The Night Rainbow A Novel - By Claire King Page 0,39
pool in my belly button.
. . . jar, she says. She is leaning forward down the stairs, past her belly, one hand holding the handrail and the other reaching for the jar, her fingers pressing around mine, looking for spaces where mine aren’t. She tugs, and I let go of the jar.
As Maman brings it up to her face, the scorpion jumps, lifting his pincers and his tail again, ready to fight.
Oh! Maman screams and drops the jar.
The jar bounces on the step between our pairs of bare feet, then falls another two steps and bounces again. I turn to watch it, to see the glass shatter, to see what happens to the scorpion. But the jar does not break. Instead it bounces on every step, toc, toc, toc, and ends up on the kitchen tiles on its side.
I think of the scorpion escaping; Maman would be even madder than she is already going to be. I start to run back downstairs, to try and keep it in, but after two steps I feel the sting, then the burning on the side of my foot.
Oh, Maman, it’s there! On the stairs! Oh it stung me! Maman! I cry.
The scorpion has run to the corner of the stairs.
I get down to the kitchen and climb up on to the bench. Pulling my feet up behind me.
Maman! Get it! It’s on the stair!
Which step, Peony? Which step? Maman daren’t come down the stairs. Her feet are bare and she can’t see the scorpion. Her belly is in the way.
Maman! It stung me, Maman! Please, it hurts!
My foot is already starting to go red and swell up. The kitchen feels like winter. The darkness in my stomach is spreading out into my arms and legs.
Maman has gone from the stairs.
Wait there! she is shouting. I’m coming, hang on. At the top of the stairs, Maman is wearing Papa’s tractor-driving boots and carrying a bottle of shampoo and a fat green syringe. She stomps down the stairs heavily, watching her feet as she goes. She stops, and starts thwacking at the stairs with the shampoo bottle, and stamping with one foot. I don’t think the scorpion will be alive when she is done.
Margot has her arms around me on the bench. I squeeze my eyes shut, it is black as night behind my eyes but with sparkles of colour and flashes of white. My foot is burning and I squeeze tighter and tighter. Margot is rocking me.
Don’t worry, she says, it hurts, but you’ll be OK.
I am trembling in the dark, trying to think about being cuddled, but only thinking about my foot hurting more and more. Then the arms lift me up and it is not Margot any more it is Maman, and she carries me outside into the light. I cling to her side, trying to sit on her hip but her belly getting in the way and me slipping further and further down as she stomps across the courtyard in Papa’s boots. She puts me on the table and looks at my foot.
Hush, Pea, it’ll be OK, she says, I’ll fix it.
It hurts! I cry.
I know, she says, hang on. And she takes the big green syringe and puts it over the sting on my foot and when she pulls up the inside part my foot pulls up too, making a white bubble of my body inside the clear plastic end-part. Then I see drops of blood being sucked out of me and I think I am going to be sick.
Wait here, says Maman.
I sit curled on the table, looking out past the barn and wishing I could see the wing turbines.
Then, The witches are coming! Margot shouts.
Where? Where? I scream, looking around. Everything looks normal but the witches could come up out of the shadows at any moment, and I am sitting on the table, easy to spot.
The witches are everywhere! They’re real, after all! Margot is laughing.
Stop it! I scream. Stop it!
Maybe you are going to die, says Margot. She has started peering at me curiously. Scorpions are very dangerous, she says. And she laughs some more.
Go away, Margot, I say. I don’t want you any more.
When Maman comes back I am curled in a ball, sobbing. Maman unpeels me like an orange. She has a towel full of ice cubes. She presses it against my foot and one kind of hurt pushes away the other.