back of the classroom.
“June’s got a boyfriend. June’s got a boyfriend.”
I thought I had been lucky at the fair and they hadn’t seen me.
Someone throws a ball of rolled-up paper at me. It hits my arm and falls to the floor.
“June’s got a boyfriend.” The taunting is getting louder as more people join in.
“How did you manage that?” Ryan walks up, puts his hands on my desk and leans his breath into me. It feels like every person in the room is laughing at me.
I try to make their words roll away.
Cherry walks up and puts a scrappy picture in front of me. It’s a drawing of a boy with glasses. They’ve made him ugly, which he isn’t, and they’ve given him pimples. They haven’t drawn his beautiful smile and his deep dimples. It’s not Blister at all.
“I might’ve guessed he’d need glasses,” Cherry says. I want to say something nasty back, but nothing comes.
I watch as she walks away from me. I imagine sticking knives into her back and watching the blood leak onto her lily-white shir
t. She’s still walking, but I want her crumpled on the floor.
The boys sitting at the front circle their fingers over their eyes and kiss the air.
Yes. I want to tell them. Yes, I have a boyfriend. He’s called Blister and he’s beautiful.
But I know Blister is telling me to stay quiet. Breathe. Count to ten.
“Does everyone hate him, too?” Ryan whispers in my ear. I so nearly hit him. But Blister stops me. Don’t do it, June. I stare out the window and imagine him standing there. And I smile as Mr. Jennings walks into the classroom to start the lesson.
•••
After school, I bike to our trailers. Two paper dragonflies are perched on the gate. One is blue, one is purple. Their wings have been carefully cut into lines of thin veins. Each one could fit into the palm of my hand. I’m sure that they’re talking to each other, deep in conversation about something I can’t hear.
I touch the blue one. It’s only attached with thin wire and I make it tilt back too far. I try to straighten it, but I’m worried I’ll break its wing.
I climb over the gate carefully. The aster flowers at the edge of the path are beginning to dry up and die.
Blister is asleep on a blanket outside our school trailer. His head is tipped to the side and his breathing makes his chest go up and down. I want to put my hand there and feel the beating of his heart, but I don’t want to wake him.
Next to him is one of his thick, heavy books, its medical words face down on the grass.
I go quietly into the art room. The day’s heat is still in here, but it’s much cooler than it would be at midday.
On the floor are tiny lines of blue and purple. The dragonflies’ veins.
I pick up some sheets of paper and a pair of scissors and take them back to the blanket outside. Blister hasn’t moved. He has a little frown wriggled on his forehead, even though he’s sound asleep. I almost push my thumb there, to iron it out, but I stop myself.
I start to fold a piece of paper. I have to cut it to shape it. I fold it again and then undo it and rub it flat. I’ve already ruined it, so I crumple it up and take up another one.
I’m more careful, but I mess it up again. I wanted to give it to Blister, but I end up slamming the scissors sharp into the ground.
I must make too much noise, because Blister wakes up. He opens his eyes and leans on his elbow.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hey yourself.”
“Did I fall asleep?”
“Looks that way.”
“You OK?” He sits up properly and puts his hands on my knees.
“Yes,” I lie. And he knows it. I let my shoulders slump down. “I’m unhappy, Blister, and I don’t want to be.”
“Did you see our dragonflies?”
Oh, Blister.
“Yes,” I say. “They’re beautiful. Thank you.”
He leans forward and kisses me. And I kiss him back.
Kissing Blister makes all the rest just dissolve and disappear.
Blister, me; me, Blister.
I don’t know life before him. I don’t want life after him. I don’t know where I start and he ends.
We stay on the blanket, until the sun moves far enough to make the trees’ shadow creep over us.
I want to stay here forever, but I know I have to go.
•••
At the weekend, I escape again to Blister’s house. No one is in the hallway, but through the window at the end I can see them in the backyard. Their shouts stop at the glass.
I stand and watch them. In the frame, Mr. Wick is carrying a bucket, then he disappears out of view. No one is there now. And then Mil runs quickly to the other side. Blister walks across the path, carrying a pole.
I go through the kitchen and out the back door, into the sunshine.
“June!” Tom comes running up. “We’re having our own fair.”
“Hold it straight,” Mr. Wick yells, and he turns on the faucet by the wall. Eddie is holding the hose at the other end and water gushes from it into the bucket. “Say when,” Mr. Wick calls.
“When!” Eddie shouts. He’s hopping from one foot to the other on the grass.
“June, can you grab a chair from inside?” Mrs. Wick calls. Blister turns to me and smiles.
In the kitchen, I pick up the nearest chair and go back outside. Blister takes it from me. He puts it down and gives me a hug that melts my bones.
“We’re recreating the bits we missed at the fair,” he says.
“One more chair, June,” Mrs. Wick says. She’s standing in the middle of the lawn, holding a long bamboo stick.
I run into the house and get another. Between us, we balance the stick on the two chairs to make the final jump. It looks a bit tall for the little ones to get over, but they can roll underneath.
By the flowerbed, Mr. Wick has balanced a shelf on a bench. Tom is piling up the empty tin cans, but he can’t reach high enough for the top ones and they keep falling off the back.
Blister and I go to help him. We have to level the shelf a bit so that the cans sit straight. I lift Tom up to put the top few on. He’s so light, even though he’s tall enough for his feet to almost touch the ground.
Mr. Wick blows a whistle sharply.
“Evan,” Mrs. Wick says, “too loud.” He blows it again so softly that we can hardly hear it and exaggerates tiptoes as we all follow him to the end of the lawn.
“Right, first up, we have the horse jumping.” He picks up an old bicycle horn from the grass and squeezes its rubber end.
“How are you going to time us?” Si asks.
“You’re all going together,” Mr. Wick says.
“But they’ll crash into each other,” Mrs. Wick says.
“They’ll be fine.” He grins and pats Chubbers on the head as he looks at me. “The oldest ones will go backwards.”
“That’s not fair,” Blister laughs.
“It’s the rules,” Mr. Wick says. “Right, all of you have to start behind this line.” We all huddle back, behind the stretch of sweaters on the grass. “Ready?”
I tuck the ends of my skirt into my underwear, quickly take off my sandals and throw them to the side.
“I’ll be better with bare feet,” I say.
“Extra points for style,” Mr. Wick says.
“Jump high,” Blister tells me as we turn our backs to the course.
“Go!” shouts Mr. Wick, sounding the bicycle horn.
But Blister grabs me around the waist.
“That’s cheating,” I yell, and struggle free.
At the first post I spin in the air. “More points for me,” I shout.
Blister grabs my hand and there’s chaos as we all stumble over the rest of the balancing bamboos and I run last over the finish line.
Eddie and Si start bickering about who came first.
“Can we have something a bit calmer now?” asks Mrs. Wick, picking up Chubbers and brushing his knees clean. “Apple bobbing?”
“Yes!” Tom says, and he pushes me toward the two buckets on the corner of the lawn.
“OK, line up in two teams, one behind each bucket,” Mr. Wick says. “You’ve got to keep your hands behind your backs, and when you’ve got an apple in your mouth, drop it onto the grass and it’ll be the next person’s turn.”
Blister stands opposite me in his line.
“I’m watching you,” he says.
“Bring it on,” I reply, pushing up imaginary sleeves.
We chant the name of each person. Mil takes ages and Mrs. Wick eventually scoops one up and puts it in her mouth.
Blister already has his head in the bucket when it’s my turn. His hands hold the sides. His hair is soaked. Water runs down the back of his T-shirt.
“June—” Tom pushes me forward—“your turn.” His face is beaming. His cheeks are full of color and his eyes are full of life.
“Having fun?” I ask.
He nods. “Quick.”
I kneel on the wet grass, put my hands on the bu
cket, take a deep breath and lean my head forward into the water.
Instantly, Kathleen is here. She’s holding me down. She’s filled the kitchen sink and has me kneeling on a chair. She pushes my head in and holds it until my breath is running out. I thrash out with my arms, but she won’t let me up. I swallow water and start to cough, but still her hands hold me under. I kick so hard that the chair falls away.
Someone is pulling me back.
“You’re OK,” Blister says. I can’t get enough air, but the water has gone. “I’ve got you,” he says gently.
We’re sitting on the grass. I open my eyes and they’re all staring at me. Wide, innocent eyes, wondering what happened to June.
“OK,” Mr. Wick says. He moves them away and glances briefly at Mrs. Wick. “We’ll break for lunch. After that, we’ll do the coconut toss.”
Tom looks back over his shoulder at me as they all huddle into the house.
The sun tries to dry me while Blister strokes my hair. But in my memory I haven’t escaped. I’m still drowning.
•••
Blister and I eat alone in the yard. We move slightly into the shade. The lawn is scattered with toppled chairs, bamboo sticks and apples. Through the kitchen’s open window, we can hear his family. They’re laughing and shouting. I’ve forgotten what it’s like to laugh in my home. What it’s like to have a mom who lights up when she’s with you.
“Why did your parents have so many children?” I ask.
“Because they wanted us.”
“Because they wanted to give you all a home, or they just wanted lots of kids?”
“A bit of both, I think.”
“Will they adopt more?”
“I don’t think so. I think they’re done.”
“What if someone really needed them? How are they going to say no?”
“They have to. Mom’s exhausted now. At some point, if you don’t stop, you’re doing the wrong thing for the kids you already have.”
“I suppose.”
“If you haven’t got the time and energy to look after them, then there’s no point saving them in the first place.”
I feel crushed. Because my dad has the time and energy to save me, but he’s blind to it.
“Would you adopt?” Blister asks me.
“I don’t know. I’ve never really thought about having children.” What if I end up like Kathleen?
Paper Butterflies Page 13
