The Night Rainbow A Novel - By Claire King Page 0,80
and taking one of my hands. She has a soft, kind face. She is very pretty. Well, she says, when is your birthday?
My birthday is on the seventeenth of September, I say. I will be six years old.
Well then you are more than five and a half years old, says the lady. You are nearly six.
I suppose that is true. Papa told me I was five and a half but that was a long time ago.
How many days is it to my birthday? I ask the lady.
More than you can count on your fingers and toes, she says. But less than if we used my fingers and toes too.
But how many? I say. The fingers-and-toes thing is very complicated. Why do grownups complicate things all the time?
Pea can count to a hundred, you know, says Margot.
Thirty-five, says the lady, smiling.
Three and five, I say. And I draw it in the air with my finger.
Very clever, says the lady.
That’s not such a long way off, is it?
No, not so far at all.
If you took a car you could get there faster, says Margot.
I could get there really fast on an aeroplane, I say.
The lady laughs. Come on, let’s celebrate a little bit early. She strums the guitar once and then the band starts to play. They play ‘Happy Birthday’ and the lady sings. I have never had a band play ‘Happy Birthday’ to me before. It makes me feel a little bit shy. But Margot is not feeling shy.
Come on! she says, and she grabs my fingers and starts to twirl me around, so I twirl her back. We dance to ‘Happy Birthday’. Not like Papa and Maman danced, but more like ballet dancing or flamenco dancing, or both. Our special colourful, sparkly dresses spin up around our legs so we look like the ballet-dancer on Maman’s musical box.
When the song is finished, everyone smiles at me. I know we are supposed to give them some money now to say thank you, or a drink. I suppose they won’t want to drink from the outside tap.
The peachman has not left us any money, I say.
That’s OK, says the man with the hat. It was nice to meet you. The long-haired lady comes and holds his hand and he puts his arm around her.
Bye, Pea, she says.
Don’t forget Margot, says the man.
Bye, Margot, she says with a smile, and then they all start going away.
We’ll see you next year, they shout, and they wave at us. Margot and I stand and watch until the truck has gone down the path out of sight and the dust has fallen back out of its cloudiness on to the ground. I look around us.
We’d better water the plants, I say. They are looking sad and thirsty.
Yes, we should, says Margot. But I don’t know what we can do about the hanging baskets.
The hanging baskets are by the door. The leaves are yellow and crispy and there are dead flowers on the ends of dried-up stalks. But I can’t reach them to give them a drink.
If we had Claude he could bring a ladder, I say.
Maybe we could get the ladder from the barn, says Margot.
Do you think we could carry it? I say.
Well, it is a silly idea putting flowers up so high anyway, says Margot, if you want the children to water them.
Yes, I agree, let’s just leave them.
I look up at Maman’s bedroom window. The shutters are closed, which means supper is whatever we want, and bedtime is whenever we say. To start with I thought those things were good but now it is quite boring. It is quite late and I don’t want to go out again, but it is too early to go to bed. It has been a long and complicated day today.
What did you like best about today? says Margot.
Best about today, I say, was it being my birthday. What did you like best?
I liked best about today, says Margot, the man’s hat with the green ribbon around it.
That was my next favourite thing, I say.
And what didn’t you like about today? says Margot.
Nothing, I say.
Nothing? says Margot.
I don’t want to talk about it, I say.
Margot waits for a while, and when she sees that I am not going to ask her, she says, Well, what I didn’t like about today was the . . .
Shush, I say. And she does.
After a while, though, I feel sorry for being rude. I hope Claude is OK, I say to Margot.