the road have their own slide and paddling pool, but they don’t want to play with us for we’ve moved from the park - about five years ago, but well, people don’t let go of the past so easily in Northern Ireland. So we aren’t good enough.
But down in the council housing estate, known as The Park, they don’t want to play with us either for we’ve moved and become snobs, and for that we have to pay. They love to bully us. We are scared and alone. They sense blood and love to hunt us wherever we’re going. Which is a problem. Especially today, as the playground is in The Park and my bloody brother wants to go there, doesn’t he!
At the top of the steps leading down to the twisted shapes and rides in primary colours, I say a silent prayer, then out loud.
“C’mon, sure there’s no-one there anyhow.”
And for a while we are alone. Just the wind and some rain and the whoosh whoosh of cars racing by beyond the bushes. And just as I’m about to bribe my brother with some baked
beans for lunch if we go back now, I hear the sound of distant laughter. And, looking up, I see it’s time to run.
“Oh God! How I wish I was a bush. A big killer-thorned blackthorn bush.” I mutter and close my eyes in desperation.
And well you know that saying that sometimes you shouldn’t wish too hard……..
Newsflash
Police are still searching for the brother and sister who went missing early this morning. They were last seen at the local playground. Police reported finding a cardigan snagged on some blackthorn bushes in the nearby playing field.
This is the third such disappearance in this playground in the last thirteen months.
Epilogue
“I’m hungry.” says the little blackthorn bush.
“Snap up a few midges.” replies a bigger bush close by.
“But ah don’ wanntae eat midges. I wan’ baked beans.”
“Don’t be stupid. You can’t eat beans, you’re a blackthorn bush now.”
“But ah don’ wanntae be a blackthorn bush!” the little bush wails.
“Be quiet or they’ll hear you.” The big bush shakes her thorns, shiny finey killer thorns. But the little bush continues to wail. They, the Park kids, pissed off at not finding any prey to bully, are sparring with each other. They don’t seem to hear the wails of the hungry little blackthorn bush.
“I don’t wanntae be a blackthorn bush.” he persists.
“Oh God!” says the bigger one, exasperated “I don’t either, if you wanntae know the truth.”
Just then, a passing fairy lands on one of the bigger bush’s magnificent thorns.
“I am sorry.” says the fairy, “but you did wish.”
“Well can’t you just turn us back again?”
“No, I’m afraid not. I can grant you another wish though.”
“You mean I have one wish, but I can’t be the way I was before.”
“No neither you nor your brother. Take some time and think about it.” The little fairy begins to groom its wings.
“Shame the Crawfords aren’t here.” says one of the Park bullies.
“Aye,” laughs one of the others. “They’re always a good bit of entertainment.”
“Did you see that face on her the other day.” chimes in one of the other park bullies, “when Sandra Watson pulled aul’ Crawford’s knickers down in front of everybody at the bus stop. Did youse?”
A chorus of ayes. They fall about laughing.
The bigger bush is horrified and turns to the fairy. “Ok I know what I want. I want you to turn those bullies into plants just like us.”
“You mean like blackthorn bushes?” says the little bush.
“Oh no, no, that would be too good for them. No let me think.” Just then a lawnmower starts up. Someone from the district council sent to trim the playing field.
“I know,” says the big blackthorn bush excitedly. “Turn them into meadow flowers and put them on the pitch right in the path of that lawnmower.”
“Wonderful!” tinkles the fairy and then off she goes and does just that…
The Big Brown Car
The big brown car. It’ll be there again soon. My mother likes its visits. Shoos me out to play:
“Have tae hoover. Tidy the place up. The Insurance Man’s comin’. Ye’ll only git in the way.”
It’s cold outside. My plastic wellies keep suckin’ at my socks, rubbin’ my heels raw. The leaves are turnin’ on their branches. I stick my fingers in my ears cos’ I don’t want to hear then screamin’ as they’re torn off and tumbled through the wind until the last bit of life is ripped out of them.
Big piles of mushy leaves everywhere. Yesterday Billy McCausland slipped on one, twisted his ankle and lay there, coped up, bellowing. I was glad. That’s what he gets for callin’ me names.
But now there’s no-one to play with. The Park kids are either off on mid-term holidays or inside where it’s warm. Inside. Where I want to be, with my books, suckin’ sweets, door locked against my brother. I stick a hand into the inside pocket of my duffel coat, finger the ghost of a big bag of sherbet chews. Raspberry flavour. My favourite. I can taste them. Desire makes me head down the driveway. There’s no-one around by the Thompsons, so it’s easy. They have no porch. The empty mineral bottles are crowded together by the back door steps, like a herd of frozen sheep pushin’ into each
other for shelter. I’m doin’ them a favour really as I slip as many of them as I can into my father’s duffel bag. Borrowed from a hook in the garage.
Anyhow it’s not a garage really. Yesterday it was a café and the day before a centre for spies with special powers. Once I’d unstuck myself from the pebble dash on the walls of our bungalow and made it safely across the patio – you could never be sure what was lurkin’ under the cypress bushes – I discovered the garage had become an agent headquarters and I was to be given a mission, a zap gun, and a handsome man spy to travel with. As I nodded and picked up my zap gun, the garage door swung upwards.
“What the blazes are ye doin’? Put that down! I told ye it was dangerous!” My father grabbed my zap gun.
“Lizzie!“ He shouted in the direction of the open dining room window: “Can ye not give that cutty somethin’ tae do. She’s been playin’ with the blow torch again!”
My mother made me dust the china dolls. All those miserable Parisian ladies trapped behind dull porcelain. Mirrored my own misery I thought. Anyhow today I had stayed away from the garage. Except to borrow the duffel bag
