fine tapestry Egyptian mat bundled by string, and a stained glass lampshade in
decorative patterned peacocks as they did so) Lucy sulkily scuffed her new trainers over the sunlit lawns, and would only cheer up after shoveling a strawberry ice-cream cone into her mouth.
*
Sometime later, a squirrel, its bushy tail gluped with pipped pulp, skittered into an empty woodpecker hole. Such tree with dangling green fruity blotches, and now harbouring a
squirrel family, was in the back garden of a smart-looking townhouse, where inside, lots of clatter and whooped shouts whirled from the kitchen: it seemed Megan and Lucy’s dad was baking a
recipe from his latest cookbook, and their mum, who had somehow found time to pot pansies and daffodils, arrange a proud display of fragrant flowers in a vase, and now had a basketful of ironing
balancing on her hip, told them they could go to their bedrooms for a bit before supper was to be dished out.
And so with a snow blushed rose nuzzled in the rumples of hair behind her ear, Megan scampered to hers, where, on top of the bookcase that was opposite the bed, she clumsily plonked the figure
in between her assortment of dolls and alphabetized books, so it would be the first thing she saw when she awoke. Over the bookcase was a shelf stacked higgledy-piggledy with figures of dolphins
and Fairies in different colours; whilst drifting off to sleep she would stare at these models, and because she had no actual confidants of her own, she would pretend these were her bosom friends
and have adventures with them.
She always sat alone at school, with her nose stuck in whatever book she was reading that particular week, preferring to be whisked away into far-away lands, and the children in her class, who
all thought her positively peculiar, took to nicknaming her with barbed cruelty, “Boring, Bookworm Button.” If Megan were brutally honest with herself, she would admit that this more
than upset her, but usually she found ignoring them worked best, and so with a show of acting, would quite happily carry on with her wistful daydreaming.
This calm before the squall had, up until very recently, been proving well, and she’d taken to hiding, at break and lunch times, in the toilets. However, not one week past, the two
ringleaders who tormented her, namely Millicent Mountbatten and Maximilian Ludsworth, had covertly followed her into a cubicle, barking that horrid nickname as they tore her favourite book from her
pinned pleading hands, then stamped a couple of feet for good measure on her cheese and pickle sandwich and curtailed out, and in their hateful wake, left a teary-eyed Megan looking at
Anne of
Avonlea
bobbing in the lavatory.
The next day, thinking things had been brought to a head, she had ventured outside in afternoon break, only to be slapped on the back by Millicent. But what Megan did not know was that
she’d Sellotaped a poster to her pinafore, scrawled with a slogan blaring the highly imaginative accusation:
MEGAN
BETINA
BUTTON
STINKS
OF
WEE!
Megan shook her head, simply not wanting to remember the sniggers, and moseyed over to the heaps of paper teetering precariously atop the hulking-looking desk, then after ferreting through
over-stuffed draws, and levering open ring-binder folders, she fetched out her drawing pad. Like her exercise books it was jam-packed with wonderful pictures of rainbows and miraculous creatures,
and whiling away half an hour, she started to colour - being mindful of the lines - a big picture of a Dragon that she had sketched three days ago: these were her favourite things, but she also
doodled whimsical castles in the sky when in lessons, rather than attending to the avalanche of viciously problematic schoolwork.
Suddenly struck by inspiration, Megan put her pad to one side and pulled at the wrought-iron ring.
Her hand swam inside the dark recess of the compartment draw of the desk (which had a pink helium balloon tied to
decorative patterned peacocks as they did so) Lucy sulkily scuffed her new trainers over the sunlit lawns, and would only cheer up after shoveling a strawberry ice-cream cone into her mouth.
*
Sometime later, a squirrel, its bushy tail gluped with pipped pulp, skittered into an empty woodpecker hole. Such tree with dangling green fruity blotches, and now harbouring a
squirrel family, was in the back garden of a smart-looking townhouse, where inside, lots of clatter and whooped shouts whirled from the kitchen: it seemed Megan and Lucy’s dad was baking a
recipe from his latest cookbook, and their mum, who had somehow found time to pot pansies and daffodils, arrange a proud display of fragrant flowers in a vase, and now had a basketful of ironing
balancing on her hip, told them they could go to their bedrooms for a bit before supper was to be dished out.
And so with a snow blushed rose nuzzled in the rumples of hair behind her ear, Megan scampered to hers, where, on top of the bookcase that was opposite the bed, she clumsily plonked the figure
in between her assortment of dolls and alphabetized books, so it would be the first thing she saw when she awoke. Over the bookcase was a shelf stacked higgledy-piggledy with figures of dolphins
and Fairies in different colours; whilst drifting off to sleep she would stare at these models, and because she had no actual confidants of her own, she would pretend these were her bosom friends
and have adventures with them.
She always sat alone at school, with her nose stuck in whatever book she was reading that particular week, preferring to be whisked away into far-away lands, and the children in her class, who
all thought her positively peculiar, took to nicknaming her with barbed cruelty, “Boring, Bookworm Button.” If Megan were brutally honest with herself, she would admit that this more
than upset her, but usually she found ignoring them worked best, and so with a show of acting, would quite happily carry on with her wistful daydreaming.
This calm before the squall had, up until very recently, been proving well, and she’d taken to hiding, at break and lunch times, in the toilets. However, not one week past, the two
ringleaders who tormented her, namely Millicent Mountbatten and Maximilian Ludsworth, had covertly followed her into a cubicle, barking that horrid nickname as they tore her favourite book from her
pinned pleading hands, then stamped a couple of feet for good measure on her cheese and pickle sandwich and curtailed out, and in their hateful wake, left a teary-eyed Megan looking at
Anne of
Avonlea
bobbing in the lavatory.
The next day, thinking things had been brought to a head, she had ventured outside in afternoon break, only to be slapped on the back by Millicent. But what Megan did not know was that
she’d Sellotaped a poster to her pinafore, scrawled with a slogan blaring the highly imaginative accusation:
MEGAN
BETINA
BUTTON
STINKS
OF
WEE!
Megan shook her head, simply not wanting to remember the sniggers, and moseyed over to the heaps of paper teetering precariously atop the hulking-looking desk, then after ferreting through
over-stuffed draws, and levering open ring-binder folders, she fetched out her drawing pad. Like her exercise books it was jam-packed with wonderful pictures of rainbows and miraculous creatures,
and whiling away half an hour, she started to colour - being mindful of the lines - a big picture of a Dragon that she had sketched three days ago: these were her favourite things, but she also
doodled whimsical castles in the sky when in lessons, rather than attending to the avalanche of viciously problematic schoolwork.
Suddenly struck by inspiration, Megan put her pad to one side and pulled at the wrought-iron ring.
Her hand swam inside the dark recess of the compartment draw of the desk (which had a pink helium balloon tied to
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