Fickle

Cloud Cartoons 1

Chapter 1

We swung slowly forward, the eerie creak of the swing set the only noise in our large and well looked after garden. We swung towards the countryside away from our house. Towards the well maintained hedge that separated garden from the narrow country track that led out into the world.  

We reached the highest part of our pendulum and went swinging back the way, the familiar and calming routine soothed our minds. The creak of the swing, punctuated the unnerving feeling of loss and emptiness.

I could feel his hair prickling against my skin as he buried his head into my neck as far as he could. His small suited arm was up against my bare arm. His tears were silent as they fell into the black dress I had got for Lucy’s Birthday Party but had to wear today.

The smell of fresh grass and of the pleasant passing from spring to summer hung in the air. The creak continued and a bird called out in the distance. I felt smaller than I ever had before as I looked up at the blue sky dotted by the comfiest looking clouds I could think of. I always wanted to sleep in the clouds, now I looked at them in an attempt to remember how my Mum and Dad made everything better.  

I knew I had to be Jonathan’s Mum now. Great Aunt Ethel stood in our kitchen next to a suited man with a briefcase talking about our house and its sale. She spoke as though the death of our parents was a trifle she could have done without. Her condescending tone was similar to the one she employed when using her eyes to shoot someone down for any kind of impropriety.

I had been subjected to her condescending tone more times than I could count at this point. In my six year old mind, Ethel was always placed somewhere between a large and fearsome dragon kind of like the Jabberwocky in Alice in Wonderland and the scary old Witch in Roald Dahl’s book. She did look uncannily like Anjelica Huston and smelled extremely musty after all.

These were thoughts which had always been shared with my Mummy at bedtime as we entered a new and exciting world with every book. That would be no more now though, in much the same way as my Mother was, my books were all boxed up and sent underground. Soon I would leave them behind, today in fact.

Ethel was never going to read us stories, just this morning I’d had to help my brother have a bath and get dressed. My Mum and Dad had always been the ones to do that for us. I’d done my best this morning though; for them and for Jonathan.

I hadn’t cried that day, not at the funeral, not when Ethel hit me on the back of the head, not as I looked up at the sky and felt my brother’s tears against my skin. Looking up is meant to stop you from crying. My Dad taught me that when I was bullied and I couldn’t stand the thought of letting them see me cry. It must have done a lot to help my case looking up to the sky whenever I was bullied for being weird.

It makes me laugh out loud now (ugh LOL how terrible) imagining myself stood in front of the three little girls all with blonde pigtails staring at the ceiling. Beatrix Potter clutched to my chest as they made fun of me for reading all of the time. I may have succeeded in assuring them of my strangeness, but that didn’t matter because I never had to feel small in front of them again. That’s something that I have carried throughout my life I never let anyone make me feel small. I like to think of it as something my Dad taught me. That or Eleanor Roosevelt but what’s a girl going to do, it’s the sentiment that counts.

I wasn’t looking up right now to stop the tears because there were no tears to stop. I felt a disconnection from the world around me, like I was merely a spectator to events that were as real as a puppet show act.

I became lost in the world of the clouds. I watched a stallion gallop through the sky. I watched a couple dancing through the sky. I found my big comfy bed in the sky. Just next to the bed I found a dog, a springer spaniel that looked just like the dog we got to walk sometimes for the farmer who lived along the road.