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.No one answers.We are standing outside the door to Claude’s house, and I am not sure what to do next.It has been three days now since he came to the low meadow.What if Claude is dead? I say.There won’t be anyone to look after Merlin.If Claude doesn’t give Merlin his food and drink, Merlin will die.Maybe Merlin has a clue, says Margot.Do you understand his talking? I ask her.I don’t.I can try, she says.So I call the dog.Merlin!There is no bark.I shout louder.Merlin! It’s me, Pea!Nothing at all.It is scary-quiet at Claude’s house.This is a big clue, says Margot.Something is wrong and the darkness is in my stomach.We have to do something grownup, says Margot.Maybe we should call the police?How do you call the police? I say.I don’t know, actually, says Margot.So really there is no deciding to be done.We have to go and see if Claude is dead.I clonk the door knocker again, three times, and then three times harder, and then a lot, very hard indeed.Nobody comes.I wonder if maybe Claude has been got by the bad men, or maybe he.On the wall by the front door a praying mantis lands with a clatter, and then turns his head to look at us.His eyes are like black, unfriendly beads.He lifts a feathery leg and I jump back.I don’t like the praying mantis.I don’t like the praying mantis so much that I would rather be inside the house with the silence than outside the house with its eyes.The darkness is inside me anyway and I just take it wherever I go.I grab the door handle and the door swings open.You first, I say to Margot.Even though I am biggest she is the bravest.Claude’s house smells bad.It smells like Maman’s room when she doesn’t open the windows for days.It smells like cheese left out on the kitchen table to go runny and stinky in the heat.It smells of too-close bodies of people in the market in summer and the hair under their arms.Sour.Cold coffee in a cup.My bone is itching.I scratch, hard, opening some of the old scabs up and making the rest of the skin red and welty.At least the house looks normal.Inside Claude’s door is not the kitchen, it is a hallway.The walls have pictures in frames.The floor has four wooden animals’ feet on it that belong to a round table, and on the table is a big telephone, mostly hidden under a pile of envelopes.It is like the pile we have in our kitchen, only smaller.Also there are some stairs straight away, going up, up, up with black metal banisters and handrails, twisting up to bedrooms and bathrooms, I suppose.Margot walks ahead down the corridor.She runs her fingers along the walls as she goes.Any clues? I whisper.No clues, she shakes her head.Margot stops at the end of the corridor.There are two closed doors, one by her left side, one on the right.You pick, she says.The darkness ties itself in knots.It tightens and it sucks at my insides.The taste of sick comes up into my throat and I swallow it down.It is hot in this house and it smells.The praying mantis is outside.I want to get this over with.I close my eyes.I pick left.I put my fingers on the handle and am about to press it down when the music starts.The music is slow and sad and is behind the other door.Can you do it with me? I say to Margot.She nods, and together we reach for the other handle.Margot and I stand side by side in the doorway.It is a living room, it is yellow, and it is dark with the shutters all closed.Claude is sitting on a stool in front of a piano.The stool has gold buttons around the cushion part, and lion’s legs.Claude is wearing stripy pyjamas, although it is not morning, or siesta time or even time for bed.His hair is stuck out like a palm tree.His fingers are pressing the piano keys as though they are tired.But they are at least in time with the grandfather clock.It stands by the piano as though it is watching him play and the pendulum is swinging and it makes a real tick-tock.As it does, Claude presses the keys and the sad sounds come.On top of the piano there are photos in frames.There are photos everywhere in this room.On tables and shelves and on the floor and some in frames on the walls.Little girls mostly, and one of a lady.Claude is crying, the piano is getting wet.Claude!I say it first, with an exclamation mark (they make the words excited), but he doesn’t hear me, so I say it again, a little louder, and then I take a big breath and shout it as hard as I can.Claude jumps up off the stool and turns around.When he sees us he looks so scared, as though we are big monsters.He looks so scared that I am scared, and I step back a little bit.Margot holds tight to my hand.Claude’s mouth is open but no words are coming.This might not have been a good idea after all, says Margot.I’m sorry, I say.And then I want to give him a hug to say sorry for scaring him and so that he will be Claude again and not a crying man in pyjamas.I open my arms wide and walk slowly towards him, like you have to do with horses when they’re afraid of you.No! he shouts, and it feels like a thump in my stomach.He looks at the windows, shuttered.He looks at the door behind us, open, empty, then back at the windows again.He starts to shoo us back out of the door and then he gets distracted by his stripy pyjama sleeves flapping at us.He looks down at himself and shudders.He steps back and changes his mind, shooing us into the room.His face is red and teary.He smells awful.Stay there! Claude says, and goes out of the room, closing the door behind him.We stand there in the dark, bad-smelling room.Claude is not dead, but he has gone strange.He has gone like Maman, in fact.Crouching here in the dark, smelling bad and crying.This is no good, I say to Margot.We need Claude.He can’t do this.Maybe his papa died, says Margot, or maybe he is having a baby.Men don’t have babies.I hear a door slam shut, and feet going upstairs.Two feet, limping feet.One-TWO, one-TWO, one-TWO.Margot suddenly spins around, and again, and again.Where, she says, is Merlin?I had forgotten about Merlin.Merlin is not here.Two feet, not six feet.One-TWO not one-TWO-patter-clatter.That is not normal.Merlin is always with Claude.He’s like a shadow that listens.He is Claude’s best friend.The bad feeling comes out of my stomach and crawls over my skin, over my neck and face and right up to where the hairs grow out of my head, making me cold and hot at the same time.I can’t say it.It’s Merlin, isn’t it? says Margot.I do a small shrug.But the tears are already starting to prickle.Because I know it is.I sit down on the tiles, pushing a pile of photos out of my way, and hug my legs to me.It feels a bit better.While I wait for Claude to come back I look at the photos, separating them with my finger.Little girls; lots of photos of little girls.Girls in a garden, Claude’s garden.Girls climbing apple trees.Girls on ponies, one white one black, up on Windy Hill, blowing black hair escaping from their riding hats, angel’s wings turning behind them.Girls in a tree house; not our tree house.Two girls riding two shiny little red bikes.Clues, says Margot, lots of clues.Lots of little girls and none of them are us.I wonder why Claude has not taken a picture of us? Why did those girls get to ride the two little red bikes and we haven’t? The girls have dark eyes, like Claude.They are smiling out at us from the photos.Maybe it’s their eyes [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.No one answers.We are standing outside the door to Claude’s house, and I am not sure what to do next.It has been three days now since he came to the low meadow.What if Claude is dead? I say.There won’t be anyone to look after Merlin.If Claude doesn’t give Merlin his food and drink, Merlin will die.Maybe Merlin has a clue, says Margot.Do you understand his talking? I ask her.I don’t.I can try, she says.So I call the dog.Merlin!There is no bark.I shout louder.Merlin! It’s me, Pea!Nothing at all.It is scary-quiet at Claude’s house.This is a big clue, says Margot.Something is wrong and the darkness is in my stomach.We have to do something grownup, says Margot.Maybe we should call the police?How do you call the police? I say.I don’t know, actually, says Margot.So really there is no deciding to be done.We have to go and see if Claude is dead.I clonk the door knocker again, three times, and then three times harder, and then a lot, very hard indeed.Nobody comes.I wonder if maybe Claude has been got by the bad men, or maybe he.On the wall by the front door a praying mantis lands with a clatter, and then turns his head to look at us.His eyes are like black, unfriendly beads.He lifts a feathery leg and I jump back.I don’t like the praying mantis.I don’t like the praying mantis so much that I would rather be inside the house with the silence than outside the house with its eyes.The darkness is inside me anyway and I just take it wherever I go.I grab the door handle and the door swings open.You first, I say to Margot.Even though I am biggest she is the bravest.Claude’s house smells bad.It smells like Maman’s room when she doesn’t open the windows for days.It smells like cheese left out on the kitchen table to go runny and stinky in the heat.It smells of too-close bodies of people in the market in summer and the hair under their arms.Sour.Cold coffee in a cup.My bone is itching.I scratch, hard, opening some of the old scabs up and making the rest of the skin red and welty.At least the house looks normal.Inside Claude’s door is not the kitchen, it is a hallway.The walls have pictures in frames.The floor has four wooden animals’ feet on it that belong to a round table, and on the table is a big telephone, mostly hidden under a pile of envelopes.It is like the pile we have in our kitchen, only smaller.Also there are some stairs straight away, going up, up, up with black metal banisters and handrails, twisting up to bedrooms and bathrooms, I suppose.Margot walks ahead down the corridor.She runs her fingers along the walls as she goes.Any clues? I whisper.No clues, she shakes her head.Margot stops at the end of the corridor.There are two closed doors, one by her left side, one on the right.You pick, she says.The darkness ties itself in knots.It tightens and it sucks at my insides.The taste of sick comes up into my throat and I swallow it down.It is hot in this house and it smells.The praying mantis is outside.I want to get this over with.I close my eyes.I pick left.I put my fingers on the handle and am about to press it down when the music starts.The music is slow and sad and is behind the other door.Can you do it with me? I say to Margot.She nods, and together we reach for the other handle.Margot and I stand side by side in the doorway.It is a living room, it is yellow, and it is dark with the shutters all closed.Claude is sitting on a stool in front of a piano.The stool has gold buttons around the cushion part, and lion’s legs.Claude is wearing stripy pyjamas, although it is not morning, or siesta time or even time for bed.His hair is stuck out like a palm tree.His fingers are pressing the piano keys as though they are tired.But they are at least in time with the grandfather clock.It stands by the piano as though it is watching him play and the pendulum is swinging and it makes a real tick-tock.As it does, Claude presses the keys and the sad sounds come.On top of the piano there are photos in frames.There are photos everywhere in this room.On tables and shelves and on the floor and some in frames on the walls.Little girls mostly, and one of a lady.Claude is crying, the piano is getting wet.Claude!I say it first, with an exclamation mark (they make the words excited), but he doesn’t hear me, so I say it again, a little louder, and then I take a big breath and shout it as hard as I can.Claude jumps up off the stool and turns around.When he sees us he looks so scared, as though we are big monsters.He looks so scared that I am scared, and I step back a little bit.Margot holds tight to my hand.Claude’s mouth is open but no words are coming.This might not have been a good idea after all, says Margot.I’m sorry, I say.And then I want to give him a hug to say sorry for scaring him and so that he will be Claude again and not a crying man in pyjamas.I open my arms wide and walk slowly towards him, like you have to do with horses when they’re afraid of you.No! he shouts, and it feels like a thump in my stomach.He looks at the windows, shuttered.He looks at the door behind us, open, empty, then back at the windows again.He starts to shoo us back out of the door and then he gets distracted by his stripy pyjama sleeves flapping at us.He looks down at himself and shudders.He steps back and changes his mind, shooing us into the room.His face is red and teary.He smells awful.Stay there! Claude says, and goes out of the room, closing the door behind him.We stand there in the dark, bad-smelling room.Claude is not dead, but he has gone strange.He has gone like Maman, in fact.Crouching here in the dark, smelling bad and crying.This is no good, I say to Margot.We need Claude.He can’t do this.Maybe his papa died, says Margot, or maybe he is having a baby.Men don’t have babies.I hear a door slam shut, and feet going upstairs.Two feet, limping feet.One-TWO, one-TWO, one-TWO.Margot suddenly spins around, and again, and again.Where, she says, is Merlin?I had forgotten about Merlin.Merlin is not here.Two feet, not six feet.One-TWO not one-TWO-patter-clatter.That is not normal.Merlin is always with Claude.He’s like a shadow that listens.He is Claude’s best friend.The bad feeling comes out of my stomach and crawls over my skin, over my neck and face and right up to where the hairs grow out of my head, making me cold and hot at the same time.I can’t say it.It’s Merlin, isn’t it? says Margot.I do a small shrug.But the tears are already starting to prickle.Because I know it is.I sit down on the tiles, pushing a pile of photos out of my way, and hug my legs to me.It feels a bit better.While I wait for Claude to come back I look at the photos, separating them with my finger.Little girls; lots of photos of little girls.Girls in a garden, Claude’s garden.Girls climbing apple trees.Girls on ponies, one white one black, up on Windy Hill, blowing black hair escaping from their riding hats, angel’s wings turning behind them.Girls in a tree house; not our tree house.Two girls riding two shiny little red bikes.Clues, says Margot, lots of clues.Lots of little girls and none of them are us.I wonder why Claude has not taken a picture of us? Why did those girls get to ride the two little red bikes and we haven’t? The girls have dark eyes, like Claude.They are smiling out at us from the photos.Maybe it’s their eyes [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]