Cicada Summer by Kate Constable Read Free Book Online Page B

me. These days, I am better at listening. You understand?’
    Eloise gave a nod.
    ‘Yes. I think you are good at listening too, and watching. It’s all in here, hmm?’ He gently tapped the side of his head. ‘This is what some people do not understand. They think if nothing comes out of the mouth, there is nothing in the mind. All hollow, like a shell. No one inside.’
    Eloise curled her fingers round the handlebars. Did he think there was nothing in her mind, because she never spoke? Was that what everyone thought?
    ‘Some people might think it’s easy to stop talking. You never have to choose, this or that; other people decide for you. The hollow shell floats on the waves, carried where the sea takes it.’ His dark eyes smiled at Eloise, and his voice was kind. ‘But the words are still there, like little fish, hiding inside. One day, when you need them, the fish will swim out.’
    He smiled again, then politely stepped backward. ‘Excuse me, Miss Eloise. I must continue with my weeding.’
    He knelt again by the flowerbed, moving one leg with his hands as if it were rusted stiff. Eloise watched for a second, then she pushed her bike round the back of the house.
    ‘So you’ve met Professor Durrani,’ said Mo over their dinner of tinned soup. ‘He’s a clever man, a psychologist. You know what that is?’
    Eloise knew. At her last school, when they finally worked out that she was always quiet, they’d sent her into a room with a psychologist, a woman in a blue jacket who’d asked lots of questions in a soothing voice and let them hang in the air while Eloise stared at the carpet.
    But term had finished before they could arrange another meeting, and Dad had screwed up the letter from the school, thrown it in the bin and announced they were moving to the country.
    Tommy’s father wasn’t like that woman. Everything about her had been fake: her careful voice, her artificial smile, the dye in her hair. But Tommy’s dad seemed real; Eloise liked him. She didn’t want him to think there was nothing in her mind, that she was empty and echoing like a seashell.
    She didn’t want Mo to think that either, or Anna, or Tommy.
    As she cleaned her teeth that night, she looked at her reflection in the mirror. Was there anyone there? Suddenly she felt frightened. She spat out the toothpaste, banged the toothbrush on the basin, and made as much noise as she could, to prove to herself that she was still real.
    Eloise dreamed she was swimming in the ocean, deep beneath the waves, in an emerald-lit landscape of flickering fish and towering coral. Far off in the distance, she saw a castle resting on the ocean floor – like a model in an aquarium. Tiny figures waved to her from the battlements and faint voices reached her through the water.
    She began to swim toward them, but as she swam, the water thickened around her. Eloise kicked and pushed with all her strength, but she couldn’t get any nearer to the castle. It wasn’t a castle any more, it was a sunken boat. Though she didn’t seem to get any closer, she could see the little figures more clearly. Their voices were fainter now; they were turning away. She saw Dad and Bree and Mo and Tommy, except Tommy had a beard. And there was Anna, with her hands on her hips and her chin jutting up. Behind Anna was a woman, a grown-up woman, and Eloise knew it was her mother. Her mother was moving away, a blur of red and gold backing into the shadows; she was almost gone, and Eloise swam and kicked so hard she thought her lungs would burst, and she opened her mouth to scream out, Mum! I’m coming, Mum! But Anna was gone, Mum was gone, they were all drifting away, and Eloise’s mouth filled with water, and she was choking, drowning, and no one could hear. She jerked awake into the dark, her heart pounding, and she couldn’t get back to sleep.
    The next morning was very hot. The radio said there were bushfires in the national park; the smoke gave the sky a bronze sheen. The radio