The Night Rainbow A Novel - By Claire King Page 0,77
says Margot.
I don’t want to go to the stupid girl-nest! I shout.
OK, let’s climb the apple trees, then, she says.
I don’t want to climb the stupid trees.
We’ll go to Windy Hill, says Margot. Come on.
I’m tired of stupid Windy Hill. I don’t want to go to the stupid meadow! I’m FED UP!
Margot looks at me. Maman looks at me.
As I take breaths between sobs, the clock ticks loudly. The handprint on my arm burns, and I hold it against my mouth. Her hand is there, and hot.
Then, as though I were throwing a stick over the rainbow, I bring my arm back and slap her back, hard. I am still not very good at aiming. I was trying to hit her leg but instead I hit her in the belly. I know straight away, before she can say anything, that I haven’t hit Maman. I have hit the baby inside. In the space where the sorry should be, I wait to see if the baby starts to cry, to see if I have hurt it.
Maman grabs me by the arm, her fingernails digging into the red slap, and scowls down into my face.
You’re just like your father! she screams at me.
Her face is fire and thunder, but my voice comes out loud too. Papa was . . .
Not Papa, your REAL father!
Maman clutches the belly. The belly with the baby in it that she made with Papa, and then I realise that it is me that is not good enough. The baby in her belly is coming to take my place.
Am I going to die? I ask.
Get out of my sight, says Maman.
So I go. I feel like I am turning inside out.
Running down the stony path away from Maman and away from the house, I am a small dark cloud in the blue sky and Margot is the wind that blows me along.
Chapter 19
I didn’t mean to hit the baby, I say to Margot.
I know, says Margot. Anyway, I’m sure you won’t have killed it.
No, I say. I run my finger over my arm where it hurts, feeling the crescent-moon dents where the fingernails stuck into my skin. Maman hit me, I say.
Margot nods. Yes. She didn’t mean that either.
Yes she did, I say. She meant to hit me. I meant to hit her. I just didn’t mean to hit the baby.
We are sitting at the bottom of the path, by the pavement. I am sulking. My arm has the big pink slap on it. I want the cars to come by and the people to look out of the windows and ask why I have a big pink slap on my arm. I want Josette and Claude to come and ask why I have a big pink slap on my arm. Then I will tell them all. Because Maman is a bad mother. Because she doesn’t look after me and she is rude to my friends and because she is making up lies about my papa.
What did she mean about Papa? I ask Margot.
Margot stretches her arms up above her head. I think, she says, that you must be a princess.
A princess? I say.
Yes, says Margot. It all makes sense now. You are an English princess, and Maman stole you when you were a baby and ran away with you to France. Maybe the King and Queen tried to stop her and that’s when your itchy bone got broken, because she had to TUG you away from them.
And Papa?
I don’t think Papa knew. Maman probably pretended you belonged to Papa.
So in the photo, that is Maman stealing me, when I was a baby.
Yes, it must be.
Why would she steal me and not just have her own baby?
Margot shrugs. Maybe all Maman’s babies die, she says.
It is getting too hot and there is no shade here. I am starting to feel thirsty and also a bit dizzy. No one is coming to look at my arm, and the handprint is starting to disappear as the rest of my skin gets pink in the sun.
Let’s go and get a drink, I say.
Even before our feet have landed in the grass on the other side of the gate, the donkeys have come over to say hello. It’s like someone called them to say that we were coming and that we were not in a good mood. They push up close, nudging at my hands with velvety muzzles and fluttering their long donkey eyelashes. The donkeys smell kind.