This was what Maali loved the most about life: one moment you could be popping out to get some groceries and the next, somehow everything had changed. She wished she could bottle this tingling feeling and apply it like a perfume any time she wanted. With a sigh, she turned and headed back to TAJ’s Store. Gram flour, paprika, two bunches of coriander and coconuts…
Chapter Three
“Tonight I’m going to read a brand-new poem. It’s called ‘The Day My Womb Died’.”
As Sky watched the woman at the microphone she felt as if her stomach had turned to lead.
“It’s based on my life with my ex-husband,” the woman continued. Her hair was dyed a carrot-orange and in the heat of the basement her eyeliner had smudged into big black rings. If a fashion editor had to name her look they’d probably call it the Punk Rock Panda. Sky gripped her mug of ginger tea. Coming to the Poetry Café was supposed to have been a lifeline, wrenching her day from the jaws of disaster. On the tube to Covent Garden she’d imagined a night of poetic inspiration, the air filled with thought-provoking metaphor and soothing verse. So far there had been a ranty poem about war that had gone on for twenty-two minutes, a cringily erotic poem from a woman who looked old enough to be her grandma, and now this. Sky took a deep breath. Maybe the poem wouldn’t be as bad as the title…
“To have and not to hold,” the Punk Rock Panda began. “Our marriage left me cold.”
Sky closed her eyes.
“In sickness and in health.
You slept with her in utmost stealth.”
Sky bit her lip to keep from groaning. Then she opened her eyes and glanced around the room. There were only four other people there. She hadn’t minded this too much at first – she was still buzzing from the fact that she was here, in the Poetry Café, in the heart of London, all by herself at the age of sixteen. It should have been brilliant. It should have been one of the best, most exciting nights of her life. It should have taken her mind off the fact that, right at this moment, her dad was playing happy families with his dumb new girlfriend and her even dumber daughter. But instead…
“Till death us do part.
The only death around here is my heart
And my womb – as dead as a tomb.”
Sky watched as the woman wrestled the microphone from the stand and took a step towards the audience. There was no point, really – the room was so small, if she took another step she’d be sitting in their laps. The ranty war poem man in the front row recoiled.
“I divorce you! I divorce you! I divorce you!” the woman screamed at the audience.
Sky felt the sudden and completely overwhelming urge to laugh. It started in the pit of her stomach and worked its way into her chest. She mustn’t laugh! She didn’t want anyone to ask her age and, besides, the woman looked terrifying. Sky bit her tongue, but the laughter was massing at the back of her throat now, threatening to explode at any moment. Think of something sad! she told herself. So she thought of her mum. And the words “cancer”, “malignant” and “inoperable”. As always, it did the trick. Her laughter shrank like a burst balloon and Sky leaned back in her chair.
“OK, well – er – thank you, Sister Dignity,” the host said, swiftly taking the mic from the woman and placing it back on the stand. “Now, would anyone else like to read?” She looked into the audience and her eyes met Sky’s. Oh no, Sky thought, but then to her complete surprise, she heard herself say, “Yes, please.”
Everyone turned to stare at her. Somehow, Sky got to her feet and, somehow, she made it to the microphone. She’d never read her poems in public before. Ever. The only person in the world she’d ever read them to was her dad – in the snug privacy of their houseboat. Now here she was, in the poetry capital of the capital, about to read some of her work to a basement full of strangers. OK, a handful of strangers. But still…
Clenching her hands together, Sky plucked up the courage to look at the audience. The Punk Rock Panda was quietly sobbing in the back corner. The man in the front row was gazing into his lap. Only the snowy-haired lady was looking at her – giving her an encouraging grin. Sky smiled back weakly and took a deep breath.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the host announced into the microphone, “please welcome…” She broke off and looked at Sky. “What’s your name?” she whispered.
Sky’s mouth was suddenly so dry it felt as if it were coated with flour. “Oh, er…” For a moment her mind was paralyzed with fear, then adrenalin kicked in. “Halo,” she said. Halo was the pen name she used when she posted her poems online. It was also the nickname her dad had given her mum. As soon as she thought of her mum she felt the usual warm sensation around her like an aura. Are you there? The warmth grew. Sky smiled and felt herself relax. “I’d like to read a poem called ‘Do They Have Daisies in Heaven?’ ”
The room fell silent. Sky took a deep breath.
“When I was little, we made daisy chains,
out in the woods where sunlight fell like glitter…”
And as she read her poem the strangest thing happened. It felt just like it did when she was writing. Everything else fell away – all the stress about her dad and his new girlfriend and her stupid daughter, and the fact that she was reading in public. None of that mattered any more; all that mattered were the words. All that existed were the words. And then, before she knew it, she’d reached the end.
“I wish I’d made a chain so long it still bound us together.
Do they have daisies in heaven?”
There was a moment’s silence in which Sky hurtled back to reality, no longer immersed in the private woodland world of her poem. The man in the front row brought his chunky hands together and clapped. Really loudly. Then he let out a cheer. And then all the others were clapping too – even the Punk Rock Panda at the back. Although there were only four of them, the applause echoed right through Sky, making every cell in her body dance.
“Thank you,” she whispered into the microphone. “Thank you.”
Her body was still humming from the applause as she made her way back to the station twenty minutes later. She’d given her first ever poetry performance – in the Poetry Café in Covent Garden! Sky felt inspired, empowered, alive. She also felt starving! She noticed a tiny shop to her right. The steamy window was lined with shelves of pizza. She slipped inside and bought a huge slice of margherita. The cheese was bright yellow and rubbery, but Sky didn’t care. It smelled delicious. As she left the shop and carried on walking she heard the sound of a guitar. She let the melody carry her right past the entrance to the station. A busker had set up on the edge of Leicester Square. He was tall and thin and wore a scuffed leather jacket, faded jeans and cowboy boots. He looked as if he’d stepped straight out of an eighties rock video. Everyone was rushing by him, to and from the cinemas, restaurants and bars, but Sky felt compelled to stop and watch. Something about the attentive way he played his guitar and the heartfelt tone of his voice was captivating. As the song built to a crescendo, Sky wanted to throw her head back and sing along. Instead, she took another bite of pizza and looked up at the sky. A huge, silvery moon shone down on the square like a spotlight. Words started to pop into her mind. Glimmering. Luminous. Shimmering. Lunar. Lovely. Opalescent. Pearly. Giant. Glitterball. She knew that if she waited long enough, those words would organize themselves into a poem. But she didn’t want to miss the end of the song, so she took another bite of pizza and filed the words away to the back of her mind for later. Sky had always felt sorry for buskers when they didn’t have an audience, but as she watched the man crooning each word as if he were singing to a lover, she realized something really important for the very first time: as long as you were doing what you loved, it didn’t really matter how many people were listening.
DO THEY HAVE DAISIES IN HEAVEN?
BY SKY CASSIDY
When I was little, we made daisy chains,
out in the woods where sunlight fell like glitter.
“I crown you Princess Wood Nymph!” you cried
as you placed your delicate chain on my head.
“And I crown you Queen Petal-Face Buttercup!”
I said
as I placed my chain around your lily-white neck.
That afternoon, the world was one big fairytale,
our lives an endless happily ever after.
Little did I know it was the beginning of the end,
our own “once upon a nightmare”.
I wish I’d never stopped picking those daisies.
I wish I’d made a chain so long it still bound us
together.
Do they have daisies in heaven?
Chapter Four
If tonight had a hashtag, Rose thought to herself, it would be #OMG for sure, for the cringey way her mom, Savannah, was acting like a little girl, giggling and tossing her long blonde hair, and the mega-cringey way her mom’s stupid new boyfriend, Liam, was acting like he was Rose’s new best friend. If she had to give Liam a hashtag it would be #loser.
She pushed her plate away and studied her nails, and the black polish chipped at the edges. Savannah had told her to repaint them for dinner. Rose had point-blank refused. It was bad enough she’d had to come to this stupid dinner – Liam’s stupid daughter, Sky, hadn’t even bothered to turn up!
“So, tell me, Rose, what do you want to do when you get out of school?”
He was Irish as well. An Irish yoga teacher. #OMG right there. Weren’t Irishmen supposed to be construction workers? Or banjo-playing folk musicians? What the hell was he doing being a yoga teacher?
“She wants to go into modelling, just like her mom,” Savannah said, her southern drawl as soft as honey. At least, that’s how the gushing magazine interviewers always described it.
“Really?” Liam looked at Rose. His eyes were bright blue. Too bright. She didn’t like the way they pierced right through you.
Rose shrugged. “I guess.”
“What do you mean, you guess?” Her mom’s face switched into one of her you’d-better-not-be-messing stares. If she hadn’t just had a Botox refresher it would have been a full-on frown.
Rose returned it with an I-don’t-care stare of her own.
“I mean, I guess I want to be a model.”
“Ah, sure, you’re still very young,” Liam said with a smile. “There’s plenty of time to decide.”
I’m not very young, I’m sixteen! Rose wanted to yell at him, her list of anti-Liam hashtags growing by the second. “Whatever,” she muttered instead.
Why couldn’t Savannah see what was going on? Liam had no money. He lived on a boat, for chrissakes! He was some broke Irish hippy who was looking for a meal ticket. Why couldn’t Savannah see that he was only interested in her money? Why couldn’t she stay single for more than a day? Why did Rose’s dad have to leave them? Why did he have to go back to America with his stupid girlfriend? Why? Why? Why?
“I think I might go do some homework,” Rose mumbled, dangerously close to tears.
“But you’ve barely touched your dinner,” Liam said.
“She’s got a casting at the weekend, haven’t you, darling,” Savannah said.
Liam looked blank. “A casting?”
Savannah nodded, her emerald green eyes wide with pride. “Yes, for an ad campaign for H&M. It’s her first official casting, it could be her big break.” She smiled at Rose, the same dazzling smile that had launched a hundred lipsticks and lit up the covers of a thousand magazines.
Rose looked away. She felt a strange mixture of anger and adrenalin building inside of her. It made her want to run out of the house and keep on running. For ever.
“But…” Liam said.
Rose and Savannah looked at him.
He shook his head. “Nothing.”
“Please may I be excused?” Rose muttered.
“OK,” Savannah said with a sigh. “But first we have something to tell you. Liam and I – well – we’ve decided that…” She paused and looked at Liam. He reached across and took hold of her hand. “Liam’s moving in.” Savannah’s smile was so wide now it was practically splitting her face in two.
“What?” Rose’s head filled with confusion. They’d only been together for a few months. Why was he moving in? And how could Savannah tell her like this, with him sitting right in front of her? “But…” Rose searched for some reason why this couldn’t happen, some kind of small print. She turned to Liam. “What about your houseboat? What about Sky?”
“Sky’s moving in too,” Savannah said joyfully, like she was announcing that Santa had just been.
“I’ll probably let the boat out, to earn a bit of money,” Liam added with a grin. He looked like the cat who’d just got the cream – or the cat who’d just got the Hampstead mansion.
Rose was so angry she could barely breathe. “How much money do you get from letting out a boat?” she asked.
“Well, I’m not sure yet,” Liam said.
“How much did you pay for this place, Mom?” Rose turned to her, angry tears stinging the corners of her eyes.
“That’s completely irrelevant, Rose.” Savannah’s voice was tight now too. They were suddenly playing a game of emotional chess. “This isn’t about money, sweetie – it’s about love.”
Checkmate.
Rose knew that if she tried to speak, a sob would burst out, so she got to her feet instead. She ran from the room, along the echoey hall, through the huge front door and down the steps. She ran until she got to the Heath. She didn’t care that it was dark and she’d been told countless times not to go there at night. She just kept on running until her legs were heavy and her lungs felt as if they’d caught on fire. She hated everyone and everything, but she especially hated adults and the way they could destroy your life with just one sentence. Her dad had done it when he’d told her he needed to be with Rachel. And now her mom had done it with “Liam’s moving in.” Liam and his stupid hippy daughter with her stupid hippy name and curly hair and floaty dresses.
Finally, Rose collapsed on the grass. It was still wet from the rain, but she didn’t care. She didn’t care about anything any more. She lay down and closed her eyes. Her heart was pounding so hard it felt as if her ribcage might explode. Her entire life sucked! What was she going to do?
She opened her eyes and gasped. A full moon was suspended in the sky. She’d never seen one so huge. It reminded her of the nursery rhyme her dad used to sing to her: “Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped over the moon.” In her book of rhymes, the picture of the moon had been as huge as the one above her now and it had a smiley face. Rose would snuggle into her dad as he read to the end of the rhyme: “The little dog laughed, to see such fun, and the dish ran away with the spoon.” She’d always giggled at the illustration of a dish and spoon running away together on spindly legs. Now though, she started to cry. Why did life have to be so hard? She looked back at the moon, the tears in her eyes making it blur even bigger. Please, please, let something good happen, she begged.
wildeatheart.tumblr.com
EPIPHANIES
Regular readers of this blog will know that I’ve been fed up with my life for aaaaaaaaaages. (If you aren’t a regular reader of this blog then you might want to read my recent posts, “I’m a Teenager – Not a Celebrity Clone”, “Where are our Heroines?” and “Is My Life Over Before It’s Even Begun?” to get up to date.)
But this week, I had what Dictionary.com would call an “epiphany”. Well, actually, I had two epiphanies:
Number one: Some people will always disappoint you.
Number two: Your dreams are like guiding stars. They help you get out of the most boring and unhappy situations. All you have to do is follow them.
Here are this week’s Wilde Words from my hero, Oscar Wilde. Use them wisely:
“Yes: I am a dreamer. For a dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.”
Amber
Chapter Five
It was Saturday morning and Daniel was cooking blueberry pancakes. Blueberry pancakes were Amber’s all-time favourite breakfast and Daniel always made them when he knew she needed cheering up. Gerald had gone to Prague. He’d missed Amber’s debate and he’d missed her tying the opposition in verbal knots. But Amber didn’t care – Daniel had been there, and he’d looked so proud when she delivered her final, killer line, it had almost made her heart burst.
“Maple syrup?” Daniel asked as Amber took a seat at the kitchen table.
“Please.” She poured herself a glass of juice.
“Are you working all day today?” Daniel asked, rooting around in the cupboard for the syrup.
“Yep. Till five.”
Every Saturday, Amber worked in a vintage store called Retro-a-go-go on Brick Lane. It was a treasure trove of old clothes, books and records and it was one of her favourite places in the entire world.
“I was wondering if you’d like to go out somewhere afterwards.”
Daniel came over and placed the bottle of maple syrup on the table in front of her. He wore his usual Saturday morning outfit of pyjama bottoms and hooded sweatshirt. Although he’d just turned forty, with his chiselled bone structure and thick gold hair he still looked young. Unlike Gerald, Amber thought unkindly. Gerald was almost twenty years older than Daniel, with receding white hair and a growing paunch. She often wondered if Daniel ever regretted being with Gerald, and more recently, in her lowest moments, she had taken to fantasizing that one day he’d tell her he’d had enough of Gerald’s diva strops too and that he and Amber were moving out. Her last fantasy had a new twist – Daniel telling her that he was her biological father and she never had to see Gerald again.
“We could see a movie,” Daniel continued. “The new Woody Allen’s on at the Curzon.”
That was another clue in the list of evidence Amber had been compiling as proof that Daniel was her biological dad – they both loved movies. Gerald wouldn’t even set foot in a cinema. “Why would I settle for cheap celluloid imitation when I can experience the blood and guts of theatre?” he would cry whenever they invited him to join them.
The Moonlight Dreamers Page 2
