Scarlett - Cathy Cassidy [32]
I have sketched pages and pages of wildflowers – ivy, wild strawberry and honeysuckle from the woods; yellow flag, ragged robin and wild mint from the loughside. I know their names in Latin, English and Gaelic.
I have a graph to show the temperature and rainfall, so I know that this summer is shaping up for a heatwave, hot and dry. Every day I hang out by the lough, ploughing through dusty old library books on the long, sad history of Ireland. I’m also reading legends of long-gone heroes, warriors, giants, magical princesses with golden hair and cheeks the colour of foxgloves. They’re as crazy as any story Kian might tell, and beautiful too.
‘This is wonderful stuff, Scarlett,’ Clare says one evening, flicking through my folder.
‘More than wonderful,’ Dad agrees, his eyes shining with pride. ‘See what you can do when you try?’
I shrug and smile and pretend I couldn’t care less.
Holly and I are holed up in the sky-blue bedroom. I am writing out an old Irish legend for my project folder, about a wicked stepmother who turns her husband’s children into swans and leaves them to flounder around above the Irish Sea for hundreds of years. Holly is making a poster from a bit of white card, sketching out the letters and filling them in with vivid rainbow colours.
It’s the first day of the school holidays, and Holly has painted her lips blue with my eye pencil to celebrate. She looks cute but sinister, the kind of Hallowe’en trick-or-treater who’d pelt your window with eggs for handing out the wrong kind of sweets.
‘Scary look,’ I tell her. ‘Clare’ll go mad!’
‘Nah,’ Holly says. ‘She likes it that we’re friends. Wish I could dye my hair, like you. And pierce my tongue! I will, when I’m older.’
‘No way, Holly,’ I snap, surprised at myself. ‘It’s not like having your ears pierced, y’know. It hurts. Like crazy.’
‘Tell me,’ Holly says.
I sigh. ‘It started out as a dare. My friends dressed me up and shovelled on the make-up to make me look lots older. Like I said, Em’s big brother worked in a tattoo place. He did it.’
‘Did it bleed?’ Holly asks, eyes wide.
‘Buckets,’ I tell her. ‘Well, a bit. But the pain… Oh, it was unreal. My tongue was all swollen and Em tried to give me ice cream to eat to cool it down, but I couldn’t eat it. I was sick all over my shoes. It was a nightmare. I really wanted to cry, Holly, it hurt that much, but I never cry, no matter what.’
‘I know,’ Holly breathes.
‘Em took me home on the tube and Mum was furious, but she couldn’t say too much because she could see how sick I was. She put me to bed and gave me ice cubes to suck and I had to take three days off school. She kept trying to make me take it out, but there was no way I was going to do that after all I’d been through. I was lucky it didn’t get infected.’
‘Eeuw,’ says Holly. ‘Sounds awful.’
‘If you want to get something pierced, stick to your ears,’ I tell her. ‘That’s not so bad. Well, not normally! I had a friend in London who did it herself with a darning needle and an ice cube – scary! I was there, and I just about fainted!’
‘Seriously?’ Holly gawps.
‘Seriously. Bad news.’
‘Ears are boring,’ Holly says. ‘If it wasn’t a tongue, then maybe I could get a pierced nose or eyebrow…’
‘Yeah, right!’ I laugh. ‘You’re nine years old, Holly! Nobody’d do that kind of piercing for a nine-year-old.’
‘But –’
‘No buts,’ I tell Holly. ‘Don’t even think about copying me. That whole piercing thing was a big mistake – believe me, it’s caused a whole bunch of trouble. The crazy thing is, I don’t even miss it!’
I stick out my tongue, and Holly looks so solemn that I cross my eyes and squash my nose up with a finger to make her laugh. Then we’re both laughing, tickling each other and rolling around on the patchwork quilt until we’re breathless, grinning.
Holly goes back to her poster, a sign for the cottage gate to advertize free-range eggs and fresh veggies to passing tourists.
‘So,’ I say carelessly as I watch her paint, ‘tell me about the other kids in this dump. You know, kids my age.’
‘Kids?