MORNING SERIAL
MAM used to say words were like toothpaste, once you’ve said them, you can never squeeze them back into the tube. Now, I tried to gulp down every one of them. Stay away, I’d said, stay away, but I felt the vowels stick to my throat as I stood there, watching our green dance theatre go up in dust.
THE NAKED FACE OF THE MOON
THIS day had crafted hours into years. I’d aged since Melody had said goodbye, I must have, our summer holidays seemed as though they’d only been imagined. What will happen to our games? I wondered, and our thoughts? Will they all travel back to the mysterious place where they came from? A place built from the intertwining strands of us over the years – scraped knees and broken nails and bee stings and giggles and jinxes and snaps and hands and feet and faces, and Vi-vi and Dee-dee – will they be forgotten?
I heard doors being slammed as I wandered past the landing window. Through it, I could see Melody’s car struggling to reverse off their drive. Yes, there it was, gaining pace as it passed us, heading towards the Common, as peaceful as ever beneath the naked face of the moon, and then it was gone. They were gone.
There, under the faint light from the lamp post, was the roof of Melody’s house; I couldn’t quite believe there were no people underneath it. It must have still been warm from their last-minute arguments, from Melody being shouted at for pouring too much milk into her cereal bowl, and Polly their dog, barking if anyone other than Melody’s mum tried to touch her pom-pom shaped coat. But now it sat empty.
I wanted something to happen, anything – a shock of lightning, a galloping pony, a scream because none of it felt right, nothing should have been that quiet, but still, nothing came. Even one of my Russian dolls on my bedroom windowsill had turned her back on me.
THE RED-HAIRED GIRL
I WAS standing at the bottom of the stairs, still in my flamingo pyjamas and slippers when a long-legged red-haired girl blazed through the house as though she’d been there a million times before.
> Unspeakable Beauty by Georgia Carys Williams is published by Parthian at £10.99. parthianbooks.com
CONTINUES TOMORROW