ARABELLA.

You know you have a friend when you can sit on a see saw
with them for hours; then trudge back home through the cowpats
without having uttered a word. That’s what it’s like with Arabella.
The only downside is that Arabella is much heavier than me, so I
have to do all the work on the see-saw. Sometimes she disappears
from view, and all I can see are the tops of the trees and lazy smoke
trails left by the planes. Can they see me? Not just the families who
got a cheap deal with Virgin Airways, but the squirrels and the
chaffinches; the midgets and the bungee-jumpers; the forgotten
helium balloon? I ponder for a moment, just a moment, before
whooshing into the air and I swear my bottom leaves the seat for a
bit. I lift my hand and reach for something, anything. A snippet of
June air.

The last time I trod in a cowpat was when I wasn’t looking

where I was going because I was thinking of how Arabella’s breath
smelt like oranges. Luckily it had gone hard, but it was still quite
unpleasant. A shifty looking cow lifted her head and looked at me.
She was munching on some cud and I stuck my tongue out at her.
“Watch where you poo next time, twenty-nine!”
They all have little numbers stamped on their rumps. Sometimes,
when I know it’s going to be marmite sandwiches for tea, I scamper
round the field and I’m not allowed to leave until I’ve touched every
single nose in order. They moo at me and twitch their ears, but by
the time I’ve reached forty their shadows stretch for miles and I
know it’s time to go home.
“Eurgh, Cel you stink!”
“A cow shat in my path.”
“Celandine!”
“Arabella taught me that word.” I scrambled up the stairs and took
some cow-parsley out of my pocket to place under my pillow. I
heard my mother roll her eyes.
“Get down here and have some tea. You’re late, Heidi.” She pulled
fondly at my plaits as I reached the bottom stair.
“Number thirty-two had wandered into the wood.”
“Ah.”
“And I couldn’t find thirty-eight anywhere.”
She smiled at me then; put her hands on my waist and smiled.
“What?”
“Nothing.”

****
Arabella once told me that being stung by a wasp isn’t actually all
that bad. Because Arabella’s always right, I decided to get over my
fear once and for all. When Mum was on the phone ordering carpet
samples I tiptoed into her study, found a pen and the back of a
receipt for washing up powder, and wrote ‘Where is the best place
to find a wasp?” She leaned over, lodged the ear piece between her
cheek and shoulder and wrote “compost.” I drew a little dancing
stick-man and dashed out into the garden. But I didn’t get stung by
a wasp that day. I still haven’t been stung by a wasp. No matter how
far I scrambled into the heap of rotting food; no matter how much
egg shell got stuck in my hair and orange peel down my top, I
retreated to the house sullied, malodorous, and thoroughly un-
stung. I wish I could find Arabella and ask her why.

****
A cold night is often the best time to climb inside the airing
cupboard. I used to curl up on the top shelf, my head against the
boiler, with Arabella perched below me. She couldn’t sit up high with
me or the shelf would break.
“Have you ever wondered what it’s like inside the boiler?” I rapped
it with my knuckle. “It’s probably warmer inside.”
Arabella never really spoke.
“Imagine if there were things living in it! But even if there were, I
don’t suppose the things would like it much if we disturbed them.” I
kneeled up and peered over the top. As I puffed my cheeks out, the
dust made spiralling roller-coasters in the air. Woodlice scurried
from my outstretched hand; an ancient spider lay knotted in his
web.
“There’s another world in here, Arabella.”

My mum never knew where I was. I would listen to her calls for
hours; my grin ominous in the gloom of the cupboard.

“Celandine! Please come out from wherever you are – your dad and
I want to talk to you.” It is some time after the cowpat incident, the
boiler has been turned off, and I am resting my cheek against the
chill of the metal.
“Cel, please!”
Arabella shuffles below me. After hesitating for a second, I clamber
down from the shelf and press my mouth to the crack in the door.
“Ok, I’ll come out. But you have to go away otherwise you’ll know
where we’ve been hiding!” I hear a little sigh of floorboard; then
push the door open and peer out onto the landing. I listen to the
radiator hum for a bit, before hurrying Arabella out and calling, “OK
Mum, we’re ready!”

It feels different down in the kitchen. I pull up a chair for Arabella,

and sit opposite my mum and dad. Hands clasped; glasses balanced
on nose; steaming mug on the side. They look like office people.
“Celandine, we’ve been meaning to talk to you for a while, but
didn’t want to rush things until we knew that our decision was
right.”
The toaster pings and Mum jumps.
“Now, I know this is going to change things a considerable amount,
Cel, and it might even be quite difficult at first. But we just want you
to see how you like it for a few weeks.”
Rain starts to spatter on the window and make criss-cross lines all
over the glass.
“How would you like to start school, Cel?”
“What’s school?”
My question must surprise them because Dad pushes his glasses up
his nose like he always does when he get’s confused, and Mum’s
brow furrows so much I almost can’t see her eyes anymore.
“You know, Cel. School is a place where you learn. You learn about
the world, and about the people in it. You learn how many potatoes
you’ll need to buy at the groceries; you learn where Africa is, and
where the kangaroos live; and what’s more, you’ll make lots of
friends. Now wouldn’t that be nice?”
I shake my head.
“But I don’t go to the groceries. And I’ve already got a friend.
Arabella.”
My parents exchange a look. I hate it when they do that – as if they
know everything. But they have never explored the nooks and
crannies of the world. They don’t know that when you tilt your head
back on a see-saw, the sky looks like a blue helmet resting on the
earth. They don’t know that one piece of cow parsley picked on a
June afternoon can be used as a feather duster. They don’t know
that there’s a dead spider on top of the boiler in the airing
cupboard. And they certainly don’t know how special Arabella is.
I tell them this, before running out of the door and sprinting into the
field behind my house. I jump into every cowpat I see. I jump until
my shins are covered in brown muck. I jump until the sun shies
away from me, and I am left to jump in the dark.

***
“Now then Class, we have a new face in our midst. Celandine, would
you like to stand up and introduce yourself?” No, I don’t. But I stand
up anyway. Mrs Busting beams at me over her fat spectacles.
Before beginning, I take a breath and hold it for ten seconds. Then
the words tumble out.
“My name’s Celandine, obviously. But I hate it because it
sounds like celery and celery is my least favourite food.”
Someone titters at the back but I sweep a wisp of hair from
my face and stride on.
“My favourite name is Arabella because I have a best friend
called Arabella and we do everything together. She’s quite fat but
that doesn’t matter because she’s a lovely person on the inside. Her
favourite food is cherries and once we sat in the field behind my
house and ate so many that we could spell our names on the plate
with our tongues.” The girl next to me with the silly plaits giggles.
“What’s so funny?”
“Hush, Polly, hush!” Mrs Busting warbles. “Oh, what a lovely story!
Does anyone have a question for her? No? You may sit down then,
Celandine.”
I sit down and she turns to the blackboard with a flourish. The
remainder of the lesson is a blur; secrets are whispered back and
forth amongst the girls with the flowery hair, and the boys sit
churlish and slumped in their seats. I think of the cows grazing in
the fields, and the seeds from the dandelion clocks getting caught in
the wind and flitting here and there like ball-dancers. I think of
Arabella, all cooped up in my room with only Mr Ted to talk to; he
not being the most absorbing character. Mrs Busting chirrups on
about similes and adjectives, her chalk getting smaller and smaller
until she has to rummage around in her desk for another. She
emerges with a red that matches her cheeks; then continues to
scribble away like she is the only person in the room.
“I thought what you said was very funny.”
The girl with the silly plaits is leaning towards me with round eyes.
“Well, it wasn’t supposed to be,” I whisper and then turn away,
haughty. She taps me on the shoulder though, and I look round at
her again.
“I didn’t mean to be nasty. I thought you sounded very clever,
actually.”
She has a freckle on the end of her nose.
“You did?”
“Yes, I did.”
I pause, then. Despite the fact that the pink ribbons on the end of
her plaits make her look like a Barbie doll, I decide to accept her
compliment. She flicks her hair and invites me to sit with her at
lunch. I oblige with a small smile, and sit for the rest of the lesson in
silence, brimming with a happiness I am afraid might burst out of
my skin at any moment.

***
My mother is waiting for me at the gate with a bag of shopping and
a buttercup in her hair. I cling to her, losing my smile in the folds of
her painting coat.
“You’ve come straight from work?”
“Of course I have,” she says, and ruffles the back of my neck.
“Come on, you silly girl, you can’t have missed me that much.” I
bury myself deeper in reply. She smells of hallways and roller
brushes, of banisters and cups of tea.

The journey home is slow and long-awaited. We bump along our

track with Doris Day crooning out of the speakers and the oranges
from the Sainsbury’s bag rolling around in the boot.
“Good day?” Dad is up a ladder when we get in.
“No,” I say as I change into my spattered wellies.
“Oh. Did you make any friends?”
“Yep.” And then I dash out into the glare of the sun to tell Arabella
all about Polly.

***

The days trundle by like a bicycle with square tyres. I learn about
sea anemones and crayfish; about Henry VIII and his hundreds of
wives. I pair up with Polly for every activity, and she teaches me
how to put plaits in my hair. She squeals at my adventures with
Arabella, and she brings in bags of Jelly Babies which we eat
surreptitiously under the desk. Mrs Busting never notices. But I soon
realise that the question I so desperately want to ask her becomes
harder and harder to put into words each day.
“Polly?”
“Yes?”
“Can I have another jelly baby?”
“Of course!”
“Polly?”
“Yes?”
“What’s 12 – 8?”
“4.”
“Polly?”
“Yes?”
I take another sweet and stuff it into my mouth.
“Would you like to come to my house for tea?”
Her eyes brighten and dimples appear on each cheek.
“I’d love to,” she grins and tips the whole bag of jelly babies into my
lap.

***

Arabella isn’t in my room when we get back. I assume she is out on

the seesaw. Mr Ted lies neglected on my pillow, his nose buried
amongst the forget-me-not frills. Polly bounces up to my tea set and
starts clattering around and putting the oven gloves on her head. I
stand in the doorway with my head tipped on one side. We end up
playing all afternoon; pretending to be television presenters and
cooking all sorts of outrageous dishes. Hector the Moose has to go
through a terrible ordeal in which Polly tries to open him up to take
the stuffing out, only to show how to put it back in again. I wince as
she demonstrates cooking his head on a plate and putting parsnips
up his nose.
“Do be careful with Hector.”
“Don’t worry, Cel! I have everything under control.”
Polly is just exclaiming how Mr Ted would make a perfect dessert,
when my mother calls us down to tea. My new friend bounds down
to the kitchen and hops up onto Arabella’s seat. I don’t say a word,
but my chest is burning.

***

“Wasn’t she lovely! Oh Cel, you have made a good friend.”

I mumble my agreement, running a finger around the rim of my
ribena cup. I can see the see-saw from the kitchen window, but the
fading light obscures any figure that might be lurking amongst the
cows. I finish my drink, and then slope off upstairs. After peeking in
the airing-cupboard, I cross the threshold into my empty room. Mr
Ted lies face down beneath the plastic cooker. I move to look under
my bed, but the darkness is startling. A forgotten pair of socks lies
sluggish against the skirting-board. The days are already getting
shorter, and it’s only mid-September. In the summer, shafts of light
dance their way across my bedroom, making stripes across the
floorboards and spots of sunshine on the ceiling. This five o’ clock
shadow is foreboding; and my eyes sting for Arabella.
The days turn into weeks, and crispy golden leaves start to clog up
our gutter. The gentle scrape scrape scrape of Dad’s garden rake
follows us all the way to the meadow. Polly and I take blankets to
make sure our bottoms don’t get wet. But it never works, and Polly
always cackles because it looks like I’ve wet myself. We laugh and
play; play and laugh. Polly brings jelly babies, and hair bands for my
pigtails. I lean back on the see saw and look at the tops of the trees.
The branches look naked against the waning sky; grasping and
grappling for the escaping leaves. I watch their fiery ascent,
tumbling through bitter and doleful wind, raging against each other,
gyrating and curtsying to the ground. I watch one rest on a park
bench, only to be caught up again and raced to another land.

***

It’s early July, and Polly and I have just finished our A Levels. My
mother calls me up to her study; I gurgle my apple juice and bound
up the stairs two at a time.
“Look what I just found, Cel.”
I look over her shoulder and then snatch the piece of paper from her
hands. My scrawled seven year old handwriting is unmistakeable.

MY BEST FREND
by Celandine Linfield

my best frend is called arabella and we do basicly

everything together the other day I fell off my see saw onto
a stinging nettle and she went and got a dock leaf and
rubbed it on my sore knee –

“What’s this?” Polly appears behind me, but I clutch it to my chest.

“Nothing,” I smile.
That night, I find the dried up cow parsley from my chest of drawers
and go to the window. The breeze grabs it and carries it up and up
and up; I watch it get caught on a holly leaf, and then break free. I
watch it rise and fall, rise and fall against the tides of the wind, until
it is out of sight.
***************