My Name Is Mina by David Almond Read Free Book Online

fact that your head is large enough to contain the night. That is all, and it is hardly anything at all. No need to write anything down unless you would like to. Just remember. And wonder. And do the activity again when you have a moment. Do not worry about staring into the dark. It is an excellent thing to do .
     
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    * And incidentally VERBS ARE NOT “DOING WORDS.” “Stop” is a verb. And if I say “I stop,” I have stopped doing anything. I am doing absolutely nothing whatsoever at all! I would have told Mrs. Scullery that, but by this time she was getting totally fed up with me. She would have said, “That is just playing with words,” and I would have answered, “And what is wrong with playing with words? Words love to be played with, just like children or kittens do!” Which she wouldn’t have understood at all and which would have made her even more and more fed up.
* Do not look into the sun, of course. (Health & Safety Warning!)
* Do not look into the moon, of course. (Health & Sanity Warning!)

 

Night again. Spring is strange. The year’s supposed to be moving towards summer, but sometimes it seems to be turning right back to winter again. The sky was the color of steel all day. There was frost in the morning and it stayed all day under the trees and on the shady side of the garden wall.
    I went out and climbed into the tree but the bark was icy and the breeze was bitter and even with two fleeces on I was freezing cold. The blackbirds didn’t seem to care. They went on flying in and out of the tree, singing and squawking. But what if this year the spring didn’t come at all? What if something dreadful had happened to the seasons for some awful reason?
    I jumped down to the ground. Not a soul to be seen. I knelt on the grass and banged the ground with my fist and said,
    “Come on, Persephone! Don’t give up, Persephone!”
    Persephone, who I thought I might meet during my journey to the Underworld, spends the winter in Hades with Pluto, the King of the Underworld. When it’s time for spring she makes herway back up to the earth again. Spring doesn’t start until she’s back. In ancient Greece, they had music and dancing and singing to call her back, to make sure that spring arrived again.
    “Come on!” I said, more loudly. I punched the ground again. I imagined her coming up through the earth’s endless complicated tunnels. “Keep going! Don’t get lost! Don’t give up!”
    I looked up and there was a woman, staring down at me. I think I recognized her from somewhere nearby. She had a checked green coat on, a woolly scarf, a yellow hat, white hair, and very kind eyes. She had a shopping bag on wheels with her.
    “Are you all right, my dear?” she said.
    “Yes, thank you.”
    “You’ll catch your death down there,” she said.
    “I’ll be all right. I’m just calling for Persephone.”
    She made a little laughing sound.
    “The goddess of the spring!” she said.
    “You know about her!”
    “Of course I do, dear. Doesn’t everybody?” She cupped a shaky hand around her mouth and whispered, “Come on, Persephone! Come back up to the world again! We’re freezing cold up here!” She giggled. She looked around. “Folk’ll think we’re daft.” She looked at me. “Do you think we’re daft?”
    “Yes,” I said.
    “Good. What’s a world without daftness in it?”

     
    “What’s your name?” she said.
    “My name’s Mina.”
    “Hello, Mina. My name’s Grace.”
    “Hello, Grace.”
    She smiled and reached across the garden wall and took my hands in hers. Her hands were bony, dry and cold.
    She winked at me.
    “I’ve seen you in your tree, Mina. You look quite at home up there.”
    “I am.”
    “I used to love climbing, when I was a girl. I used to dream of climbing trees all day, stepping and swinging from one to the next, never once coming down to ground.”
    “Did you ever do it?”
    “Not enough trees, Mina. But I made a lovely little circuit in my garden.