Plum Puddings and Paper Moons Read online

  Ben carried a ladder inside and the children followed and passed him the rest of the stars to hang from the ceiling of the passageway. Nell suggested they call them the Caroline Elliott galaxy.

  All that was left to do that evening was to tie the cooked, cloth-wrapped puddings from the rafters. There was Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune and even tiny Pluto although, as Nell explained, it wasn’t strictly a planet.

  ‘What are the other three?’ asked Layla.

  ‘They’re undiscovered planets,’ said Nell.

  By the time Scarlet came home, Nell’s kitchen had been transformed into a plum-pudding planetarium.

  6. Hot Yellow Peaches and Holes in the Sky

  When Scarlet first started her Saturday job at the Colour Patch Café, she had to wash dishes. Amber thought it was odd that Scarlet got a job washing dishes when she tried to get out of doing them at home whenever she could. But then Anik came and Scarlet got a promotion. Mr Kadri taught her how to make raspberry spiders and banana splits and clear the tables while Anik washed the dishes. Anik was fifteen and lived with his grandmother, two aunties and his uncle above Mr Kadri’s Colour Patch Café. Anik walked gracefully, watchfully, like the herons that waded between ribbons of sunlight in the shallows of Cameron’s Creek. Anik took his first steps in a faraway land where children walked as lightly as shadows, as cautiously as cats, for fear of disturbing buried bombs.

  Mr Kadri had once lived in a village like Anik’s. He had once wondered if he would ever see his family again. He knew how it felt to be a painter of pictures, putting pig meat in plastic bags, hosing blood off concrete floors. He understood what it was like to be surrounded by words he didn’t understand and faces he didn’t know.

  Because of all these things, Mr Kadri wanted Anik and his family to have someone to come home to at night. Someone who understood how they felt and who would try to fill the empty places in their lives.

  So that is why the Kadris shared their small upstairs home with Anik and his family. That is why they paid for Anik’s Advanced English lessons and why Anik so willingly washed mountains of dishes in the kitchen of the Colour Patch Café. It is why Mrs Kadri cooked for them while Anik’s grandma bounced the babies on her knees and sang them lullabies. And because every child is born filled with magic, the Kadri’s curly-haired babies understood Anik’s granny’s songs before they had words of their own. They laughed and smiled and sucked and slept and Anik’s grandma closed her eyes and imagined she was young again. She dreamt the babies she sang to were her own and that wishes sometimes came true.

  Scarlet shared a seat with Anik on the bus that took them to school. She wanted to know things about Anik. Small things like the sound of his laughter, middle-sized things like his favourite poem and big things like where his mother and father were. But the bus was filled with the sound of other people’s conversations. Their words were quick and loud and strange to Anik’s ears. And his English words seemed slow and clumsy. So he kept them mostly to himself. In the afternoons Anik went to Advanced English lessons and afterwards passed the words he had learnt on to his grandmother and aunties and uncle. And in the evenings, when the Colour Patch Café was closed and its neon sign stained the street with all the colours of paradise, Anik and Mr Kadri and their families squeezed around the old green laminex table in the kitchen and shared words and signs, laughter and food and friendship.

  Scarlet wanted to share these things with Anik, too. So when she worked at the Colour Patch Café she took tray-loads of used sundae dishes, coffee cups, soup bowls, silver teapots and spider glasses for Anik to wash and words for him to listen to. And each week when she came he talked more often and sometimes laughed.

  On the Saturday when everyone at the Kingdom of Silk was doing their Christmas cooking and while Scarlet filled salt cellars, sauce bottles and pepper-mills, she asked Anik about before.

  Anik’s arms stayed deep and still in the washing-up water and his eyes stared blindly at the bubbles. For as long as it took Scarlet to fill all the salt cellars Anik stayed silent. Then he said, ‘My father is a fisherman. My mother weaves baskets. I have two small sisters. Our country is at war for many years. But we are fishers and weavers and children. We are not soldiers. We have no weapons. Then one day I go to school and when I come home …’

  Anik paused and Scarlet wished she could turn back time and ask only the small things. She was afraid of what Anik might say. But she said nothing to stop him and Anik went on.

  ‘When I return there is no home. There is only smoke and fire and soldiers. My village is burning. My house is gone. I hear guns and I run very fast. I run two days and then I am at my grandmother’s house.’

  Anik’s words spilled out like hot soup. Scarlet passed him a paper napkin to sop his tears. She didn’t know what else to do, what to say. She couldn’t imagine coming home to nothing, no one. Her only comforting thought was that there had been a grandmother for Anik to run to.

  All the way to the Kingdom of Silk, Scarlet thought about Anik and his family and about other fishermen and basketmakers and children who have never lived in peace.

  It was dusk when Scarlet reached home. The sun was a hot yellow peach in a sea of strawberry sauce and the moon was a paper doily tossed up high. When she was very small Scarlet thought the moon was a hole in the sky and if she could only get up there and go through, she’d find another shiny universe inside it. The rusty gate squealed shut behind her and she trudged up the long gravel driveway, closer to the yellow lights of home, closer to the moon.

  Delicious aromas wafted from the open windows: cinnamon and nutmeg, oranges and cloves. From the veranda Scarlet looked through the screen door and saw the galaxy of twinkling tart-tin stars turning slowly on tinsel threads. She heard the sound of a soup-pot snare drum and singing. To Scarlet’s left the kitchen door was open. She saw her daddy standing on a ladder and Mama handing him fat cloth-wrapped puddings to hang from the rafters.

  No-one heard Scarlet arrive. No-one saw her standing at the door in the dusky light, caught between two places. She had reached her hole in the sky, the safe and shiny universe of the Kingdom of Silk where the only danger was imaginary pirates. Children ran carelessly fast here and laughed out loud and danced the Spanish Fandango and wishes sometimes came true. Scarlet wondered if children on the other side of the world ever looked at the moon and imagined a better place. A place like hers.

  There is a poem painted on the door of the house at the Kingdom of Silk. It’s Nell’s favourite because it helps her stay calm in the storms of life. Annie painted it for her when Ben first brought them there to live. Scarlet had read the poem many times before that night, but hadn’t thought much about its meaning. There were other poems she liked better.

  But on Saturday night, Scarlet wanted to feel calm, so she read Nell’s poem again. It seemed to be about opposites. Things like crying and laughing, finding and losing, loving and hating. Scarlet knew very well about all these things, but when she reached the words, A time for war and a time for peace she wondered, ‘Did this mean forever? Would there always be wars?’

  Scarlet turned her back on the moon and marched into the kitchen. She slammed her bag and her black apron on the table and shouted, ‘That’s a stupid poem. I hate it!’

  Then she stormed down the hallway to the bedroom she shared with Amber, leaving the Caroline Elliott galaxy shivering in her wake.

  7. Unsayable Things and Eiderdowns

  Later, when Nell was resting amongst the feathery hills and downy valleys of her eiderdown, Scarlet crept into her bedroom and slid between the sheets. Nell’s arms went around her the way they had so many times before. Scarlet stared out the window where stars pricked holes in the darkness like tiny promises of brighter tomorrows and she wondered how to explain the things she felt inside. Frightening things like, I don’t know if I believe in making wishes anymore and why doesn’t someone stop bad things happening?

  But many unsayable things have be
en said because of eiderdowns and a grandmother’s arms.

  ‘I’m so sorry I was mean tonight, Nell,’ whispered Scarlet. ‘I don’t really hate your poem. I just don’t want it to be true.’

  ‘You’re forgiven for shouting,’ said Nell, ‘but you don’t have to apologise for disagreeing with someone or something. What don’t you like about the poem?’

  ‘Will there always be wars?’ Scarlet asked, hoping for an answer like a star. But not even grandmothers are wise enough to know everything.

  ‘I hope not,’ said Nell, ‘but I thought people would have seen enough of them by now to realise there must be a better way.’

  ‘You once told us we can’t wish away something that’s already happened, but we can wish it never happens again,’ said Scarlet. ‘That doesn’t work with war does it? Wishing’s not enough.’

  Then Scarlet cried. She cried for Anik and for his mother and father and two sisters who might never see one another again. She cried for Anik’s two aunties, his uncle and his grandmother who had seen and heard things they could not speak of. She cried for all the other children and aunties and uncles and grandmothers who still lived in places where there were wars. And she cried because she was afraid wishes didn’t really come true at all. Not for Anik’s people, and not even for people like her.

  When Scarlet’s tears had stopped, Nell said, ‘I can’t tell you how to fix something as big as this, Scarlet. All I know is you’re not the only one who wants an end to war. Even in small towns like Cameron’s Creek, there are other people who have exactly the same wish as you. So imagine how many of us there must be on the planet. Maybe if we all did something small we could make a difference. Who knows, we might even change the way other people think.’

  Scarlet went back to her own bed, wondering what small step she could take in the morning to start changing the world.

  8. Kiss-Me-Quick and Kryptonite

  The following morning Scarlet lay on the old red couch by the veranda steps. One foot was propped on the armrest with her freshly painted toenails drying in the breeze. She had a pure white quill from Ginger the goose, a bottle of red food colouring and a pad of clean white paper on her lap. A pair of Nell’s old spectacles with rhinestone-studded purple frames was perched on the end of her nose. Scarlet was wearing them to try to understand the world wisely, the way Nell did. She dipped her quill in the dye and wrote a red poem for Anik on the soft white skin on the inside of her arm while she wondered what she could do to change the world.

  Indigo, Violet and Layla were swimming in the dam. Nell and Annie were being lifesavers. Amber was making lavender-and-lemonade scones for morning tea. Ben was in his shed. Annie said he was doing secret men’s business. But he wasn’t really. He was just sitting, looking at a pile of old timber which used to be a bridge and wondering what he could make from it.

  Griffin had camouflaged himself with mud and was stalking lizards in the pumpkin patch. He had decided to become a vegetarian and thought Zeus should be as well. His Sunday mission was relocating lizards to the wood pile where Zeus couldn’t find them.

  And Perry was doing his favourite thing, being Superman. He was wearing the costume Nell had made for him, all except his gumboots. He couldn’t wear them because an echidna had crawled into one of them and was too prickly to be pulled out. On Sundays, Superman collected the eggs. He was brave and could do it by himself. He did everything exactly the way he’d seen Nell do it.

  Blue guarded the gate while Superman went inside and scattered a handful of golden grain over the ground. While the hens were eating, Superman said good morning to Madonna. Then he chatted to the others for a while about things like the weather and the size of the pumpkins growing in the vegetable patch and the Christmas puddings and the galaxy of tart-tin stars. He had to wait while one of the hens laid her egg. She clucked excitedly when she’d finished and Superman wondered if she had the same sort of feeling he got when he saved the entire universe from destruction. The hen jumped down from her nest and Superman picked up her warm egg and held it to his cheek before he put it in the old bent saucepan with the others. He thanked the chickens, because Nell said everyone likes to be appreciated for what they do. When he got close to the gate, Superman felt like flying a loop-the-loop and landing on top of Ben’s shed with his cape flying out behind him because he’d done everything right.

  On the way up to the house Superman counted the eggs, starting with the speckled one Madonna had laid. But the others looked so much alike it was hard to remember which was which and he forgot where he was up to and had to start again.

  When he got to the veranda steps, he saw Scarlet. Scarlet was scary. She was like Kryptonite. She made Superman lose all his powers and become Perry Angel again.

  Perry had found something in common with almost everyone who lived at the Kingdom of Silk. Even Blue. Blue loved sprawling across Nell’s knees and having his back scratched. So did Perry. Amber liked cooking and so did Perry. Ben liked sitting in the shed, whistling and whittling soft green willow sticks and so did Perry. Then there was singing with Annie, painting pictures of deep mystery like Indigo and wearing wings like Layla.

  Perry and Griffin often crossed the paddocks together and climbed the daisied hills where they lay on their stomachs sharing Ben’s binoculars and watching hawks hover in the never-ending sky.

  And Perry spent hours with Violet, picking posies of pansies, Sweet Alice, Johnny-jump-ups, jonquils and japonica. He made bouquets of baby’s breath, kiss-me-quick, love-in-a-mist, granny’s bonnets and forget-me-nots and learnt their pretty names. He and Violet pressed their petals flat between the leaves of large heavy books. And weeks later they peeked between the pages to see the everlasting flowers they had made, flowers for keeping, for remembering and for putting in homemade paper.

  There was nothing at all that Perry didn’t like doing with Nell. They looked for fairies amongst the bees when Nell was inspecting the hive. They walked in the rain, chatted to chickens, played pirates, danced the Spanish Fandango and ten million other things as well.

  The only person Perry seemed to share nothing with was Scarlet. So it surprised him when she waved a leg at him this Sunday morning and said, ‘Want to do my other foot, Superman?’

  Scarlet had never called Perry Superman before and today he wasn’t even in full uniform. It seemed like a good sign. So Perry sat the saucepan of eggs carefully on the top step, took the small bottle of red enamel from Scarlet’s outstretched hand and began to paint her toenails. It wasn’t nearly as much fun as painting deep mysteries and because he was nervous, Perry kept accidentally going over the lines and getting the red on Scarlet’s toes.

  When Perry had finished, Scarlet screwed the cap back on the bottle and put her foot up next to the other one. Perry held his breath while she looked at her toes with her slanting sea-green eyes.

  ‘Good job, Superman,’ she said. ‘Want to hear a poem?’

  Superman wasn’t sure. Sometimes poems are hard to understand, even for superheroes. But he wanted to please Scarlet, so he nodded his head and Scarlet patted the couch beside her.

  ‘Come on, lie down next to me. There’s plenty of room.’ She slid closer to the buttoned back of the couch, put her arm around his shoulders and drew him down beside her. He rested his head on the fringed and faded cushion beside Scarlet’s and tried to put his feet up on the other end next to hers. But they wouldn’t reach. Blue leapt up in the space at the end of the couch, turned around five times, scratched a lumpy cushion out of the way, then curled up with his chin on Superman’s bare feet and sighed contentedly. Superman was Blue’s favourite superhero. Blue didn’t know it, but he had secret powers of his own. Whenever Superman was feeling frightened, nervous or worried, he had only to touch Blue and he started feeling braver.

  Scarlet adjusted her sparkly spectacles. Superman’s X-ray vision noticed there weren’t any lenses in them, but he didn’t mention it. Scarlet began to read.

  ‘It’s called “Being Scarlet”
,’ she said.

  ‘Scarlet Silk is

  a teenager

  organises others

  not herself

  is

  mostly loud

  sometimes lazy

  often angry

  always loved

  is

  mean

  is nice

  is scared of mice

  is sometimes good

  and sometimes bad

  sometimes happy

  sometimes sad.

  Scarlet Silk

  writes poems in red

  won’t make her bed

  gets in fights

  wears black tights

  is

  tragic

  full of magic

  blows schoolboys kisses

  hates washing dishes.

  Scarlet Silk

  is

  a mystery

  to everyone

  including

  herself.’

  Superman thought Scarlet had finished, but she looked at him and then wrote something else.

  ‘and Superman.’

  She showed Superman what she’d written and told him what it said. Then she laughed. ‘Did you like it?’

  Superman nodded.

  The poem sounded exactly like Scarlet. But Superman hadn’t realised before that Scarlet was a mystery to other people as well as to him, even to herself.