Skellig

Chapter 9

I SAW MINA AGAIN LATER THAT evening. I was in the little front garden with Dad. We stood there in the thistles and dandelions. He was telling me as usual how wonderful it would be—flowers here and a tree there and a bench under the front window. I saw her further along the street. She was in a tree in another front garden on the same side of the street as us. She was sitting on a fat branch. She had a book and a pencil in her hand. She kept sticking the pencil in her mouth and staring up into the tree.

“Wonder who that is.”

“She’s called Mina.”

“Ah.”

She must have seen us looking at her but she didn’t move.

Dad went in to check the cement in the dining room.

I went out the gate and along the street and looked up at Mina in the tree.

“What you doing up there?” I said.

She clicked her tongue.

“Silly you,” she said. “You’ve scared it away. Typical.”

“Scared what away?”

“The blackbird.”

She put the book and the pencil in her mouth. She swung over the branch and dropped into the garden. She stood looking at me. She was little and she had hair as black as coal and the kind of eyes you think can see right through you.

“Never mind,” she said. “It’ll come again.”

She pointed up to the rooftop. The blackbird was up there, tipping its tail back and forth and squawking.

“That’s its warning call,” she said. “It’s telling its family there’s danger near. Danger. That’s you.”

She pointed up into the tree.

“If you climb up where I was and look along that branch there you’ll see its nest. There’s three tiny ones. But don’t you dare go any nearer.”

She sat on the garden wall and faced me.

“This is where I live,” she said. “Number Seven. You’ve got a baby sister.”

“Yes.”

“What’s her name?”

“We haven’t decided yet.”

She clicked her tongue and rolled her eyes toward the sky.

She opened her book.

“Look at this,” she said.

It was full of birds. Pencil drawings, lots of them colored in blues and greens and reds.

“This is the blackbird,” she said. “They’re common, but nevertheless very beautiful. A sparrow. These are tits. And lovely chaffinches. And look, this is the goldfinch that visited last Thursday.”

She showed me the goldfinch, the greens and reds and bright yellows in it.

“My favorite,” she said.

She slapped the book shut.

“Do you like birds?” she said, and she looked at me like something I’d done had made her cross.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Typical. Do you like drawing?”

“Sometimes.”

“Drawing makes you look at the world more closely. It helps you to see what you’re looking at more clearly. Did you know that?”

I said nothing.

“What color’s a blackbird?” she said.

“Black.”

“Typical!”

She swung round into the garden.

“I’m going in,” she said. “I look forward to seeing you again. I’d also like to see your baby sister if that can be arranged.”