The Night Rainbow A Novel - By Claire King Page 0,36

they can do it after all. The wire bounces as they land, one, two, three, four . . . and five. Brothers and sisters, all together. Something brushes against my legs and I jump. But it’s only a cat-visitor. He rubs up against me, silky against my skin, and purrs, but he is not looking at me, he is looking at the baby swallows.

He’s waiting for one of them to fall, says Margot.

They don’t fall, I say, they’re birds. Birds fly.

Not always, says Margot.

That’s not right, I say. Birds don’t fall over while they’re flying. I look at the cat. He is still staring at the swallows.

They won’t fall! I say.

The father bird arrives on the wire, bigger and even more glossy. He sits at one end of the baby birds and the mother bird sits at the other. I look at the swallow family on the wire and start to feel the darkness dripping into me out of nowhere.

It seems best, I say, if a family has the maman and the papa.

It’s twice as many people as just a maman, says Margot. But mamans are still best.

I put my fingers into the pocket of my dress, which I have chosen again today, and feel the edges of the lonely photo. Papa loved me, I say. He used to pick me up and swing me about.

Maman loved you too, says Margot. You used to bake cakes and pies and biscuits shaped like stars.

That was before the baby died, I say. Papa tickled me, used to let me ride on his tractor.

Maman is the most beautiful, says Margot.

Papa had big hands and a splendid smile, I say.

Maman let you help with the laundry, says Margot, even when you dropped things on the grass.

I remember that, I say. Maman floofed the clothes and put them on the line, and I passed the pegs.

And Maman used to sing to you, says Margot.

We sang together, I say.

You knew all the songs, says Margot. Children’s ones and grownups’ ones. French ones and English ones.

But then the baby died, I say, and took her voice away.

Right, that’s quite enough of this, Pea, says Margot. You are being grumpy and it’s boring!

She throws herself on top of me, squashing all the air out. Her face is right on top of mine, her nose pressing my own nose and her eyes so close that I can’t see her at all, just a smudge of colour. Come on, she says, we are going to do some science.

If you go around the side of our house, on the sunniest side that looks out over the mountains, everything is very wild. There grass is seedy and scratchy and there are lots of nettles. There are also big thistles, taller than me, with beautiful hairy purple flowers that you can’t pick because the spiky leaves stick out too far to reach over. You can find a lot of insects there all the time: ladybirds and punaises and gendarmes. There is a big tree that has purple blossom on it in long dangly bunches, where you can see all the butterflies. We don’t normally play there, because it is right in the sunshine, and because of all the stingy-ness, but today we are out of bed early and it is not too sunny yet.

So, we are going to do the science, says Margot, and we are looking for specimens.

Alive ones?

No, we are not allowed to take alive ones from nature, only plants and things that are dead but not smelly.

I have got a magnifying glass, I say.

Yes, and I have got a stethoscope, says Margot. So let’s go.

A black and white swallowtail butterfly is sitting on the purple flowers drinking the nectar. There is a peacock butterfly too, and a brown and orange one that I don’t recognise. They are all alive, though, so they are good to look at but not good specimens. I decide that down on the ground is a better place to search. Soon I find a butterfly wing. It is very fragile and a creamy-white colour, like milk. The rest of the butterfly is not with it. It either dropped off, maybe, or perhaps the butterfly got eaten but not the wing. I put it on to a big flat stone while we find some more things. Margot finds a white feather, using her stethoscope, and then we find a crispy little yellow thing, a bit like a ball. I poke it with a stick. Nothing moves. When