The Child Garden by Catriona McPherson Read Free Book Online

ten.”
    â€œAnd the Scarlets,” said Stig. “Scarlet McFarlane and Scarlet McInnes. We called them Scarlet McFarlet and Skinny McInnes. God, kids are cruel.”
    â€œAnd April Cowan,” I said. “What did you call her?”
    â€œWhat did we not?” said Stig. “April Showers. And that turned into Golden Showers, but with any luck she didn’t know what that meant—and I can tell that you don’t either, so don’t ask me. We called her Cowgirl. And Cowface sometimes. And Skinny McInnes called her a different name every month. September, October, November … We thought that was the funniest thing out.”
    â€œYou bullied her,” I said.
    â€œEveryone ripped the piss out of everyone,” said Stig. “Miss Naismith called it bonding.”
    â€œMiss Naismith sounds like an idiot,” I said.
    â€œIf there was a bully,” said Stig, “it was Van. Van the Man. But then, after what happened, he probably never said a cross word to anyone ever again. He still lives round here.”
    â€œAfter what happened,” I repeated.
    â€œYeah.” He drained his whisky glass for the second time and set it down on the edge of the Rayburn top with a clunk, as if it was a gavel and he was calling himself to order. “So we slept outside. Dead excited. And we stayed dead excited until about ten o’clock. By then we’d eaten our midnight feast hours early and we were freezing cold and getting sore from lying on bracken beds, so we thought when Miss Naismith came to check on us, like she said she was going to, we’d ask to go back inside.”
    â€œWhy didn’t you just go?”
    â€œCouldn’t see a thing. We hadn’t taken torches, planning to look up at the stars. But it was cloudy. Pitch black once the fire burnt down. So we waited.”
    â€œPitch black at ten o’clock in May?” I said.
    â€œReally thick clouds,” said Stig. “We waited. The girls were all huddled in together. Or at least the weathergirls and the Scarlets were. April … I don’t know where April was exactly. I was freezing—feet numb, fingers numb, back killing me—and none of the boys would get zipped into sleeping bags together to stay warm. Nod and Ned McAllister were sort of spooned in, but the rest of us were nearly getting hypothermia.”
    â€œNod and Ned?”
    He had to think about it, finding it as hard to dredge up their real names as I would find it suddenly to call him Stephen. “Nathan and either Edwin or Edmund, I think,” he said at last. “Anyway. We fell asleep in the end, at least I did, and slept until it was getting light. Must have been four-ish and the sky had cleared. It was—just for a minute—it was what we had been after when we asked to stay out, you know? I opened my eyes and the sun was shining through the trees, but white and kind of … milky. And there was dewdrops all over my blanket. I could see them, like every one was shining, balanced on the ends of the threads sticking up, see it clear as anything. Dewdrops all over the pine needles too, even on the cones lying on the ground. Everything was sparkling.
    â€œThen I moved and, just like that, the dew was soaked into the wool and I was shivering. It was … this sounds mad, Glo, I know it does. But it was a perfect moment. It was like pure peace. Have you ever had a moment like that?”
    I couldn’t answer. All I could do was stare at him.
    â€œWell, anyway, maybe it only seems that way looking back because there hasn’t been a moment of pure peace ever since. I moved, the dew soaked in, I was freezing cold and soaking wet.”
    â€œThen what? Did you go back to sleep? Or was that when you realised something was wrong?”
    â€œOh. No, I didn’t go back to sleep. No, I never slept another wink until Van was shaking me, white as a ghost, saying Moped was missing.
    â€œWe