by Kate Gordon
That would be … a tragedy.
But Wonder didn’t know how to lie. She’d never learned. So, she looked at her pale fingers and bravely told the truth.
‘I have no house,’ said Wonder. ‘But I do have a room.’ She met Mabel’s eyes. ‘Would you like to see it?’
Wonder and Mabel sat on Wonder’s rough woollen blanket at the back of the archives.
Wonder picked at a loose thread and waited, with an ever-growing knot in her belly, for Mabel to speak again. Outside the window, Hollowbeak sat on a twig of the silver birch tree, torturing an amaranthine worm. Occasionally, he’d look inside, but when Wonder looked back, he turned away.
She’ll hate it, Wonder heard him gripe. It’s so dingy and dull. She’ll run away down the stairs. You mark my words. She’ll run away and she won’t come back. And perhaps that is for the best.
‘It’s … brilliant,’ Mabel said.
Wonder dropped her blanket thread and looked up at Mabel, her mouth a perfect ‘O’. ‘Really?’ she whispered. ‘You like it?’
‘I love it!’ giggled Mabel. ‘It’s your own little world!’
Wonder looked around her room, imagining she saw it through Mabel’s eyes. The rows of leather-bound books, blanketed in grit, seemed to take on a new kind of magic. The candle she kept in an old bottle, for when the nights grew too dark, seemed more romantic and curious.
Heroines in books had candles, didn’t they? They read by them at night-time, just as Wonder did. She had long yearned for a lantern of her very own, but now … now, that small candle seemed just right, when seen by Mabel’s eyes. Even the cobwebs seemed more silver, seemed to shine. And her rough woollen blanket …
She’d held on to that blanket for all these many years, although she didn’t really need it, because she imagined it smelled like her mother. Probably, it didn’t, any more, and probably all trace of her mother – her skin cells and discarded hairs and all of that – was long, long gone, made into more of that seemingly infinite dust.
But Wonder imagined that the blanket still held her. That her mother was part of the blanket and the blanket was part of her. Its decrepitude hadn’t mattered at all until the moment before Mabel sat down upon it, and then it had seemed the very worst blanket to ever exist.
But now …
Now, it seemed like the very most luxurious of all bedlinens. Now, it seemed plumper and cosier, and fancy, even.
‘It’s all right up here.’ She shrugged, flushing red as she played down her fizzing pride. ‘It’s lonely, sometimes.’
Mabel shook her head. ‘It’s not lonely. It’s free. At home, my mum and dad are always hovering around me like gadflies. When school finishes today, they’ll be down there, rattling the bars, desperate to see me. That’s why I was late this morning. They wanted to walk me in and carry my bags. Meet the teacher. Make sure I found the right desk …’ Mabel sighed, rolling her eyes.
But then she saw something in Wonder’s face – noticed some flinch or glint of sadness. ‘What about you?’ she said, gently. ‘What about your parents? Your mum and dad? Where are they?’
‘Mother,’ Wonder corrected. ‘I only ever had my mother. My …’ She searched for the word that Mabel had used. ‘My mum. And she left me a long time ago.’
‘Oh …’ Mabel inclined her head. ‘You must miss her. Of course. But you’re lucky in some ways, too. You can do whatever you want.’
Wonder grinned back. ‘That’s true.’
‘Did you cry lots?’ Mabel asked, softly. ‘When she went away?’
Wonder hesitated. Inside, her shame felt too big for her skin. But she knew she couldn’t lie. ‘I didn’t cry,’ she admitted.
‘I don’t cry much, either,’ Mabel said, nodding. ‘Even though people say that I should.’
Mabel gave a little cough then, and she seemed to turn a bit pale, but it was dark and gloomy in Wonder’s room, without the candle lit, so maybe it was only Wonder’s eyes playing tricks. Wonder was the pale one, not Mabel. Mabel was made of sunshine.
Then, directly above Wonder’s ceiling, the old brass school bell began its impatient clanging. Lunchbreak was over. It was time again for classes.
Mabel stood up. She held out her hand to Wonder. ‘Help you up?’ she said.
Wonder hesitated. She thought how nice it would be to hold Mabel’s hand. It would be warm, she thought. But she shook her head. ‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘I’m used to doing it myself.’
‘You have me now,’ said Mabel.
And Wonder felt so huge and glowing inside she was sure it must be visible.
But she still stood up by herself.
She’ll see right through you, she heard Hollowbeak caw. She’ll leave you eventually. It’s only a matter of time.
‘Enough, Hollowbeak,’ hissed Wonder.
He was wrong. Mabel would not leave her. Not ever. How could a thing so perfect ever be allowed to leave?
Wonder and Mabel sat side by side, back at their desks in Ms Gallow’s classroom.
Ms Gallow stood at the front of the room, writing on the blackboard. Her fingers were white with the chalk. The prints of them made smudges around the letters, and these smudges looked like small bugs, crawling.
This time – this writing time – was, usually, Wonder’s favourite part of the lesson. She loved watching the words appear on the board – perfect white against perfect black. And the words themselves were like flowers blooming.
Today, the words were from a book that Wonder loved.
Wonder loved all books, of course. Books talked to her, when nobody else would. They always had. When Wonder’s mother was busy teaching, she’d leave her precious girl with a stack of books for company. The characters were Wonder’s first friends. And when her mother returned from lessons, Wonder would excitedly tell her all about what she and her friends had got up to, and Wonder’s mother would say, ‘How lucky I am, to have such capable nursemaids between those pages, to take care of my darling girl.’
Now her mother was gone, books had been her most constant companions, aside from Hollowbeak. The library was her favourite place to sit during rainy-day lunchtimes. On sunny days, she stayed outside with Hollowbeak, of course, but when it rained, she made herself very small in the very back corner of the library and read until the bell clanged. And then, after school, she went there again until it was too dark to see.
Wonder had read every book in the library at least three times. Some, she’d read over and over until she knew every word.
The book that Ms Gallow quoted from was one of those books. Wonder mouthed the words as they appeared on the blackboard:
‘“Where do you go, when you’re dreaming?” the boy asked the silver-eyed girl.
“I breathe out and I begin to float. I float up to the clouds and further. I float up to the stars.”’
‘You know this one?’ asked Mabel beside her.
Wonder nodded. ‘I know all of them.’
‘It sounds magical,’ Mabel replied, grinning.
In the chair in front of Mabel, a girl twisted around. Her hair was white as snow and held back tightly from her face with a ribbon the colour of currant jam. Her dark eyes were narrowed. Her lips were pressed together so they bleached into whiteness, just like her hair.
‘You’re new,’ she said. ‘You’re weird.’
Wonder turned quickly to Mabel, her chest feeling fluttery. She wanted to warn Mabel not to speak. It was a bad idea, always, to speak to Georgiana Kinch. Wonder knew this not because she had ever done it, but because she had seen other girls do it. If Georgiana didn’t like you, nobody did. And Georgiana didn’t like anybody who talked back to her or argued.
‘I’m not weird,’ Mabel replied. ‘I’m nothing you say I am. I am boundless.’
Everyone in the class turned now, to stare. Even Ms Gallow placed her chalk down and
looked at the girls, wiping her powdery fingers on her long, dark skirt.
‘I do not abide talking in my class,’ she said. Her eyes were on Mabel.
Wonder felt her skin bristling. It almost felt, because Mabel sat so close, as if Ms Gallow was looking at her.
‘You are new,’ Ms Gallow said, nodding at Mabel.
‘I am Mabel Clattersham,’ said Mabel.
There was a beat – a pause that seemed empty and yet full of everything – as Ms Gallow stared at Mabel and almost-Wonder.
And then she spoke. And it was made of spikes. ‘You will still be punished after class,’ she said. ‘Even though you are Mabel Clattersham.’
And Wonder called out, because she could not stop herself, because Mabel was her friend, ‘What about Georgiana? Ms Gallow, what about Georgiana?’
Nobody except Mabel paid her any attention. She looked at Wonder and smiled. ‘Thank you for trying,’ she said. ‘You are a good friend. But I don’t mind being in trouble.’
As Ms Gallow turned back to the board, Georgiana slowly swivelled to them again. Her eyes were steel and midwinter frost. ‘Mabel Clattersham,’ she hissed below her breath, ‘you are a pale, sickly little turnip of a thing and I will roast you and cut you up and eat you alive.’
Mabel, as quick as a metronome pendulum, replied, ‘You might. But you’ll find a turnip can bite back. And its bite can make your belly dreadful sore.’
Georgiana went bright red, then. Her nostrils flared and her eyes narrowed, and the effect was, on the whole, reminiscent of an overripe baneberry. She said nothing more, but there was something in the silence more ominous than any possible words.
‘Well. Ain’t she a delightful miss,’ Mabel murmured, rolling her eyes at Wonder.
‘She’s a snake,’ said Wonder. ‘Some people say she’s a Queen Bee, but she’s not at all. She’s a fierce albino cobra.’
‘I don’t mind snakes,’ said Mabel. ‘At least they’re obvious in their evil. She’s not a snake. She’s a kitten, hiding its claws beneath white velvet fur. Nobody sees it but us or, if they do, they pretend they don’t because they know her swipes are worse than any snake bite.’
‘That’s so true,’ murmured Wonder. Why hadn’t she seen it before? ‘When you are punished, I’ll come with you,’ she added. ‘I won’t leave you alone.’
Mabel smiled, then, and Wonder felt as if she might jump on the table and howl with the happiness of it all.
Wonder and Mabel sat in the library. Ms Gallow perched behind the librarian’s desk, reading a novel about haunted houses and dark nights on the moors. Mabel and Wonder wrote lines.
I will not speak out of turn, Wonder wrote, because this is what Ms Gallow had instructed. Her pencil was worn to a nub. It barely made a scratch on her paper. But she liked it. She liked making some mark.
Usually, in lessons, Wonder made no mark at all on her paper because she lost her last pencil a long time ago and she was too anxious to ask for another. But Mabel had given her one of her spares and, even though it was worn down and a bit chewed and splintered, Wonder loved it.
A present from a friend.
That was a thing, wasn’t it?
Wonder looked over at Mabel’s writing. Her eyes widened. Mabel was not writing lines. She was writing … her own things. Ms Gallow would not be happy.
‘What are you doing?’ Wonder whispered. ‘Those are not the words … That’s not what Ms Gallow said.’
Mabel shrugged. ‘Life’s too short for lines,’ she whispered. She finished her last word with a flourish that looked something like a blown-away feather, and she passed her page to Wonder.
‘What … is it?’ Wonder asked, as she scanned the page. It looked a bit like a poem. She began to read it:
Life is too tiny
For lines,
For boxes,
For smallness …
‘Not that side,’ said Mabel, quickly, and she snatched the paper away and flipped it onto its belly. She tapped on the words with a finger.
This side was like a poem, too, but of a different sort.
Steal something.
Leap into the sky.
Touch a star.
Make someone feel pure happiness.
Throw a pie.
Hold a baby bird.
Break someone’s heart.
‘Tell me what it means,’ said Wonder. ‘Tell me what it is.’
Mabel shrugged again. ‘Things,’ she said. ‘Things I want to do.’
‘Why?’ asked Wonder.
‘To be free,’ said Mabel.
Wonder looked into the eyes of her new friend. ‘I will help you,’ she said.
Wonder and Hollowbeak sat together on the emerald lawn at the perimeter of Direleafe Hall.
Though it was late, the stars and moon were bright and the dewdrops clinging to the blades of grass were like trembling fireflies. Above their heads, night birds circled. But Hollowbeak stayed with Wonder. Why did you choose to be punished? he asked. Why are you helping her?
‘Because Mabel is my friend,’ Wonder replied. ‘I want to be with her.’
She won’t appreciate it. No matter what you do, no matter how you try to prove it to her, she will leave you. Everyone leaves you. I look after you, Wonder. I protect you. I am the only one who stays.
‘Maybe I don’t want you to stay,’ Wonder said, quietly, ‘if you are always so gloomy.’
Wonder stood. She picked up her long skirt and began the climb up the hill, back to Direleafe Hall. She held a haphazard bunch of wildflowers. She had been out all night, picking them for Mabel.
After the punishment, she hadn’t felt like going back to the archives. She hadn’t felt like lying down, in the nook beside that old, rusted cabinet, beneath that blanket – no matter how fancy it had seemed when Mabel was there. She hadn’t felt like sleeping. She worried that she would dream about something that wasn’t Mabel, and that felt like a waste.
Hollowbeak stayed with her all night and she was glad of his company. But now, in the dawning light, as tiredness began to rake its bony fingers through her mind, she was growing weary of him. He only wanted to tell her, over and over, how terrible Mabel was. But Wonder knew it wasn’t true.
The sun rose over Direleafe Hall, turning it from charcoal to copper and gold. From a gothic castle to a storybook palace.
Wonder sucked in a breath. She loved this moment – the moment when night finally surrendered to glorious day.
Night had its own beauty. Night had the diamond stars and the perfect velvet blackness. But day … day was life. Day was hope. And in the dawning hours, hope overcame darkness.
Wonder had always believed in hope. And what had it given her?
Mabel.
I am not always gloomy, said Hollowbeak, flying to land on her shoulder.
‘You sound gloomy,’ said Wonder, ‘when you say that.’
Hollowbeak sighed. Through a tightly clamped beak, he mumbled an apology. Of sorts.
‘What was that?’ Wonder prompted.
Hollowbeak couldn’t bring himself to say it again. So, instead, he changed the subject. Sometimes, at night, you call for your mother.
‘I miss her,’ Wonder said, simply, after a pause.
I am here now, Hollowbeak said. I have always been here. I take care of you.
‘Sometimes,’ Wonder said, ‘I don’t want you to. Sometimes, I know my own mind.’
You can control your mind, Hollowbeak snapped, but you cannot control your heart, and therein lies the danger. Hearts can break, easy as the snapping of twigs.
Wonder looked up at the trees. At the branches. She wondered, if she leaped onto one of those branches, if it would break. She wondered what it would feel like to make that happen – to affect the world around her and make a thing that was whole into something that was in pieces
.
You’re thinking about things I don’t mean you to think of, said Hollowbeak, grumpily. I tell you these things because I love you. I don’t want you to get hurt. You’re not taking this seriously. This is your life, Wonder.
‘Yes,’ said Wonder, defiantly, as she marched into the darkness of Direleafe Hall. ‘Yes, Hollowbeak, it is.’
Wonder and Mabel sat on the stone front steps of Direleafe Hall.
A chill wind blew across the grounds, towards them. The silver birches swayed like ghostly maidens. Hollowbeak’s favourite creaked and moaned and danced only under duress, in a bent and fitful sort of way.
The sky was white in places and, in others, black and glowering. The clouds seemed heavy with the weight of all that was sorrowful in the world.
In opened windows, in Direleafe Hall, net curtains fluttered, like cobwebs full of moths. Even the bright green grass was moving, moving, moving to the whispered song on the wind.
Mabel drew her cardigan tight, so tight that Wonder could see her ribs. For some reason, this made Wonder’s belly twist.
Mabel was so human. Beneath her skin there was a heart beating, and blood, and lungs expanding and contracting – all of it like a clockwork and with its own kind of rhythmic dance that seemed, at that moment, so tenuous.
As if the wind might suddenly drop.
And then the dance would stop.
When Mabel breathed out, it was silver smoke, and her nose was red with the cold, like a berry-lipped elf had kissed her there.
And Wonder wished she had a handkerchief to give; was, in fact, searching her pockets for one … when the paint can fell from the sky.
The paint was black as tar, blacker than the blackest parts of the sky. It was sticky, too, and it coated Mabel like a robber’s cloak. ‘Oh, dillweed!’ Mabel cried.
She was wet with it. Wet and shaking and shivering as the paint can fell to the ground like a slap and both girls jumped and screamed, until Mabel looked up.
