Spontanéité

Where time stood still. // short story

I wrote this for Literature last year (2016) as a short story based on a significant life event or series of events evoking strong emotion and attached to a 'place', inspired by The Merry-Go-Round in the Sea (Randolph Stow).
I know the sentences are long, and sometimes it's hard to read, but it was all deliberate. It's not the best, but I'm not changing it in any way. It is as is.
***

The russet-haired girl was laughing, and the wind, warmed by her happiness, snuck a handful of russet-coloured curls into her mouth, making the six-year-old laugh harder. The dark-haired girl was running, squealing with laughter, and her hurried footsteps shook the bridge beneath her. The blonde-haired boy ran up from behind and touched the russet-haired girl's shoulder. "You're it!" he exclaimed, and yelled with joy as he, then she, ran across the still-shaking bridge, and flew down the slide and into the rest of the playground.

The playground was bright, with the sunshine reflecting off its colourful railings. Some paint had chipped off over the years, but all that mattered was chasey, hide-and-seek, and adventure. There were sandpits and there were tunnels. There were limestone slabs in a circle where the children ate pieces of fruit at crunch-and-sip, and beside them there stood an arch, once the frame of a garden gate.

For the dark-haired girl, this was the best part of the playground. The arch was magical, and she loved it. Not because of the twisting green vines and the leaves and the small flowers, or because it was painted white and shone and it was grey and dull in some places too, but because it led to a secret garden, hidden away.
If only the girl could decipher the riddle that held the portal closed, then she could enter, with her friends. If only she could enter that other world, where there was magic, and where there were fairies and fairy dust, and lollies and dragons and snow and perfect sunshine. Where time stood still.

***
The dark-haired girl was sitting in an orange chair, head bent in concentration, organising the items in the tray of her small school desk; her books, fresh-smelling wooden ruler and pencil case. Now that she was seven, she determined to have everything look pretty and neat. The russet-haired girl picked up a pencil that had rolled onto her side of the desk, wondering aloud at its colour as she analysed it. The blonde-haired boy sat opposite the russet-haired girl and looked up at the pencil.
"Ugh, pink, gross," he made a face and resumed his search for his Winnie-the-Pooh™ eraser. "Isn't it Ferrin's?" he asked, from under the table, almost hitting his head when he tried to stand, forgetting he was under the table.
The russet-haired girl glanced at the blonde-haired boy. "You okay, Ethan?" she asked, then turned to the dark-haired girl. "Ferrin, what colour is it?"
Ferrin's mumbled a response, still carefully organising things. "Uh-huh. I think it's purple."
The russet-haired girl scrunched up her nose. "I think it's purple-ly red."
"It doesn't matter, Cassia," Ferrin said with a small laugh, zipping up her pencil case. "Can I have it back now?"

Ferrin and Cassia sat on the worn, grey carpet, with Cassia's ginger cat draped across his owner's lap. They were threading colourful plastic beads onto thin, see-through colourful plastic yarn. Not so long ago they had been giggling and talking, but now. "Mummy says we're going to Melbourne," Cassia had said. Neither knew what it meant, but they knew it was bad.
Cassia's mother explained. The whole family was moving- mummy, daddy, baby sister, even Flooffy, the cat. Ferrin wondered why. What was 'employment'? What was the point? What about school? But most of all, she wondered: what would happen now?

The dark-haired girl knew the answer by the time she hugged her bestest friend ever goodbye. It was so, so, so unfair, she decided, as she sniffed and rubbed one of her eyes. Why did she have to go to Melbourne? Couldn't she stay?

But that was how it was.
So it was just the dark-haired girl and the blonde-haired boy. Ferrin was standing on the concrete, sandy ground. Ethan was jumping off the wooden bench built into the brick wall, then getting back up, in a pattern. Ferrin turned to the faint, painted targets and numbers on the wall.
They were standing in the undercover area, a place built with brick walls and a metal roof. The ground was made of concrete and it had been painted with a world map. Ferrin looked at it, wondering if the world looked that oval-shaped. She wondered if her parents had seen the purply-grey-coloured land of China, and decided they had, though she wondered why she'd never seen greeny-blue land in Australia.

Ferrin liked the undercover area, even though it was really crowded on rainy days. She liked the sound of rain on the corrugated roof, like it was a song. But people seemed to drown it out, so she liked to walk along the verandah in front of the classrooms. Ethan didn't seem to mind much, but he did find it annoying when he had to yell over the noise in the undercover area on rainy days.

***
Ethan's kid sister, Kayla, was in pre-primary. They walked past the classroom sometimes, hanging around in front of it. The pre-primary kids were sitting with their backs to Ethan and Ferrin, facing the teacher. Ferrin noticed a dangly skeleton, floppy and hanging from a thin metal pole that got wheeled around. It swayed a bit, because it'd just been wheeled across the room. It seemed to be trying to dance, but with no rhythm at all.

"I know what that bone's called," Ethan said, smug. His dad was a doctor. "It's a humerus." He laughed, because he found it humorous.

If it wasn't raining, the dark-haired girl and blonde-haired boy, both eight years old then, went up to the quadrangle and sat on the verandah in front of their classroom. Ferrin swung her legs. Ethan jumped onto the lids of the stormwater drains, brown metal pieces that clattered noisily. He was fed up, scowling with hunched, crossed arms. "I don't want to go. I hate ties and shiny black shoes. They smell gross."
Why do you have to go? Ferrin wondered, as Ethan continued grumbling. What is wrong with grown-ups? Why do they keep doing this? He sat down, still grumbling, next to her. He was fed up with ties, with shiny black shoes, everything.

The blonde-haired boy and dark-haired girl were quiet on his last day. At the end, she mumbled, 'Seeya, hope you like your new school.' She wondered if he'd heard differently when he looked confused, as if she'd said, 'see your horse looking cool.' It would've been funny, but it wasn't. She was annoyed. Why were grown-ups always messing things up? Couldn't Ethan just stay? And Cassia, too! Why'd she leave too? It was so unfair.

But that was how it was.
So it was just the dark-haired girl.
She wondered at what Ethan and Cassia were doing as she walked around, remembering.
Other kids were nice- or they weren't. Still, they weren't friends with her, even if she tried. She remembered when it was the three of them- the dark-haired girl, russet-haired girl and blonde-haired boy. When they ran amok in the playground.
When the promise of an enchanted otherworld was real, not empty. But it was empty. The arch had never been a portal, just an arch. She'd walk through and nothing, only everything, would change.

***
Ferrin tilted her head, reading the words on the spines as she walked down the row. The bookshelf went on and on, until it ended and she stopped, still holding no book in her hand. "Five more minutes, then back to class," she heard the teacher say. The nine-year-old bit her lip and scanned the shelves.

A blonde-haired girl walked past, pushing her glasses up her nose. "Can't find a book?" she asked. Ferrin recognised her as a classmate and shook her head in response. The girl half-smiled. "How about this one?" She handed Ferrin a book and walked away.

The dark-haired girl began to read. The portal had re-opened, it was real, she decided. The otherworld, where there was magic, and where there were fairies and fairy dust, and lollies and dragons and perfect sunshine. Where there was a dark-haired girl, a russet-haired girl and a blonde-haired boy, running wild, free, chaotic.

Where time stood still.