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

But what if you didn’t have any thoughts, let alone flying ones? Kate chewed grimly on her pen.
    ‘Look! Look, Katie!’
    ‘What?’
    Lucy was back by the chair, the tiny figure of Mrs Noah clutched in her hand.
    ‘See how she’s got no head? Guess what happened? Mrs Lion said to Mr Lion, “I’m feeling very hungry, darling, because I’m going to have a cub.” And then Mr Lion said, “Don’t be sad, my dear. I know where there’s a most delicious lady–”’ Lucy planted a foot on the rung of her sister’s chair, and swung on it. ‘And then–’
    ‘Get off!’ roared Kate. ‘You’ll tip the chair over!’
    ‘No, I won’t! You’re sitting in it, and you’re so big and fat it can’t fall down.’
    Kate pushed her off and got up from the desk. She marched to the door.
    ‘Where are you going?’ demanded Lucy.
    ‘To the bathroom. At least I can be private there.’
    Kate sat on the edge of the bath and dreamed about her sleep-out. She imagined the little room all finished and ready for her – pictured the windows in place, the floor polished, a rug put down and curtains hung, her bed along one wall, her desk against the other – she imagined privacy and peace, and falling asleep without the sound of Lucy snoring.
    When she’d calmed down she went back to her real room, and Lucy was still there.
    She was lying on her bed with her eyes closed, but Kate could tell from the tiny glimmer beneath her lashes that she was still awake.
    Kate sat down at her desk and at once she saw something funny had happened there. It was so very odd that for a moment Kate couldn’t quite take it in. And then she did. Her pastels – her beautiful, special pastels that Aunty Marie had bought her from the art shop – were laid out in a long neat line beneath her workbook. And every single one of them had been neatly broken in half.
    ‘Lucy!’
    Lucy’s eyes snapped open.
    ‘Did you do this?’
    Lucy nodded.
    ‘You wicked, wicked–’ ‘Girl’ was too nice a word for Lucy. ‘You wicked little pest !’
    Lucy began to sob. ‘I was helping you!’
    ‘ Helping ?’
    ‘Yes! Now you’ve got two of all of them. If you lose one, like you thought you’d lost the green one, then you’ve got an extra–’
    Kate rushed to the door. ‘Mum!’ she bellowed down the hallway. ‘Mum! Mum! Mum!’
    It was late. Kate lay listening to Lucy snoring. Like an engine ticking over, she thought, stoking up for a fresh new day. ‘I hate that sound, ’ Kate whispered to herself. ‘I hate it more than any other sound in the world.’ She glanced across at her sleeping sister. ‘And I hate her .’
    All at once she remembered what Molly Matthews had said on the day Ms Dallimore had handed out their essay: how what you loved showed who you were.
    And if that was true, then wouldn’t it be the same with what you hated?
    Kate slipped from her bed, grabbed her workbook and hurried down the hall. The living room was empty: Mum and Dad had long since gone to bed. It was quiet and peaceful; the dark at the windows made Kate feel as if she had the whole world to herself.
    She opened her workbook and picked up her pen. ‘I am a person who hates my little sister, ’ she began, and then, beneath the garlanded title, her pen began to fly . Across the page, and the next page, and the next – it was wonderful, marvellous. She could actually describe stuff, the way she’d never been able to do before: like the way her scalp began to itch when Lucy got her really angry, as she’d done tonight, an itching which grew and grew until it was like the pricking of a thousand little knives . . .
    It was two in the morning when her mother appeared at the door.
    ‘Kate, what are you doing ?’
    Kate looked up with a dazzling smile. ‘I got an idea for my essay, and I wanted to write it down before l forgot, so I came down here.’ She added virtuously, ‘I didn’t want to turn the bedroom light on in case I woke Lucy up .’
    ‘Oh, ’ said her