Glitter (13 page)
Authors: Kate Maryon
me glorious me…
S
o much has happened since
Bugsy.
Sebastian’s home for Christmas and Hanna’s arranged a massive Christmas meal for us, and her family and all of the old people, to have in the community office near the canal. Tyler and his mum and brothers and sister are joining us too and believe it or not Sebastian and Tyler are actually getting on quite well, even though they’re so different. And now we’re allowed music in our flat they’re downloading it together all of the time. Tyler’s deadly serious about doing that college course to be a youth worker person and Sebastian’s helping him with his application forms so he can start in September. And Sebastian is still brilliant and has got into Cambridge
University to study something important, but I can’t remember what.
“I’ve gotta get myself out of this dump one day,” says Tyler. “The rate I was going I’d have been in prison before I reached eighteen. So I’ll opt for the education route, me thinks.”
Mr Forrest was so impressed with Cali in
Bugsy Malone
that he’s promised to do another musical soon and he says that when she’s older he’ll coach her so she can get into drama school. And I don’t need to tell you what she said to that, except for the fact that it starts with “Holly…” and ends with “…here I come!”
Dylan has gone off drama and is getting more interested in music, like me, and he’s planning to make a band and become a famous pop star.
My dad and Hanna have got the Community Action Scheme off the ground and have managed to get the funding for them both to have a job. But Alice’s dad has offered my dad a full-time job with his company, so I’ve told him he needs to put his head down and pull his socks up and make a decision pretty soon.
I’ve got a bit of thinking to do too. Once my granny in Scotland discovered about my dad and the credit crunch
and that I’d been taken away from my old school, she went bananas. She started getting busy with things and interfering, as usual and is insisting that my life will be in ruins if I don’t go back to my old school. She’s going to sell some shares to fund my education until my dad gets back on his feet. I’m not sure though. I loved my old school, but I also love it here. Dad says I have until the end of the Christmas holidays to make up my mind. But the brilliant thing is my dad and granny are actually on speaking terms again. She’s happy that the secret about what happened to my mum has come out at last and is very happy that she proved my dad’s theory wrong.
“I told you, Henry,” she said, when they were speaking on the telephone, “nothing good comes of keeping secrets. There’s no shame in life so long as we can bring it out in the open and say what needs to be said.”
And of course she’s delighted that my dad’s taken up the violin again. She knows he’s doing it just for fun, but she’s glad for him all the same.
Sebastian is pleased about the secret coming out too and he and I spent an afternoon pinning pictures of our mum all over our flat. And he cut one up small and slipped it into his brown leather wallet. Yesterday when we were all
lying about the place getting into the Christmas spirit my dad got out his violin and played the tune my mum used to play Sebastian when he was falling asleep. I watched him close his eyes to listen and saw the music reach deep inside of him to a soft place where he could remember her.
I’ve made up with Alice, because best friends always do, and she’s overexcited to the stars and back about the possibility of me going back to school. But of course, Cali and Hanna and Dylan and Tyler and all the old people want me to stay here.
“Spoilt for choice, you are,” smiles my dad. “But remember that this time, Liberty, the choice is yours. It’s your life and I finally understand that I can’t live it for you, you have to do what’s right for you.”
Oh, yes, and I found out from Mrs Cobb more about our school motto and those Latin words mean:
Success is not what you achieve, it is who you are.
And I’m excited to be discovering more about who I am every single day. At midnight on New Year’s Eve I’m going to make a resolution to keep on being
ME GLORIOUS ME
for the rest of my precious, precious, life.
like glitter on my smile…
It’s Christmas Eve. My dad is watching an old movie on the telly, Sebastian is out with Tyler and I should be going to bed, but I can’t. The thing that started nibbling away on
Bugsy Malone
day has stopped nibbling and is now biting great chunks out of my brain.
“There’s something I really need to do, Daddy,” I say, “and it can’t wait any longer.”
“Oh, dear,” he smiles, “I can smell trouble. Tell me, Liberty, what is it now?”
“I have to go to her grave, Daddy, please? I have to see it with my very own eyes. I have to take her some flowers and play her a tune and let her know I’m OK and that I
love her, because now I understand everything.”
“Are you sure?”
I nod. So, we leave a note for Sebastian, pick up our violins and slip away into the night in our crusty old car. We stop at the petrol station and buy some pink carnations on special offer. It feels a bit strange getting special offer ones when we should be getting much more amazing ones, especially when I’ve never even seen my mum’s grave before. I can tell my dad feels the same by the way he’s frantically counting out the change making sure he’s got enough money in his wallet. But I don’t think my mum will mind, she’ll understand. She’s had so many Christmases alone without us visiting that I think she’d even be happy if we arrived without any flowers at all. When we get to the graveyard it’s dark and the gate is padlocked shut.
“Don’t worry,” says my dad, grabbing a huge torch from the boot of the car, “I know a secret route in. I come here a lot, you know, just to talk and be with your mother.”
We walk along the road, scramble through some bushes and my dad heaves me over the fence and climbs over after me. We’re giggling again. I mean, who on earth breaks into
a cemetery in the middle of the night with their dad to see their mum and play the violin? We walk past hundreds of sleeping graves. Some have angels standing over them and some have flowers bunched in jam jars making them look bright. All of them have writing on the headstone saying things about who the person was and who they’re leaving behind. I can’t really read them in the dark, but I’d like to come back in the daytime one day because some of them look so old they might even have been here since the Charles Dickens’s days.
“I did like the Charles Dickens books really,” I say, taking my dad’s hand. “I was just cross, that’s all. And I do forgive you, Daddy. I do. None of it was your fault, you know.”
We walk the rest of the way in silence and my heart starts pounding in my chest when my dad points out my mum’s grave to me. I know she’s not really here any more; well, apart from her body that is, or her bones at least. But it feels like
she’s
really here too, like she’s really with us, close by. It’s almost like if I reached out I might be able to find her in the dark. I take the torch from my dad and shine it on her headstone. There are hundreds of music notes carved in the white stone that are playing themselves high
up to the sky. My mum’s special words read:
Lissy Parfitt 1965—1999. Our glittering success. Play music with the angels darling and wrap yourself in stars. Loving you always, Henry, Sebastian and Liberty.
I trace the word Lissy with my finger, my mummy, my mummy. I don’t feel sad really, more curious. There’s so much more I need to know.
“Was Sebastian named after Johann Sebastian Bach?” I ask.
“Ooh, you’re quick,” my dad smiles. “Yes, he was.”
“And me?”
“Ooh, you,” he laughs, taking out his violin, “well, we discovered that your mother was pregnant with you when we were in New York. So you know, the Statue of Liberty, it seemed the best choice. And you certainly live up to your name, child!”
“One more question for tonight?” I giggle.
“Ooh, go on then, just one more.”
“When can I meet her family?”
Then my dad turns into a pretend growling bear and chases me around and around my mum’s grave laughing and laughing and I’m squealing with happiness.
“What are we going to play then?” he asks.
“Bugsy?” I giggle.
And here we are standing in a dark graveyard, somewhere in London, on Christmas Eve, in a supposedly serious place, near my mum’s grave, playing the tune from
Bugsy Malone.
We’re standing opposite each other and our violin sounds are dancing through the air, swirling with the angels, zooming up to the moon and shooting with the stars.
“So beautiful…you are so like your mother…I’m so proud of you, Liberty,” he sighs.
And at that moment his heart pops out a little gift-wrapped parcel of love that lands like glitter on my smile.
T
hank you Daniel – my wonderful I.T. support man, personal chef, foot masseur, hottie maker, lover, husband and friend for your presence and your love throughout the entire process of creating
Glitter.
Thank you my gorgeous children – I’m so inspired by you all; Jane with your effortless gift of sprinkling glittering love and joy in such abundance through my days; Tim with your tender-hearted wisdom and astonishing depth; Sam with your courageous commitment to living your truth; Joe with your continued interest, support and encouragement in my work and tenacious passion for your own and Ben with your open-hearted expression and your
cheeky, winning smile. I’m so touched to be part of your lives.
Thank you my wonderful sister Susie for your constancy and for your truly unconditional love. Thank you my lovely brother Tim for your quietly constant love. Thank you my lovely friend Dawne for our deeply enriching friendship, which means so much to me. Thank you Paul for always believing in me, always loving me.
Thank you my fantastic readers: Alice, Claire and Darcey. Thank you Thea, Matt and Year 7 Writhlington School for allowing me to join your drama and music lessons. Thank you Jayne for your research and support and Fifi Fiddle for violin info.
Thank you a million times over wonderful Eve, my agent, for believing in me and for all your support, care and loveliness. And thank you wonderful Rachel, my editor, for guiding me so tenderly through the whole process of bringing Glitter into being. So blessed am I! Thank you Rose, Kate, Tom, Hannah, Catherine, Heike and everyone else from HarperCollins, for all your hard work and enthusiasm. Thank you Dave and the rest of the Punktillio crew for your fan page support and for your patience in dealing with a mad woman like me! And thank
you to all the people who I’ll probably never get to meet – those who plant and cut the sustainable forests, make the paper, print the pages, wrap and pack and drive and stack and sell my books – without all of you
Glitter
would be left drifting in my imagination instead of being read by the world.
Thank you Adam – words can’t express my gratitude – but then you’re dyslexic so I guess words don’t matter so much! But gratitude is here.
I feel so touched by life. xxx
glitter
When Kate Maryon isn’t writing, or walking her large Newfoundland dog, Ellie, or spending time with her grown-up children, Jane and Tim, or her grown-up stepchildren, Sam, Joe and Ben, or having fun with her husband Daniel, or visiting the rest of her family, or sitting in cafés and other lovely places with her friends, she can be found working from a clinic in Somerset, where she practices homeopathy, or in Devon where she works on detox retreats. And with all this going on there’s never a shortage of stories and wonderful things to write about.
Kate loves chocolate, films, eating out, reading, writing and lying on sunny beaches. She dislikes peppermint and honey.
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Shine
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins
Children’s Books
2010 HarperCollins
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FIRST EDITION
Glitter
Text copyright © Kate Maryon 2010
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EPub Edition © JULY 2010 ISBN: 978-0-007-41100-9
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