Talking to the Moon Read online

  Also by S. E. Durrant

  Shortlisted for the Branford Boase Award 2017

  Shortlisted for the UKLA Book Awards 2017

  Nominated for the CILIP Carnegie Medal 2017

  “This remarkable debut novel reads as if written by an experienced children’s author at the height of her powers… This is an uplifting and convincing evocation of time and place, of two vivid young lives, and of the hope that kindness can offer.”

  The Sunday Times, Children’s book of the week

  “This blew me away, what a very special debut. Tender, heartbreaking and ultimately uplifting.”

  Fiona Noble, The Bookseller

  “Little Bits of Sky is a truly, truly, truly lovely story. It is completely comfortable in its own skin from the first page to the last … feeling deeply authentic and real. Uplifting and heartwarming without ever being twee, this debut will find a place in the heart of readers of any age.”

  The Bookbag

  “What makes it even more special is how Durrant keeps it realistic but maintains a sense of hope and optimism. A must-read.”

  BookTrust

  “So good and fresh and believable.”

  Emma Chichester Clark

  “…a beautiful book … the characters are brilliantly drawn. I can offer no higher compliment than that this is worthy of Elizabeth Laird at her very best.”

  The Scotsman

  For the teachers and children

  I have met along the way

  1

  October

  THE LOST GIRL

  The lost girl looks like me. Even though she’s two and I’m nearly eleven. She’s got the same wavy hair and gappy teeth and her hair could be red like mine, though it’s hard to tell in a black-and-white photo. You just have to guess. (My guess is it’s red.) The photo’s bent at the edges as if it’s been carried around in someone’s pocket and the corners got turned over. The girl’s wearing a short-sleeved dress with a white collar and she’s standing on the stones on Brighton beach with the West Pier in the background (the pier that burned down).

  She might be smiling but she’s also squinting as if she’s got the sun in her eyes or maybe an eyelash. I can’t really tell. All I know is on that day, whenever it was, she stood on the beach with a bucket at her feet and an ice cream in her hand. Looking like me. There could be a seagull hovering out of sight waiting to dive-bomb her ice cream, or she might have let the ice cream drip down her wrist because she never liked it in the first place. She just held it for the photo. Or it might have been the best ice cream she ever tasted.

  Mimi pulled her out of a box of old photos and propped her on the mantelpiece next to the bracelet. She called her the lost girl.

  Every now and then, if we leave the window open or if someone walks in the door, the photo flutters on to the carpet.

  On the back it says Coral.

  Bad things, good things

  My name’s Iris and my grandma’s name’s Mimi. And that’s what I call her. The whole family does. I know some people think it’s weird but it’s not weird for me or my mum or even the two-year-old twins. I’ve been staying with her for five weeks. If I could stay here forever, I would. I’ve got my mum’s old bedroom all to myself and there’s no damp or black mould crawling across the walls like in my real bedroom. There’s no water seeping in at the corners either, and even though the room’s full of Mimi’s stuff I don’t mind at all.

  Other good things are:

  There’s a seagull living on the roof.

  I don’t have to see my dad pull his hair out while he looks at the mould in my bedroom.

  I don’t have to hear my heart pound when the twins pull the radiator off the wall or think they can fly by jumping off the kitchen table (yes they’ve done both).

  And I don’t have to watch my mum run out of the door eating a slice of toast because she’s late for work and spend the whole day worrying she might have choked on her way to the hospital (she’s a doctor) and there’ll be no one there to do the Heimlich manoeuvre. (The Heimlich manoeuvre, in case you’re wondering, is what you do when someone’s choking. I learned it after one of the twins tried to swallow a Christmas bauble.)

  Even though Mimi’s house is not far from mine, living here is the opposite of living at home. We eat when we feel like it, we talk when we feel like it, we listen to each other. We bake cakes. We make a mess. And we sit on the sofa and look at her millions of photos from when she was a photographer. It’s a ten-minute walk to the beach. These are the good things.

  The not-so-good things are: the shower’s cold, I don’t always get breakfast, things go missing. But that’s mostly it! More good than bad.

  Mimi’s seagull

  Our seagull always calls twelve times – kee-yah kee-yah kee-yah kee-yah kee-yah kee-yah kee-yah kee-yah kee-yah kee-yah kee-yah kee-yah – then takes a breath. I’m calling our seagull her because you can’t really tell with seagulls. Not unless they lay an egg. And there’s no egg. Not this year anyway. She’s my new, non-human friend.

  I communicate with our seagull telepathically. I’m pretty sure she understands. I think she’s trying to tell me my life will be perfect when I’m twelve.

  I’ve been trying to work out if other seagulls call the same number of times but I’ve noticed they don’t. Our seagull’s special. The seagull on Lee and Danny’s roof over the road calls eight times, ten times or sixteen times (all even numbers). That might mean something – I’ve no idea. Then again, it might be lots of different seagulls. I only know ours. And if you’re wondering how I know ours, all I can tell you is it’s something to do with the way she tilts her head. And the look in her eyes.

  The seagulls on the beach cry any number of times. The most I’ve heard is one hundred and thirty-eight times from two seagulls circling a family eating chips. (Yes really!) It’s probably a record.

  Bungee jump

  I’m sitting on the step in Mimi’s little back garden, watching the seagull watching me from the top of the shed, when a voice says, “Have you ever done a bungee jump?”

  A boy’s peering over the top of the hedge.

  “Have you? Have you?” he says.

  I shake my head.

  “I’m going to do one when I’m old enough,” he says. “It’s going to be one of my challenges.”

  I look away but he carries on.

  “I thought it was just an old woman who lived there,” he says.

  I grit my teeth. If I don’t speak to him, maybe he’ll stop talking. He doesn’t.

  “I thought it was just a crazy old woman who talks to the moon.”

  “She’s not crazy,” I say, “and she’s not just an old woman. She’s my grandma, if you want to know. And she’s called Mimi. And I live here too.”

  “OK,” he says. “I’m coming through.”

  He drops out of sight and a stick followed by two hands pushes through a gap in the bottom of the hedge. Then comes curly black hair with leaves caught in it and a pair of glasses falling off a nose and behind them a face all screwed up and concentrating. He stands up and shakes himself down.

  “We’re in the same class,” he says, “you and me. I’m Mason.”

  I know he’s Mason. He’s the boy who started my school two weeks ago, who throws paper aeroplanes across the room when Miss Sharma’s not looking, who tells jokes no one laughs at and walks out of school alone.

  And now he’s my neighbour.

  Mason

  Mason stays forever, poking at things with his stick, talking about his mum and her driving lessons and his hobby collecting marbles and his new room. The seagull gets bored and flies up on to the chimney. If I could fly up there myself, I would.

  Eventually I say, “I’m going in now.”
br />   Just like that. Quite rude really. I watch out of the kitchen window as Mason waits for a few minutes then crawls back through the hedge. As soon as he’s gone the seagull flies back down to the shed and screeches. Twelve times.

  Here’s what I learned about Mason:

  He just moved next door with his mum who works as an accountant for a big company, which means she’s always, always, always in the office or working at home (Mason’s words). And his mum’s brilliant with numbers (Mason’s words). He says you can give her any numbers and she can add them up or divide them or multiply them. All in her head. He’s pretty impressed with his mum.

  His bedroom is next to mine. They both look on to the little back gardens and we have the same flat roof outside our rooms. He says if we want we can meet on the flat roof sometimes. (I don’t want.)

  He can’t stay still, even for one moment.

  He goes to the flea market every week to look for marbles (his grandad gave him his first one).

  His grandad’s very old now. Mason says he’s losing his marbles. (He thought this was really funny and explained he didn’t mean real marbles. I think I’d already worked that out.)

  He wants us to walk to school together and go to the market together and do lots of things together. (I don’t want to do anything with him.)

  He thinks Mimi’s garden and his garden is just one garden with a hedge down the middle.

  That means he thinks it’s his.

  Me and the seagull

  “Have you made a new friend?” says Mimi.

  “No.”

  “Oh, that’s a shame,” she says. “Just I saw you talking to that boy.”

  I shrug.

  “Not wanting to be rude,” she says, “but you could do with a friend.”

  “That is rude,” I say. “And anyway, you’re my friend. You and the seagull.”

  She wraps her arms round me. She smells of her special purple soap.

  “That’s very sweet,” she says, “but wouldn’t you like a friend your own age? And species?”

  She’s laughing.

  “Ha ha,” I say. “Not really.”

  “Well, aren’t we lucky then?” she says. “Me and the seagull.”

  And she digs her fingers into my ribs and tickles me, so even though I’m annoyed I can’t be annoyed for long.

  Interesting things about Mimi

  My dad calls Mimi a live wire. My mum rolls her eyes when he says this because Mimi’s her mum and maybe it was no fun growing up with a live wire. Because a live wire is full of electricity and jumps around all over the place and if you’re not careful it can give you an awful shock. Dad doesn’t mind, though. He’s an electrician when he’s not looking after the twins. He knows how to handle it. And I don’t mind either. It makes life interesting.

  Anyway, things about Mimi:

  Small.

  Very thin.

  Gappy teeth like me (and Coral).

  Long white hair – it used to be brown. (Me and Mum got the red hair.)

  Patterned scarf in her hair or round her shoulders.

  Wears earrings – sometimes dangly ones, sometimes shiny studs.

  Likes bright dresses with patterns.

  Wears yellow sandals in summer and red ankle boots in winter and pink slippers in the house.

  Messy. Mum says very messy. Mimi has stuff everywhere and she likes it. (I like it too actually.)

  Puts ribbons on things – kitchen drawers, baskets, her apron, her swimming costume, her finger.

  Moves like a bird – fast, like she might be about to take off. If she had wings, I don’t think she’d ever come down from the sky.

  Every now and then she does a little dance. In the kitchen, in the living room, in the street. (Yes, it’s embarrassing.)

  Her face usually goes up – smile, eyebrows – but when it goes down it goes down a very long way and she looks about a hundred years old.

  Loves to swim in the sea. She’s done it since she was a little girl.

  A bit forgetful.

  Likes to laugh.

  Her most precious thing is the bracelet she keeps on the mantelpiece. Her dad made it for her before he was killed in the war. He sent it home to Brighton when Mimi was four years old. Mimi says it’s worth nothing and everything all at the same time. It’s got five red wooden beads, three metal beads and a small green metal whistle and they’re threaded on to a bit of string with a knot you can tighten.

  Oh, another thing about Mimi is she wants to sort all her photos before she dies.

  I said, “You’re not going to die soon, are you?”

  And she said, “Not if I can help it.”

  2

  REALLY HONESTLY TRULY

  I’m the only one in my family who doesn’t like swimming in the sea. Even the twins like it. So long as they’ve got enormous towels and lots of snacks and someone to make a fuss of them when they get cold. But I don’t like it at all. I especially hate it when my feet can’t touch the ground because I don’t know what’s hiding there.

  When I was little I told my dad there was a monster in the sea. I used to tell him everything. And he said there was really honestly truly nothing to worry about. He actually said it like that – really honestly truly. He said in Brighton you get mackerel and seagulls and you might even see a seal, but he’d never seen a shark or even heard of one.

  And after that every time we went in the sea he would chase me with his hands like jaws and then he would lift me on to his shoulders so the shark couldn’t get me. But to be honest I didn’t exactly think there was a shark. I just felt sure there was something hiding under the water, waiting to grab me. And even now I’m older I still believe that. Because, really honestly truly, how could anyone ever really know there isn’t?

  Jam on scrambled eggs

  Mimi’s got a blue ribbon tied round her finger and a flowery scarf holding up her hair. She’s about to drop a spoonful of strawberry jam on to my scrambled egg and I’m about to stop her when Mason appears in the garden. When he sees us he freezes. He’s got that look my dad calls “rabbit in the headlights” – like when the twins were caught eating a tub of ice cream under the bed.

  I wave the ketchup at Mimi but it’s too late. She plops the jam on to my egg and opens the kitchen door. Mason tries to make himself invisible by standing completely still, but he’s wearing a big woolly red jumper and his glasses are lopsided. It doesn’t work.

  “Welcome,” says Mimi. “Come in and have some breakfast.”

  I can tell Mason doesn’t want to come in, but before he knows it he’s sitting at the kitchen table and Mimi’s picking four hedge leaves out of his hair. She lays them on the table in a line. Mason picks them up and puts them in his pocket.

  “Thanks,” he grunts.

  I give Mimi a look (meaning don’t encourage him to stay) but she ignores me.

  “Nice to meet you,” she says. “I’m Mimi. Scrambled eggs?”

  Mason shakes his head.

  Mimi’s hair is slowly falling out of its scarf and her glasses are sliding down her nose. It’s not a relaxing look.

  “Juice?” she says.

  Mason shrugs. Mimi pours him some juice.

  “So,” she says, “you must be…?”

  “Mason,” says Mason.

  And that’s the end of the conversation. Mimi eats toast and jam very slowly, I push my egg and jam round my plate, and Mason taps the table with his fingers and takes lots of little sips of juice, like maybe twenty sips in a row without taking a breath. And all the time his eyes are searching the room, looking at the old pots and pans and dusty eggcups and the ribbons tied to the kitchen drawers and the mugs with things like Life is better at the beach written on them and Good things come in waves.

  When Mimi’s finished her toast she says, “Mason, would you like to come to the beach with us? We’re going swimming.”

  Mason looks surprised. “Today?” he says.

  Mimi nods. “It’s very invigorating,” she says. “
Liven you up.”

  I’m thinking Mason livened up would be especially annoying. Luckily he’s not keen.

  “No thanks,” he says. “It’s bit cold for me.”

  When Mimi goes upstairs he whispers, “Is that jam on your egg?”

  “Yes,” I say. “What about it?”

  “Nothing,” he says.

  “It’s delicious actually,” I say.

  “You’re eating it very slowly,” he says.

  Then he gulps down his juice, slides under the table and darts back into the garden. When he’s gone I scrape what’s left of the eggs and jam (which is most of it) into the bin.

  Swimming

  Mimi’s waiting at the front door. She’s carrying one of those old-fashioned baskets, the sort people used to use if they were picking apples. There’s a blue ribbon tied round the handle, like the one on her finger. Two towels are folded on top.

  “Let’s go, Iris,” she says.

  She’s wearing trainers and a green knitted dress with roses on it and a big purple knitted jumper with wool coming loose at the sleeves and a green hat and silver hoops in her ears. And she’s doing a little tap dance. I’m wearing a fleece, T-shirt and jeans and I’m walking in slow motion. I’m hoping if I’m slow enough, Mimi might change her mind.

  As soon as we’re out of the house I’m shivering. The sky’s blue with little white clouds and the sun’s shining but it’s really cold. This is absolutely, one hundred per cent the last time I swim in the sea this year.

  We walk down Mimi’s little path and she turns up the lane towards the flea market.

  “Aren’t we going to the beach?” I say.

  “Yes,” she says and keeps walking.

  “The other way then,” I say, and I tap her on the shoulder.

  She hesitates for a moment then laughs. “Of course,” she says.