Kalpana's Dream by Judith Clarke Read Free Book Online Page A

down behind the monkeys’ enclosure? Well, there’s a track through there, right down the hill to the beach at the bottom, and round the rocks there’s this other little beach, really small – a sort of secret beach. It’s got this great sand, really white, and sort of, uh – pearly.’
    ‘Pearly, ’ echoed Ivy.
    ‘So, wanna go there one day?’
    ‘I might, ’ replied Ivy. And then she sighed, because somehow she couldn’t imagine Ms Dallimore’s distinguished companion taking a lady anywhere near a zoo.

    Ms Dallimore woke suddenly in the very middle of the night. She pictured Vladimir’s dinner plate as it had been the first time she’d gone out to the kitchen in search of a fresh fork: she saw the untouched chop, and the potatoes, and the peas. She remembered how when she’d come back the peas and the chop had vanished, and when she’d come back the second time the potatoes had gone too – the plate was bare. Completely bare.
    The question was – and it worried Ms Dallimore a little, as such things do in the middle of the night – what had happened to the chop bone?

9
‘Is That Your Homework?’
    ‘Is that your homework? Is it?’
    Kate sat at her desk and Lucy hung over her shoulder, her warm breath tickling the back of her sister’s neck.
    ‘Yes, ’ said Kate shortly. She’d hardly done a thing: only printed the title and begun to circle it with a border of bright green ivy leaves.
    Lucy pointed a stubby finger at the words inside the leaves. ‘What does that say?’
    ‘Who am I?’
    ‘Is that what you have to do? Write about who you are? Is it?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘I could do that! It’s easy!’
    ‘You can’t write.’
    ‘But when I can, when I go to Big School, next year, I’ll write heaps and heaps. About me! About who I am!’
    She would too, thought Kate.
    ‘I can write my name – nearly. I can write “L” for Lucy.’ A chubby hand reached out towards the box of pastels. Kate pushed it away. ‘Don’t touch! You know you’re not allowed to use them! They’re my special ones!’
    For once Lucy didn’t argue, but she kept on standing there, close up beside Kate’s chair. Why did Lucy always have to follow her? Ten minutes ago Lucy had been in the kitchen, pestering Mum to take her to the zoo. A bout of pestering from Lucy could go on for hours, yet the moment Kate sat down at her desk to think , here she was again.
    ‘You’ve hardly done anything !’
    ‘That’s because I’ve only just started, ’ said Kate, struggling to keep her temper down. ‘I’m making the heading look nice, see?’ She reached for the green pastel, to finish her ivy leaves.
    It wasn’t there.
    ‘Where’s my green pastel?’
    Lucy’s hands were hidden behind her back.
    ‘Did you take it? Did you?’
    ‘No!’ Lucy held her hands out, empty. ‘It’s there!’ She pointed to the desk. Kate’s crayon had rolled behind her pencil case.
    ‘Oh.’ Kate picked it up and drew more leaves around her heading.
    Lucy watched. ‘Now are you going to start writing? Writing about who you are?’
    Kate’s scalp began to itch, as it often did when Lucy started to annoy her.
    ‘Are you? Now ?’
    Kate scratched wildly at her head. ‘In a minute. But I can’t do it with you standing there watching me; I can’t think when you do that. Why don’t you go somewhere else?’
    ‘Mum told me to come up here.’
    Kate clenched her teeth. Trust Mum.
    ‘It’s my room too, ’ said Lucy. ‘Half of it is mine.’
    ‘You go over there, then, ’ said Kate. ‘Play with your Noah stuff.’ She pointed to a far corner of the room, where the ark and its little plastic animals lay scattered on the floor. Lucy stomped towards it. ‘You’re mean ! That’s what you should write! “My name is Katie and I’m mean !”’
    Kate didn’t answer. She bent her head over her desk.
    ‘Make notes of your thoughts, ’ Ms Dallimore had told them. ‘Do it quickly, before they fly away. That will get you started.’