Notice The Wild Flowers

Maddy sat at her stall chirruping away to herself, fully enjoying the first true day of summer. She thought it the right occasion at last to bring her favourite red dress out of hibernation, and she wore it with pride as she swung her legs backwards and forwards under the chair, her clunky red cracked leather shoes giving momentum to each foot whilst the blonde bob on her head swayed in time.

Set slightly into the lane in front of the long pathway to her home, Maddy had laid out on a table all manner of items pilfered from her house earlier that morning. If her mother ever left her study she might have noticed that a brass candlestick, a broken potato peeler, an assortment of striped socks, a radio, two picture frames, half a bottle of whisky, an ornamental giraffe, a number of cookery books, a stuffed bear with a bowtie, various bits of cutlery and the dog’s nametag were all missing, and that would be before she even ventured upstairs or into the garden. Maddy did fleetingly wonder whether her mother would mind her taking so much, but she had shown no sign of noticing last time so Maddy didn’t let it concern her.

Almost immediately after opening for business this particular morning, a rather grubby-looking boy came plodding down the lane. Maddy recognised his pigeon-toed gait from a long way off and stared at him for a couple of minutes as he approached. His name was Marcus and he invited a certain feeling of disdain in most things he did. He was harmless enough, though, and Maddy never really considered him in any of her thoughts.

Once Marcus was near he drew himself up slightly taller for a brief moment before he forgot and returned to his normal slouch. He held out a handful of coppers and said, “What you got?”

“I have a lot of items up for sale this morning, Marcus,” Maddy said professionally. “Just have a nice look around.”

“Okay.”

“But, mind, if you break it you buy it,” Maddy liked to say this, and enjoyed the look Marcus flashed her in response.

“Well this one already looks a bit broke,” he said stifling a smirk. Maddy regarded him for a few seconds, unable to tell whether he was baiting her or really was just that stupid. She decided on the latter.

“They’re Russian dolls. The whole point is that they come apart.” He looked slightly embarrassed. “And you’ll need more than just coppers if you want those.”

Marcus paused in thought before asking, “What’s this?”

“A candlestick,” Maddy replied.

“Isn’t it a candlestick holder?”

“No, it’s a candlestick. It holds candles.”

“How much for that then?”

“More than you have Marcus.”

Marcus stared at Maddy expressionless for a while until she started to feel a bit uneasy. Then he carried on looking at everything on the table.

As Marcus looked around he kept half an eye on Maddy. Her eyes followed him, but at the same time she was fiddling with something in her lap.

“What you got there?” Marcus asked. Maddy stopped fiddling at once and scowled at him.

“Nothing that will interest you.”

“Well, I am interested.”

“No you’re not. You’re being nosy and that is different. These are for a certain type of customer, ones who don’t sit at the back of class picking their nose.” Maddy smiled to herself, she was having fun. “Maybe I can interest you in this.” She pointed to a pair of grey, woollen mittens.

“Mittens? It’s a bit cosy for those right now.”

“Not mittens. They’re oven gloves. You shan’t burn your hands on your baked potatoes and I’ll let you have them for the sale price.”

“How much are they on sale?”

“Twenty pence.”

“I only have seventeen. Mum don’t give me silvers, she says the coppers last better and the two pees are bigger anyway. But I’ve seen the fifties and they’re plenty big and I’d like one of those.” Marcus looked at Maddy with slightly pitiful eyes.

Considering him briefly, Maddy said “Are you loyal Marcus?”

“Pardon?” he said.

“Marcus, because if you’re loyal then you get a loyalty discount. Like a loyalty card in the tea shops in town, except that I don’t use card because I’m conscious of the environment. Are you loyal to me?”

“Yes I reckon,” Marcus mumbled.

“Okay well you can have them for those seventeen pence you have there then.”

“I don’t cook much, I don’t know if I’ll use them.” Marcus was scratching the ground with his foot.

Maddy persisted, “How about your mother, doesn’t she cook? What about your dad? Now I know he eats a few hot potatoes. How about you think of someone other than yourself for a change? Do you want your mother to burn her hands to feed your fat dad?”

“No.”

“Well then. I’m being extremely generous because normally you don’t get discounts on sale items so I think you should take an opportunity when you see it.”

“Are you sure they’re oven gloves?”

“Of course.”

Marcus sighed. “I really think they’re mittens Maddy.”

“Oh go away then Marcus, you leech. Go on, run off.”

Looking affronted, Marcus did exactly that, his head lolling side to side as he ran back down the lane and round the corner out of site.

Maddy watched him until he disappeared and then resumed her chirruping and leg-swinging whilst fiddling with the papers that were in her lap. Each was lined with neat, loopy script. Maddy had taken a long time last night copying down the poems she had found in her mother’s notebook. She liked how they sounded when she read them aloud to herself outside.

The Suffolk countryside was at its greenest, looking wild and shaggy, with cow parsley adorning the hedgerows. Just a few shrinking puddles remained as evidence of the previous night’s heavy rainfall and the sun was burning them off rapidly now as it rose higher and higher. The sky was large and the lane was lined with daffodils, which pleased Maddy greatly. She held a deep affection for daffodils — she had picked a few earlier that morning and put them in a vase on her stall — and she would take the occasional break to sit still and silent and just gaze at them intensely before breaking into a big grin and resuming fidgeting in her chair. Her grin held a slight hint of menace, but otherwise made her look very childish with the way her sloped nose wrinkled and dimples appeared under her eyes. Just four large teeth were visible, evenly spaced along the top. It was endearing and Maddy knew it.

Maddy spent the rest of the morning without any other customers, but was perfectly content just to sit and enjoy her little routine in her chair.

When she became hungry she took out a cheese sandwich from her bag. She decided to read one of the poems while she ate. She pulled one from her bundle at random; it had no title.

It was quite a short poem, a verse only, and Maddy wasn’t sure she understood most of it. But that didn’t matter, the last line made sense and she liked it a lot, reading it over and over. It read, “Nested in happiness, comfort and joy,” and these were three ideas she gave a lot of consideration to. She thought that joy was different to happiness and that in some ways was better. She searched for moments of joy in each day. These were individual, specific instances that caused a deep warmth to rise in her from nowhere, taking over with a quiet elation. It often came from recognising something seemingly quite insignificant, like an old married couple who after all these years still hold hands, or the enthusiastic thumbs-up a dad gives from the boundary rope after his son successfully fields the ball. Sometimes just seeing someone smiling as they walk past would do. The important thing was this: these moments and the joys they brought were safe. They weren’t the realisation of any great hope or expectation and so no threat of disappointment lurked within them. All you had to do was allow them to matter to you. Maddy had trained herself to see each day’s joyous detail — a woven thread of encouragement — and wrote down every one in her notebook.

The idea of a nest also rested well with Maddy. She liked to make nests in the alcoves, niches and nooks that made up her old and wonky home and there were always piles of blankets and cushions arranged into a bowl shape, perfectly sized for herself and Jelly, her brown Labrador.

This tenderness was well protected, however. Jelly was the only company Maddy was ever interested in and she spent much of her time alone.

There was an ancient oak tree that stood proudly in the far corner of the school field. The thick branches splayed out evenly and were covered in a dense display of wiggly leaves. Once up in the heart of the tree you were barely visible, even in winter, and Maddy didn’t mind sitting still in the cold for an hour. Each lunchtime Maddy would walk out of the classroom carrying her book bag and, if the coast was clear, duck behind the hedge. There was a gap between the hedge and the fence on the other side of it, which provided a perfect covered corridor that traced the entire perimeter of the school grounds. Maddy would use this corridor to move about undisturbed by other children or teachers. The corridor offered a convenient exit point just behind the oak tree, which — as long as she managed to duck behind the hedge without anyone watching — allowed Maddy to travel from classroom to treetop without ever being spotted.

The other children would happily play on the field right up close to the tree, but none would ever try to climb it. This was firstly because you would need to be a very agile climber to even reach the first branch, but was in fact mainly due to a well known legend that if you were to knock on the trunk twenty times quickly then a demonic black cat would scramble down from the top and take you away to meet some sort of horrid end. A few of the more daring children would knock maybe up to fifteen times for the sake of bragging rights, but on the whole the tree was left well alone.

Maddy wasn’t troubled by such superstitious stories, though, especially when it was her who made them up in the first place.

The tree was a secure place, so much so that Maddy had recently started to store possessions up in its branches. Nothing much, just a tin containing some biscuits, a magazine cutting of a donkey and a hairbrush, but it made the whole place seem even more like it was hers and hers alone; and, perhaps more importantly, that it was a good secret.

It was not to be taken for granted, though, and it was not unusual for Maddy to spend her lunchtime elsewhere if she felt she had been too slow out of class to get to the tree and climb it before too many other children made their way across the field. In these instances sometimes the hedge would simply do, but it was more common that Maddy would simply sit on the steps in full view and watch the others playing and fighting and laughing.

Maddy had a certain way about her when she watched. Her eyes would go dead and her mouth would be held open slightly too far to look normal. She would follow a single story from beginning to end, picking up on a potential situation in another child’s expression or a snippet of conversation and watching it flower into an argument or a scuffle or a tearful running off. She wouldn’t turn her attention to anything else until the situation had played itself out. All the while, information was being logged.

Maddy never spied though, she only ever watched in plain sight, and whenever she was up in her tree her attention focussed solely inward.

She liked to write stories in her notebook and each followed the adventures of Mother Duck saving her ducklings from various dangers.

Mother Duck would travel all over the world on her adventures, from the nearby Suffolk beaches of Aldeburgh and Southwold to Lahore and Harare. Once a story was written, Maddy would fill any remaining blank page with minute detailed illustrations that contorted tightly round the words. This kept her amused greatly and she would plunge deep into her own imagination to the point where these adventures just happened around her with what seemed like no active effort on her part.

The obnoxious, metallic pelt of the school bell wrenched her ungainly from her reveries each day; Maddy had come to resent this. She would always be the last back to class, having had to wait to jump down from her hideout and find a safe time to slip back out of the hedge.

If they had the chance, other children loved to play with Maddy, though always with a slight wariness; her regular aloofness made her something of an exciting commodity on the playing field, but rarely would Maddy feel comfortable with this. The occasional bouts of socialising were just enough to keep her in the loop with old friends and not become an outcast.

Maddy did enough work in lesson time to make life easy for herself. Teachers were the simplest of people to keep satisfied.

At home Maddy was always kept company by Jelly who was barrel-chested with stubby legs. Maddy thought of her fondly as her walking cushion. She wouldn’t take her outside, though, as she worried that she would run off as she had done once when she was a puppy. Maddy’s father had found Jelly two villages away sitting in the middle of the road licking her paw, oblivious to the trouble she had caused.

Aside from the study and her parent’s bedroom (which she did go in sometimes) Maddy had full reign of the house and was left well alone. The only exception to this was at dinner time, which Maddy’s mother considered necessary to do “right”, so she cooked a big meal and they sat around the table at half past seven each night to eat. During dinner, conversation would flow and Maddy hardly ate for chattering so much.

Once dinner ended, though, Maddy found herself, once more, left to her own devices. She would prod a dozing Jelly and lead her to whichever spot she had decided would be nice to spend the evening in.

Maddy liked to practice her recorder. She was very regimented with this practice, and would go over a single bar of music for an hour until her mind was so fogged that she couldn’t tell quite what she had been trying to achieve in the first place. She adored music and had quite eclectic tastes for her nine years, but it was a cruel fact that, despite her incessant efforts, she was desperately hopeless at creating it herself. Cross legged on the floor, her brow furrowed and her back straight, Maddy would puff her cheeks and work her fingers over the instrument, fruitlessly searching for a satisfying replication of her favourite songs. But this was how each evening was spent, in deep concentration next to a resigned Jelly who kept her ears deliberately flopped shut.

If not in the house, Maddy would be wandering around the village exploring, climbing trees, riding her bike and very occasionally playing with the other children, although she hadn’t done this for a long while.

Today, though, Maddy felt like sitting at her stall. It was far too hot, she thought, to be running about. The sky was a clear blue and she scanned it for any white imperfections, much in the same way that she would check her fingernails for similar white marks.

Opposite her on the other side of the road was a gap in the hedge which opened up onto the village green. The green had been empty for most of the day, but for the past few minutes Maddy had been watching a boy playing about on his own. She thought she recognised him, but he was too far away for her to be certain. All she could really tell was that he had a rather strange way of moving. He lent back and swung his arms animatedly and lifted his feet up high in the air as he walked. The boy went round in circles doing this for a while before throwing a ball up in the air and catching it. He’d run out of sight for a few seconds and then stumble back into view as he scrambled to pick up a dropped catch. Standing still and upright the boy would observe his surroundings briefly before strutting round in circles again. There was a fizzing energy about the boy and even when he was standing still he was actually on the balls of his feet bouncing as if he were fit to burst from needing the toilet.

Maddy found herself grinning at the boy as she watched him, and when he dropped another catch that he had thrown himself she let out a giggle as she swung herself back on her chair.

She was slightly irritated, then, when she noticed an old man had been shuffling down the lane towards her the whole time she had been watching the boy. He walked slightly stooped in a long coat and flat cap holding his hands behind his back. The man was named Jack, but was commonly referred to in the village as “The Old Boy”. He had lived in the same old flaking house since he was born and could be seen crossing the fields each afternoon, regular as clockwork, making his daily pilgrimage to the pub where he would sit in his stool at the end of the bar working away on a pint that never seemed to empty. It was still a bit too early in the day for the pub, though, so Jack made his way slowly towards Maddy’s stall.

Maddy set all four legs of her chair back on the ground and her face was blank as Jack drew in on her.

“What’s all this about then?” he said with a wheeze, smiling.

Maddy looked at him blankly, her mouth pinched shut and her cheeks slightly puffed.

“That radio looks all right, your mother know you have that?” He carried on with a slight laugh. Maddy squinted.

“Would you like to buy anything?” she asked.

“Oh no, I don’t want anything, no,” he said dismissively.

Maddy tightened her face and scowled. She looked a bit fierce at this moment. Then from nothing she flashed a big grin.

“Okay.” she replied in a sing-song voice.

Jack mumbled a pleasantry and then carried on down the lane.

How pointless that was, Maddy thought. She didn’t like Jack; she had no idea whatsoever how to respond to anything he ever said.

“Boooo…” She said to herself as she turned her attention back to the boy on the green. He had come a bit closer now, but not close enough yet for her to recognise him. He was still striding round throwing himself high catches with his ball. Most of them he dropped, but when he did hang on to one he would run around with his hands in the air as if basking in rapturous applause.

Maddy watched him do this for quite a while. She tilted her head this way and that as she tried to make sense of him. He never lost his enthusiasm for chucking his ball as high up in the air as he could and running, flailing underneath to get close enough make an exaggerated dive for it.

After what Maddy thought was a particularly excessive tumbling attempt, the boy suddenly jumped to his feet and bent down to inspect his foot closely. After apparently deciding all was okay he resumed as before.

Embarrassed at catching herself smiling dopily, Maddy mumbled something incoherent and went about straightening her stock on the table, deciding that it was time to lose interest in the boy. Sitting back down, Maddy began to fiddle again with her mother’s poems. She pulled out another at random and read it.

She read it a couple of times, allowing it to sink in. She was definitely missing something, though. It had a bouncy rhythm, which she liked, but Maddy couldn’t tell what it was about. There was rhyme in it. This was good and actually a big improvement on the last one.

Maddy remembered copying this one down from about halfway through the notebook and so decided that her mother must have had enough time since the first poem to learn to rhyme well. With this thought in mind, she became quite fond of the poem.

“They need titles, though,” she noted to herself as she put the poem back with the others. She was still hoping someone would come along and buy them all off her, but nobody except Marcus and Jack had been past all day and it wasn’t looking promising. It was strange that more people weren’t out in this lovely weather.

Looking back through the gap in the hedge, Maddy noticed that the boy was now talking to someone out of view. She couldn’t tell much, but he seemed to be shouting and laughing at whomever it was she couldn’t see. He carried on throwing himself more catches, but there was an air of performance about it now and as he did so he kept looking over his shoulder. The boy moved with his chest puffed out, seeming even more desperate to make each catch stick in his hands; desperate to impress.

Maddy felt a twinge of awkwardness, but kept watching. Shortly, four older boys came into view, walking with a well rehearsed (though ridiculous), casual coolness.

Maddy’s eyes went dead and her mouth opened. She couldn’t make out any faces still, but she knew this group of boys. Her father had described them as a “bunch of rotters”. She referred to them in her head as the Weasels.

The head Weasel was walking towards the boy, hand outstretched for the ball. The boy gave it to him, standing tall, up on the balls of his feet; a coiled spring. The head Weasel rocked back and launched the ball high into the air, much higher than the boy had been able to throw himself, but the challenge was to be met and he moved quickly to get under it. He pointed his fingers up to the sky as the ball began to fall, feet tap dancing as he positioned himself, his bum sticking out behind him. To Maddy’s delight the ball went straight into the boy’s hands and stayed there. He raised his arms in the air triumphant and turned to the Weasels who had suddenly looked the other way. Turning back round to face the boy the head Weasel shrugged his shoulders and shook his head.

Oh sorry, we all missed it Maddy dubbed in a smarmy voice in her head as they sniggered, nudging each other.

The boy wandered back over to the group and passed the ball over to another outstretched hand, though less enthusiastically this time. The head Weasel rocked back once more and slung his arm towards the sky.

The boy darted. He looked around frantically for the short while it took him to realise and then he pulled up and turned around. The ball remained in the head Weasel’s hand. An apologetic gesture was made as another Weasel sniggered.

Maddy just about caught what was said next as it was shouted loudly with exaggerated interest. “Cool shoes! Shiny! New are they?”

The boy gave a big nod in response and lifted up a foot to give them all a better look. He had begun to look deflated, but with this mention of his shoes he jutted his proud chest out further than ever. Nobody was actually looking, though, and after a few seconds he put his leg down again.

The head Weasel tossed the ball between his hands as he addressed his gang, then, turning around, said something to the boy and pointed straight up into the sky.

The boy got up on the balls of his feet again, before — and Maddy cringed now — he bent down to assume the starting position of a sprinter in his blocks. She heard a snort escape one of others.

The head Weasel rocked back for a third time and with a little skip of extra effort chucked the ball, not high this time, but long, towards the gap in the hedge. He shouted, “Fetch!”

Maddy was appalled. The boy hesitated for a second before making chase as the Weasels fell about laughing. There was no hope of ever catching that. He got closer and closer to the hedge, but was still far off by the time the ball had rolled to a stop.

Maddy was able to recognise him now, though she didn’t know his name. He boarded in Norfolk, but was obviously back for the half term break.

A thick head of dark brown, messy hair matched his dark eyebrows. Broad shoulders gave way to a skinny lower half. He wore a tight, grey polo shirt, what looked like his school shorts and, on his feet, a shiny brown pair of leather riding shoes.

The Weasels were walking off in the background guffawing as Maddy watched the boy sailing towards her. It didn’t seem he had noticed Maddy was there. And it didn’t seem he had noticed a concrete slab sitting in the grass in front of him, for he kicked it with his left foot and flew sprawling to the ground. He put his hands out to soften the fall but landed more on his wrists, which skidded on the dry grass. Maddy marvelled at the way the boy’s body seemed to bounce as he landed, though she dreaded to see what it had done to his kneecaps. He lay there unmoving for a while before slowly starting to crumple and shrivel like a sweet wrapper in a flame. Eventually, he was curled up in a tight foetal position, knees tucked under his chin, hugged by his arms, his head buried into his chest. His ball lay a few feet in front of him and the concrete slab a few feet behind.

Maddy carefully put her mother’s poems in her pocket and walked over to fill the gap in the hedge for a better look. She noticed the boy’s body tremble and then he began to sob.

An overwhelming anxiety swept over Maddy at that moment and without warning the scene before her flickered away and she was transported..

When Maddy was seven she had gone on holiday with her parents to Cyprus. It had been decided at very short notice and Maddy had initially resented the idea of going away as she had had much planned for that half term week back at home. She only came round to the idea when she first saw a lizard running up the side of the hotel they were staying in. She had never seen a lizard before and counted it as a good life experience to have.

The first morning of the holiday Maddy spent with her parents laying on a deck chair next to a swimming pool at the hotel. She went swimming for a bit but was told she wasn’t allowed to splash around because the other lady in the pool had just dyed her hair an ugly red colour and couldn’t get it wet for a while. Maddy said how the lady shouldn’t be in a swimming pool, then, but this kind of logic didn’t make sense to adults, so she got out. The next morning she decided not to hang around by the pool again and when she and her parents went down to choose their deck chairs Maddy slinked off behind the drinks bar and climbed over the back wall into the dusty wasteland. She thought it was funny as she looked around how, apart from inside the boundaries of the buildings, everything was dead looking.

Eventually Maddy came across a ditch and jumped into it. She sat down next to a sheet of corrugated iron and looked up at the sky searching for clouds.

After a while a tiny mewing sound from beneath the iron sheet brought Maddy’s attention back down to earth again and as she lifted it up she saw a scraggly dull brown cat and several kittens that followed their mother in single file as she stretched and ambled out into the sun.

It was in this ditch with the feline family that Maddy spent the rest of the holiday. She would bring them armfuls of bread and cheese from breakfast in the mornings and would stuff her pockets with tiny plastic pots of milk from the coffee counter. The kittens would get one each for breakfast, lunch and dinner and the mother would get a couple more throughout the day as she was bigger and her children were constantly sucking all the milk out of her anyway.

After a couple of days Maddy’s father had asked where she had been going and Maddy just said, “off,” which seemed to satisfy him.

Maddy found bricks to prop up one end of the iron sheet making it into a better shelter for the family, though they tended to be quite happy baking themselves under the sun so it was Maddy who tended to spend the most time in its shade.

She was extremely content in her ditch, drawing her new friends and reading her books out loud to them. In fact, as far as Maddy knew it was the happiest she had ever been. In her ditch with her friends she felt safe. These creatures had their priorities in order. They didn’t care that their fur was a dull brown colour; at least not enough to dye it red.

Sometimes as Maddy read, her imagination would take over and she described, instead, adventures featuring herself and the mother and her kittens. These would involve travelling all over the world and getting into all sorts of tight scrapes, all of which resolved themselves happily in the end and always in time for dinner. Maddy always felt incredibly safe in these reveries, despite their adventurous nature. She felt brave and she felt in control.

Occasionally Maddy would take a stroll to stretch her legs, but would keep close enough to be able to see the ditch at all times and always felt slightly relieved once she got back. The only reason she would return to the hotel in the evenings is because she knew that it would be pushing it a bit too far to expect her parents to let her be gone all night. But she always came in as late as she could get away with and would rush out early in the morning as soon as breakfast was over.

At the end of the holiday, on the last morning before the afternoon flight, Maddy ran off despite her mother shouting at her not to — “You’ll make us late!” — . She ran to her ditch and jumped down into it to say goodbye to her friends. Her eyes were red and tearful as she crouched down to look under the sheet, but there was nobody there. She twisted round to look down the length of the ditch. There was nothing but dust.

“Mother Duck?” She cried. “Ducklings?” But the ditch was empty.

Maddy stood for ten minutes staring at the corrugated iron sheet before she heard her mother’s irate voice calling for her. She climbed out of the ditch entirely deflated and slumped sullenly back towards the wall. As she climbed she took one more look over her shoulder, but saw nothing.

Tears were running over her face as she reached the top of the wall and jumped down into the pool area. But as she looked ahead of her, towards her pink and peeling parents, she saw them. The mother was walking along the side of the hotel under the cover of a thin sliver of shade and her kittens were following nose to tail in a line behind her. Maddy burst into happy sobs and watched them as they trailed off round the corner.

The sobs of the skinny tangle of limbs on the ground before her now, though, were not happy ones. It was a particularly strange wailing noise that eventually dragged Maddy out of the depths of her own mind, away from the comfort and happiness associated with Mother Duck and her ducklings and back into reality. She was deeply uncomfortable watching the boy on the floor and wondered how long she had been standing there.

It had been a long time since this had happened; since Maddy’s mind stole her away from the present and shrouded her in the comfort of these memories.

Why on earth she had decided to leave her stall to get closer? What had compelled her to approach him? She felt somewhat involved now, but couldn’t handle the sound of his uncontrollable sobbing. She thought it was pathetic. It made her feel on edge — made her feel wild.

Maddy kept watching the boy, though. She had to, she was rooted to the spot. She felt scared, her mind flickering back to unwelcome images, a fraction of a second where the boy’s body was replaced by that of her mother’s, a trembling heap on the carpet, phone by her side. She wanted to break the moment somehow, but neither words nor action came. Instead, she stood there waiting until the sobs eventually began to die down, existing only as whimpers for a while, before finally stopping.

“Are you okay?” Maddy had forced herself to move slowly up to the boy, who was still curled up as tight as ever. “Are you all right?” she asked again. She was standing over him now. “Excuse me –.”

“Yes.” A mumbled response escaped the bundle of limbs.

“Did it hurt?”

“No.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Maddy said.

“Who are you?” the boy asked.

“Maddy.” The boy unravelled himself enough to peep an eye out to see Maddy looming over.

“Who are you?” he asked again.

“Maddy.”

“I recognise you.”

“Yes, well we live in the same village.” Maddy said. “I know who you are. You board in Norfolk, but I expect you’re back for the holidays.”

“Yeah, I am.” said the boy, sulkily.

“Are you okay, why don’t you sit up?”

He did slowly begin to sit up, each move tentative and deliberate until he was sat on his bottom with his legs sticking out in front, two bloody knees shiny in the sun.

“Oh God.” The boy groaned as he saw them. He leant back on his hands scowling.

“They look bad.” said Maddy.

“They’re nothing.” The boy snapped back.

“Oh,” said Maddy, looking down at the ground now. “Do you want a plaster?”

“No.”

“I could get some from my house.”

“No I don’t want any.”

“How are your wrists?”

The boy sighed and said, grimacing, “Fine.”

“Are you sure you don’t want some plasters? My house is just there.”

“I’m sure.” The boy said.

Maddy stood over him still, her toes poked inwards, her red dress hanging down to her knees. She moved her wide eyes to his new riding shoes. The left shoe had a great big scuff across the toes. He hadn’t appeared to have noticed yet, though.

“Can I help you up?” Maddy asked.

“No I’m fine.”

“You’re a fast runner.”

“I know. I play cricket for my school.”

“Were you practising your catching?”

“Sort of.”

“I think you’re really good.”

“Yeah I am.”

Maddy looked at the boy while he stared determinedly ahead of him, it seemed, trying to ignore her.

“I’ll go get you some plasters. That one is dripping.” She said.

“I don’t need any.”

“Were those boys picking on you?”

“Oh would you GO AWAY!” The boy got up quickly and screamed the last bit an inch from Maddy’s face. He was slightly taller than her and he made her jump back startled, fear flashing across her face.

The two of them stood opposite each other, both completely still. The boy looked at Maddy who returned the gaze, stone-faced, any desire to be nice to him left her.

“Are those new shoes?” Maddy said, pointing to the left one.

The boy looked down and saw the big scuff and flung his head back in anguish.

“Oh COME ON,” the boy roared.

Maddy’s eyes followed him as he reacted.

“BLOODY!”

“That’s not how you use that w –.” Maddy started.

“SHUT UP!” He was raging now. He looked down at his left shoe and began to cry again. “Leave me alone!” He stomped around in circles with his eyes scrunched shut.

Maddy watched the impact of her words.

“They look expensive.”

“Oh bog off!”

Maddy smirked.

“Be quiet!” the boy spat.

“I didn’t say anything. It’s not my fault you ruined your new shoes!

The boy stopped stomping around and turned to Maddy.

“You’re a real wretched swine. Everyone says so! You think you have an excuse to be mean, but my mum says what happened to your family is no reason to go sour. So why don’t you absquatulate!”

The words hung in the air for an eternity. It was as if all sound had disappeared and all that was left was a ringing in the ears. The boy held himself tense as if bracing for an attack.

But an attack never came. Turning on her heel, Maddy walked back to the hedge and then climbed up inside it, disappearing, leaving the boy alone on the field, his shins striped in blood and his ball between his feet.

The summery afternoon sat there with its warmth filling even the shadows. The absence of a breeze and no looming clouds meant there were no worries of a malicious shiver sneaking up on you. It would have taken a keen eye on the green at that moment to detect the slightest movement in anything; nothing to convince you that you hadn’t accidentally and unexpectedly found yourself trapped inside a photograph. Even the birds were nowhere to be seen. It was a stillness that suggested an internal rumbling; a mounting pressure inside a volcano just before it erupts.

Sure enough, deep from within the tall, green hedge something was bubbling. And when it finally reached its boil the most almighty, ear-splitting scream shocked everything back to life. It fleshed out the scene; birds escaped the nearby branches, the leaves on the hedge seemed to flutter and the boy startled so much that he fell backwards onto his bottom.

The sound rang out long and true. When the final echoes had died away and all was silent again, Maddy, in her red dress, clambered back out of the hedge, stuck her middle finger up at the boy and disappeared through the gap in the hedge.

She stormed over to her stall and picked up the vase of daffodils before walking off down the lane.

How dare he, she thought. Though she knew she deserved it. Or did she? She had walked over to see if the boy was all right. She was being nice, “and the little twerp was in a mood,” she said, finishing her thought aloud.

Maddy had nearly made it to the end of the lane and out of sight when she heard her name being called.

Following her was the boy. She turned round and stuck up her finger again without slowing.

“Maddy!” oh what a whiny voice. Maddy rolled her eyes and turned around again. He was running after her flapping a piece of paper above his head. Maddy stopped and frantically searched her pockets. She pulled out her poems and counted them. One was missing. She clenched her jaw and made a little growling sound.

Maddy watched the boy running towards her.

“You left this skewered on a hedge twig,” he panted.

“Give it back,” she said snatching it from his hand.

She made to carry on walking.

“I read it.” the boy said.

“You what?” Maddy stopped again.

“It’s good. Did you write it?”

“What would you know about poetry?”

“We study it at school. I wrote one called ‘The Famished Fox.’” And without pausing the boy started to recite:

Over and under

The fox tail goes,

Weaving the trail

Behind a keen nose,

Hounded by hounds

And hunger-stricken,

All this fox needs

Is a plump, juicy chicken!

Maddy stared at the boy incredulously. He gave her a big grin in return and puffed out his chest and rocked onto his heels.

What was he so happy about all of a sudden?

“Don’t read my things!” Maddy snapped.

“It was good. Did you write it?”

“No, I copied it from a famous book,” Maddy lied.

“What?”

“Peter Rabbit.”

“Really?” And he began to recite once more. In spite of herself, Maddy was impressed he had memorised it already.

Wet Paint

A picture frame: the world –

it’s there to show you off.

But then you dripped off.

You’ve left it all smudged.

“…Hmm…” he didn’t seem convinced.

“No, not really.” Maddy abandoned her lie.

“You’re just a puddle of nonsense.” said the boy.

“Obviously my mother wrote it. It’s not her best and it’s not about anything,” Maddy paused. “You say very strange things.”

“Well you fib.”

“I was joking. It’s obviously not-“

“No you fib about it not being about anything.”

Maddy regarded the boy suspiciously.

“It’s obviously about something. All poems are about something. I’d say your mum is lonely, reading this.”

“Well who asked you? I’d say your mum is going to be angry with you because you spoiled your brand new shoes. And that’s all your fault.”

“It wasn’t all my fault. You saw it wasn’t.”

“Well what are you wearing them for to play in? They’re too smart for play. The rest of you is all a mess, why the nice shoes?”

“Why do you care?” The boy noticed the daffodils for the first time. “What are they for?”

“Don’t you worry about it.”

“Are they for your dad?”

Maddy felt a jolt.

“Yes.”

“Okay,” the boy said. “Do you want me to leave you to it?”

“No.”

“Okay. Shall I come with you?”

“If you want.”

“Yes. I think I’ll come with you then.”

“Fine.”

The two of them walked down the lane and round the corner, side by side. They walked through a long archway of trees overhanging the road. The sun disappeared for the length of it and Maddy found it a small relief. She cooled down and she settled slightly. She noticed the boy beside her; how he just hummed to himself happy and content, all the drama of twenty minutes ago apparently forgotten. She noticed how he didn’t ever go more than a handful of steps before he did a little skip or a jerk, always emphasised with a louder hum. She noticed that she felt the companionship of Jelly by her side, yet it was not her chubby little Labrador friend who was plodding beside her. And she noticed that she too felt quite content.

“Tennis ball!” the boy suddenly shouted, and he ran ahead before darting sideways into the hedgerow, disappearing from sight entirely.

There was a loud rustling, an “Oouch!” and a snap of a twig before the boy stumbled back out on to the road. It all happened very quickly. The boy threw the ball hard at the ground and it bounced high.

“Ooh it’s a good one!”

They continued down the road in silence. Occasionally the boy would boast “I’ll hit that tree!” before launching his ball so far wide of any tree that it was never clear which one he was actually aiming at. He’d disappear briefly as he recovered it and then would join Maddy back on the road. She just walked, cradling her vase in her arms.

“Have you always lived in that house?” The boy asked after a little while.

“Yes.”

“Mum said you used to have ducks in it.”

“We did.”

“And that you must have had poo everywhere.”

“It was fine,” Maddy said. The boy kept bouncing his ball. His old one probably abandoned on the green. “They didn’t do it much inside really. They were well behaved.”

“Why did you let them inside?”

“They lived there before us. Dad said it would have been rude to ask them to leave.”

“That’s great. I like that.” The boy grinned. “Did you play with them? Did you name them? Or…were they like pets or were they like-”

“They were-” Maddy interjected “like little old people. It was nice. They knew the house better than us. They’re gone now. Mum got rid of them a while ago.”

“Why? How did she get rid of them?”

“She drove them to Ipswich. She said nothing ever comes back from Ipswich.”

“Really?” said the boy.

“They didn’t.” Maddy said, and as they walked she could tell the boy was formulating a new question.

She smiled, satisfied, when he spoke again.

“Are you an avid reader?”

“You do speak so strangely.”

“Mrs. Sibley says we should all be avid readers! I am. I read…” the boy thought for a second, counting in his head “probably a lot of books every week, sometimes, and sometimes more. I’m reading this amazing series about this boy who fell into another world with his friend, and they got taken to this prison, but it’s all about finding the way back and he finds his –” he paused again. “Well I won’t tell you in case you want to read it, but it’s so good. It’s comforting even though it is quite action-packed and you feel like they’re all definitely your friends. I wrote in my literacy book at school that I think reading is actually like slipping into another world and that is why I relate to the book so much and I got good marks for it.”

“I mean in a good way.” said Maddy.

“Who do you normally play with?” said the boy.

“I don’t. I choose to be on my own.”

“Oh. I can leave you alone if you want.”

“No, you’re fine.”

“Okay.” The boy scuffed the floor as they walked and he glanced at Maddy. “That’s a good thing.”

“There’s the church.” Maddy pointed up at the church tower, which poked above the trees. She stepped onto the grass verge and continued along it until she came to the gate to the graveyard. The boy hovered awkwardly as Maddy went through it.

“You can come.” she said.

The boy didn’t look too sure.

“Why?”

“Well you don’t have to; only if you’re bored. I don’t want you to come.”

“But you just asked me.”

“Oh go away then.” said Maddy. She left the boy standing there and walked across the graveyard alone.

It wasn’t a large graveyard by any means, but Maddy took her time. She had a route to where she was going which she knew intimately. There was a certain way to approach it, she thought. You must only ever amble in a graveyard and you must be quiet and considerate and deliberate with your thoughts. Nobody was going to hear you if your thoughts were a muddle. So Maddy took a few minutes to do her ambling until she felt her head was clear.

The graveyard was well kept, the grass nice and short like a just vacuumed carpet, all swept the right way. A vast yew tree, so large that its split trunk could fit a bench, offered shade to many of the graves. The perimeter was marked by a crumbling brick wall, the other side of which was a bright yellow rape field and then a wood. Maddy knew the wood as one that was good for snowdrops, but she hadn’t been there to see them for a long time.

Maddy walked to the graveyard every week and always did so alone. She had her way of doing things that mustn’t be disrupted by irregularity and so it seemed just as well that the boy had gone.

Maddy glanced back quickly to check that he had, in fact, actually gone and he had. She was entirely alone now.

A slight breeze fluttered coolly on her face and she inhaled deeply to appreciate the wonderful freshness of the day.

A clear day following a big rain relieves the senses of something you were unaware was stifling them in the first place, like when your ears pop and you can suddenly hear better, even though you thought you were hearing perfectly fine before; or when a good bit of company makes you aware of your own loneliness whilst simultaneously defeating it. It was something knowing better than yourself what is good for you; it was someone looking after you.

Maddy found a deep comfort in this feeling and savoured it. These thoughts went through her mind as she stood there, still cradling her vase, and when she finally exhaled again they left, taking the cobwebs with them. Humming gently, she made the last short stroll over to her father’s grave.

The headstone was still shiny and smart, not rough and wonky like most of the others. Maddy sat crossed-legged on the ground in front of it and placed the daffodils down. Once they were arranged neatly she flopped forward and twisted onto her side, lying awkwardly. If she were at home now, all it would take is a limp arm, half outstretched, to summon Jelly in beside her and the two of them would be asleep very shortly afterwards. But now Maddy just lay by herself and, in a barely audible whisper, told the stories of her week. She told of what she had been learning at school and of how her recorder practice was going. She described the drawings she had done and the poems she had found in her mother’s notebook. She recounted how she had made a dam in the river and a platform next to it for the raft she hoped to build. She mused how she actually hoped the boy might help her before he goes back to school. She explained the boy and how she’d like to be friends and how he was fine. “But, don’t worry I won’t bring him here.” she said, “He’d interrupt.”

And as if he had, Maddy stopped talking and lay silently for a long time.

Eventually, she got back up and fished the papers out of her pockets.

“I’m not sure I quite understand these. You might better.” She said, putting the poems into a clear plastic wallet that hung on the headstone. She tucked them in behind a photograph of herself, sitting on her father’s shoulders. She was resting an open book on top of his head as he walked along with a big grin shining through a blonde bushy beard, dimples just beneath his eyes.

Maddy closed the gate behind her and as she walked back down the road was startled out of her peace as something fell from the sky, landing with a thud on the tarmac.

“Why are you still here?” Maddy said to the boy who was on his knees wiping grit off his bottom and picking it out of the sandwich he was holding.

Maddy eyed the overhanging branch above their heads.

“I was waiting for you.” The boy said, getting to his feet. “Would you like one, mum made two?” And he pulled a squashed, soggy sandwich out of his pocket.

“Thank you.” Maddy took it.

“I want to show you this place,” said the boy, taking a huge bite.

“Where?”

“I’ll show you!” The boy laughed and made a little skip as he ran off. “Follow meeeeeeeee!”

“Wait!” Maddy ran after him. The boy laughed harder and began to run faster. With all the directions his arms and legs went as he did so it was a wonder that they managed to propel him forwards at all. But they did, and with such speed that Maddy found it hard to keep up.

The two of them tore down the road with their feet clapping hard with each step.

“Hurry up Maddy, or I’ll slap you with my snotty hankie!” The boy was hysterical.

“I’m coming!” Maddy shouted back, spraying food as she snorted with her own laughter. When she caught up she threw the rest of her sandwich with a splat at the back of the boy’s head who pirouetted without slowing as he wiped it off.

“You’re manky!” He screeched as he darted left suddenly. “Over here.”

They jumped a fence and entered a cattle field.

“MOOO-ve!” The boy yelled at the cows and they both snorted again.

They ran and they ran, across this field and across another. They leapt across ditches, squelched through cowpats and danced through thistles. They skidded through gates and booted giant puffballs, which burst into plumes of spores while their legs began to ache and deaden with tiredness.

“How…far…is it?” Maddy panted, not wanting to slow before the boy did.

“Nearly.” The boy puffed.

“I have something in my shoe.” Maddy said and she hobbled to a stop.

The boy flung his head round to reply and before he knew it he was on his bottom again, feet up in the air.

“Oof! A muddy bit.” He winced as he tentatively pulled a lump of mud out of his scraped kneecap.

Maddy tapped her shoe and put it back on again, noticing the distant silhouette of an old man shuffling along two fields away.

“Let’s walk for a bit.” She said.

“Yeah.” said the boy still tending to his knee.

Eventually he went off towards the fence and climbed over into a small wooded area.

“Shh,” he whispered. “This is Mrs. Merton’s garden and she’s a devil. But it’s a good shortcut.”

“She yells at me all the time to get off the field. Dad used to say if she didn’t stop being such a witch then he’d tell someone she didn’t have a license to sell her eggs!” Maddy said proudly.

“Ha! We should tell someone.” The boy said excitedly and they happily discussed other ways in which they could get revenge on Mrs. Merton as they snuck through her large garden and back out onto the road.

“Just down here,” said the boy, pointing towards a large overgrown area on the corner. There was a grand, twisted tree with more than its fair share of leaves and a multitude of bushes and other foliage which all together made a mini jungle.

The two of them entered the jungle through a tangle of brambles and were immediately in another world cut off from the rest of the village. Not much sun penetrated, just odd beams of dusty light, but it was still wonderfully warm. From the twisted tree jutted a tremendously thick branch about six feet off the ground, perfect for lying on. Ivy hung shaggily and branches kinked in obscure ways to provide platforms to set the mind alight with visions of the most fantastic tree houses.

Maddy marvelled at it. How had she not found this place herself? It looked so innocuous from the outside, but inside it was vast, like a leafy cathedral. Maddy thought to herself that you could probably hide here for days and nobody would find you.

“You could hide here for days and nobody would find you!” said the boy. “In fact I did once. Did you hear about that? My mum got really panicky and called the police.” He did a little skip and tripped over a stick. “There’s a pond too.”

Maddy couldn’t see where.

“Behind the bulrushes. It’s well hidden.” The boy grinned and sang loudly and tunelessly.

In the magical secret jungle

Nothing is easy to find.

In the magical secret jungle

You’ll end up on your behind.

Secret ponds and blah blah blah

Your mum’ll never find you!

In the magical secret jungle

Watch out for all the dog poo.

Happy with himself, he repeated his song over and over as they rummaged through the bulrushes.

“Ducks!” Maddy said as they reach the pond.

“Oh you could take some back for your house.”

“I don’t think mum would like that.”

“I bet my mum would.” The boy thought for a moment. “Nah, actually.”

They stood staring at the pond side by side, smiling.

“Have you ever walked on a lily pad?” asked the boy. “Because it can’t be done. You’ll fall in. Try it.”

“I think I’m fine.”

“I come here all the time when I’m home. Mum still doesn’t know it. It’s like a place I can be on my own.” Suddenly his eyes widened. “Please don’t tell anyone it’s here. Will you? You won’t will you?”

Maddy thought of her own secret space in the oak tree.

“Of course not.”

“Thanks.”

“Is it deep?” Maddy was still looking out at the pond.

“Gosh knows,” said the boy and he began to take off his shoes. “Let’s see.”

Maddy followed suit and once they were both bare-footed they dipped their toes in.

“Aah,” the boy sighed. “Nice and cool.”

They each waded in, enjoying the green, gungey water. The boy gave a sharp intake of breath as his knees went under and the water began to seep up from the hem of his shorts; Maddy was lifting her dress.

“Oh I think it goes a lot deeper.” she said.

The boy looked tentative, but his pride was saved when there was a loud cracking noise from deep inside the jungle. He turned about-face and splashed back out onto dry land. Maddy followed.

The boy puffed his chest out so that the button on his shirt strained.

“Who goes there?” He said loudly.

Maddy smirked.

Another loud crack and out from a bush staggered a startled muntjac. Its feet danced as if it were on ice as it scampered across the jungle and out through the bramble exit; gone before you knew it.

The boy squeaked as he jumped and Maddy burst out laughing. His tongue hung loosely from his mouth as he span round to face her. He grinned and strutted back towards her, not breaking eye contact until he had past. He flung his head back and began to sing over and over again at the top of his voice, “In the magical secret jungle-!”

Back near the edge of the water they picked up their shoes and walked with them in hand through the long grass around the perimeter of the pond.

The boy’s chest had deflated somewhat and his button was no longer so strained, but as they walked, Maddy thought his shirt did still look a bit small on him.

Interrupting the boy’s singing Maddy said “Why don’t you get new clothes? You board, you must have money.”

“Oh mum just says I’ll ruin them.”

“Why?”

“Says I don’t look after my things.”

They walked about three more steps before the boy stopped and shouted, “Oh there they are!”

He bent down into the tangled grass and picked up an identical, if not slightly more worn, pair of brown leather riding shoes to the ones he held in his other hand.

“Hmm…” The boy said before looking sheepishly at Maddy. “Don’t tell anyone. Best mum doesn’t find out.” And he tossed the old pair of shoes into the pond.

Maddy didn’t quite understand, but knew she wouldn’t mention it to anyone.

They walked around the pond until they were round to where they started and then headed back into the heart of the jungle. Once they got to the tree, Maddy began to climb. The boy watched her, craning his neck as she got higher and higher until he was looking at her directly above him on the thick, jutting branch.

Maddy looked down at him through her swinging legs as he plonked himself down and then lay flat on his back staring up at her.

“Maybe she is right, though.” he said, “I just forget about things sometimes and they get left.”

Maddy didn’t know what to say, so she kept quiet. The boy stared into space.

“What’s your mum like?” He asked after a few moments of silence.

Maddy’s eyes widened and she recoiled slightly.

“Fine,” was all that escaped her mouth. The boy didn’t really seem to notice.

“What does she do? Apart from poems.”

“Not much,” Maddy said, more to herself. “She spends all her time in her study now.”

“Is she lonely?” the boy asked.

“I don’t think so.”

“Does she miss your dad?”

“I think so.”

“Has she lost hope?”

“What do you mean?”

“Like lost hope for life. That can happen if you’re depressed. You get scared to hope for nice things. Mum was explaining it to me when we were talking about your family. She said that disappointment lurks in hope and that some people don’t get better from disappointment. They become lurkers themselves, lurking about not daring to care about anything.”

“I don’t think she’s scared. She’s just lonely.

“So you think she is lonely?”

“Yes I think so.”

They were both silent for a while longer. The church bell rang four times and broke Maddy from her reverie.

“I’m going to go home.” she said.

“To see your mum?”

“Yes.”

Maddy climbed down from the tree and put her socks and shoes back on.

“I’ll walk with you to your house if you want,” said the boy, still flat on his back.

“Yes please.” said Maddy.

The boy didn’t bother putting his own socks and shoes back on before the two of them walked out of the jungle together.