The Blue Bracelet

Chapter 1

London Bridge Station provided a constant flow of rushing people bumping and shoving a young girl as she made her way unhurried down Tooley Street in Southwark, Central London.

Petrol fumes from taxis and cars mixed with the perfumes and aftershaves of a thousand people struggling their way through a lunchtime crowd. Unfazed by it all, unlike the tourists drowning in London street maps, the girl walked along as if on a quiet back road pavement in Wales.

Earphones plugged out the salespeople spiels and the cries of lost children, as the girl thought that her latest project - painting a parrot - was harder than she'd expected. Her eyes didn't see the busy street around her, too busy searching for flaws in her mental mind map of the painting.

Idle and itching for something to do, her fingers went to play with the dazzling blue beads of a bracelet which hung on a heavy silver chain on her wrist. Fingertips brushed against fingertips, and the girl gasped as she broke from her trance and looked at the unfamiliar hand on her jewellery. Her mind still clouded with textures and colours, she grabbed the connected wrist and pulled.

The arm produced a scrawny boy with hollowed eyes and a face full of dread. With no knowledge of what to do next in the situation, the two stared at each other. People pushed and shoved past them, grumbling complaints.

"Wha- who? W-were you trying to steal my b-bracelet?" The girl stuttered, dropping his arm. The boy swallowed nervously, planning his words carefully.

"Hi. Yes.. I was trying to steal your bracelet." The boy smiled nervously, opting for blunt honesty and hoping to placate the shocked girl.

"Well.. Why?!" The girl cried, starting to get flustered. Shrugging, the boy sighed sadly and gestured to himself, his stained and faded clothes hanging loosely on him. The girl looked at him quizzically, unsure of his point. The realisation that he'd go hungry again seemed to break something in him, and he shook his head sadly and began to walk away.

"Wait!" The girl shouted at the boy, who'd nearly disappeared through the busy crowd. He turned and looked at her confusedly. "I'll give you lunch, since I ruined your chances of getting one yourself."

The boy shrugged and returned to her side, sliding some money out of a man's pocket in case the girl was tricking him.

"You didn't ruin my chances. You just looked down at the wrong bloody time!" The boy insisted as they began walking again.

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"You eat like you haven't seen food in weeks!" The girl cried as they sat in a busy cafe. Waitresses in white and yellow apron uniforms, stained with coffee and mayonnaise wittered about, the clatter of a coffee machine still audible over the sound of chatting voices and orders being called.

"What would you say if I told you I hadn't?" The boy looked at her and asked in between bites of his burger. Her light laughter rang through the cafe, ignored by most, but the boy's face stayed serious.

She twiddled her thumbs, her fingers unused to long stretches of idleness after working so hard for the past two weeks, painting. A man a few tables away looked over his glasses and his outstretched newspaper pointedly at her after she stared at him for a little too long. Slightly surprised by his reaction, she turned back to her own table.

"What's your name, then, Hungry Boy?" She quizzed after a pause, picking at some dried paint on her fingers. The plain watch on her wrist told her she had another forty minutes. Plenty of time.

"Skye." He didn't look up to see her eyebrow curved upwards in a dubious expression, de-painting stopped.

"Skye? What's that? Some kind of fake name? Isn't it a girl's name? And don't I deserve your real name? I mean, I gave you lunch." The girl gestured to his burger, a small laugh escaping her mouth. Shrugging sharply, the boy swallowed his mouthful and looked up at her for the first time.

"It is my real name. My mother loved birds, and she didn't have any daughters, so she called me Skye." The doubtful expression on the girl's face faded and was replaced with a smile.

"Didn't you get bullied in school, with that name?" Skye put down his nearly finished burger and looked out of the window at the street outside. His eyes looked up then, towards the empty sky, marked occasionally by swallows darting back and forth and the stream of an airplane's engines as it chugged along to an unknown location.

"Where do you live, then? Round here? I haven't been here too long.. Is it a nice place?" The girl's hands were still on the table now as she tried to get Skye's attention. She began to systematically study his face, as she would for a sketch or painting of someone. Noticing how his face didn't look so gaunt and his eyes didn't hold such a desperate look, she realised he was older than she'd thought. Slowly returning her gaze, Skye mumbled a response,

"Depends what side you see it from.." A screaming coffee machine piped up, and plates clattered on tables. "What's your name, then? Since you know mine." He changed the subject, looking around at the bustling café as he finished his burger.

"May. May Fliers." She replied, tugging at the sleeves of her worn, teal-green jumper which was too big for her.

Skye pushed his empty plate away, got up, and headed for the door.

"Well, May Fliers. Thank you very much for the burger, and have a nice summer." The bell tinkled lightly over the sound of the cafe as the door shut behind him.

"Oh." May said to no one. She looked down at her egg and ham sandwich, untouched on her plate.

"Bye, then..."