The Night Rainbow A Novel - By Claire King Page 0,19
was the kind of story that grownups tell children to complicate a thing when they could just tell you the thing itself, much faster.
Is that a true story? I ask.
It must be, says Claude. And it should tell you that you have to be clever about looking after yourself. Do you promise me you’ll be careful? He sounds like Papa and I feel the music of his words tugging inside me.
OK, I say. We’ll be careful.
Claude looks at his watch. Well, Pea, the storm has passed; your maman will be worried about you so you and Margot had better get home. He takes his banana knife off the nail and opens the barn door with a creak, letting the warm day find us again.
After you, he says.
Outside is sweet and grassy. The clouds are far in the distance and above us blue skies have made the garden colourful again. In between the barn and the house are rows of tomatoes, peas and yellow courgettes growing on canes. There is a square patch of soil dotted with bright-green lettuce-mops and floppy-leaved pink radishes. I don’t really like radishes much, they sting my tongue, but they are one of the nicest coloured of the vegetables.
Can we see the garden? I ask.
Why not? says Claude. Follow me, and stay on the path.
We walk slowly in amongst the vegetables. My dress is clammy against my legs and my feet sink into the wet soil. As we go, Claude pulls out small weeds with the tips of his fingers and pinches tiny insects off the tomatoes with the hand that is not holding the banana knife. He lets a ladybird crawl on to his finger and passes it to me, the ladybird using his fingernail as a bridge between our hands.
Can I see? says Margot, sidling up close. She starts to count the spots. One, two, three, four, five. Easy, she says.
I turn to her and she watches the ladybird crawl up my arm, the little hairs like a tiny insect-sized forest.
She’s my friend, says Claude. She eats bad bugs.
She’s beautiful, I say.
That’s her name, says Claude. Belle la coccinelle. He smiles.
It rhymes! I say.
Put her back when you’ve had enough, says Claude, I need her for my plants.
So I let her walk off my finger on to the tomato vine. We walk further down into the garden. But walking is quite boring and Margot and I start to run off ahead. We are really fast, we are like leopards through the grass. Soon we get to a clump of oleanders growing around a square wall.
Oleanders look nice, says Margot, but in fact they are dangerous and will poison you to death.
I know, I say.
So don’t even touch them!
Can the smell poison you?
Margot shrugs. Probably, if you smell enough of it.
We find a gap in the bushes where we don’t have to touch the leaves or the flowers, and try to investigate. The wall is just too high for us to peer in, even on tiptoes, but I manage to hoick myself up so my legs are dangling down and I am half leaning in, looking over the rim. It doesn’t smell so good. Inside it is full of black-green water, with a cloud of mosquitoes buzzing above. I rock forward and back. Margot is smaller than me and she can’t quite get up to have a look.
Come on, I say, jump yourself up. There is a pool in there. I don’t want to swim in it, though.
What kind of pool? asks Margot, still clambering against the wall and scrabbling with her feet, but not managing to see in. Is it like a drinking bowl for elephants?
Mind your toes, I say.
Then, No! yells Claude and the loudness of his voice makes me let go and wobble scarily. I twist off wall and stand my feet back down on the wet grass and look at him. He is coming fast towards us. One hand is reaching out and the other one has still got his banana knife, glinty-sharp. My bone is itching. I scratch at the skin that covers it, watching the red lines turn white and then dark red again. Not looking at Claude. Merlin’s nose arrives at my feet.
That’s. Dangerous, Claude says to my face. He is crouched down, his spit is getting on me.
I don’t like being shouted at. I scowl at him and stare my eyes hard so that the tears can’t get out.