Riding Icarus by Lily Hyde Page B

ought to come here and live with us.”
    Masha felt herself turning pink. “I don’t smoke,” she said, her voice trembling. “And Mama will be back soon, so I’ll live with her.”
    Uncle Igor leant forward. “Now, that’s what I’d like to talk to you about. Have you heard from your mother lately?”
    Masha felt scared by his intent stare. “Well, she sent me a postcard,” she said, although she didn’t want to tell Uncle Igor this at all.
    “When?”
    “Igor!” Aunt Anya said.
    Uncle Igor ignored her. “When, and what did it say?”
    “I can’t remember.” Tears were coming into Masha’s eyes. “It was a long time ago. It had a picture of a big church on it.”
    “Oh, that one.” Uncle Igor sat back and took out a gold lighter. He lit the cigar and drew on it with a series of puffs, blowing out a big cloud of smoke. “And since then, nothing? No letters? Maybe you’ve seen her.”
    “No. I haven’t.”
    “Are you sure? You know, I worry about your mother and about you, little girl. I hope your granny hasn’t been teaching you to tell lies.”
    “Igor!” said Aunt Anya again.
    “No, she hasn’t.” Masha swallowed hard. “She’s been bringing me up very well.”
    “All right then,” said Uncle Igor. “Run along and play with Anastasia. You must tell me, though, if you do see or hear from your mother. I don’t know what will happen to both of you if you don’t.”
    “What might happen?” asked Masha bravely.
    “I really don’t know,” he replied, tapping out the cigar ash. “Playtime. Off you go. Nastya’s in the garden.”
    Masha ran out of the door. She felt so stupid and so angry that if she opened her mouth she thought a roar would come out, a huge, furious tiger’s roar. Her face was burning hot and dried up her tears. She would have liked to have thrown all the cups and plates in there, the bread and the sweets and everything, onto the floor, crashing and smashing with each sweep of her tail, each blow of her paws.
    But instead she had to go and play with Anastasia. There she was, outside her Wendy house, waving and shouting. Masha went down the path as slowly as she possibly could.
    Anastasia was eleven. She was very pretty, with long curly hair, and she always wore fancy dresses with frills of ribbon and lace. She never tired of telling Masha that she was named after a princess (despite Masha’s response after a Russian history lesson, which was “Yeah, a princess who got
shot
”), and her favourite game was fairy-tale dressing up. Guess who always played the princess. Masha got to be the servant or the wicked witch, or occasionally the prince, although that was the worst role of all. At least when she was the witch she got to do nasty things to Anastasia.
    She had lots of gorgeous toys, like a sandpit and a paddling pool, the Wendy house, dolls and boxes of Lego and lovely drawing things, but she was really mean with all of them.
    Masha sat down in the corner of the little house with the Lego box. Anastasia was dressing one of her dolls unseasonably in what looked like a real fur coat and hat, but she soon put it aside and demanded, “What are you making?”
    “A pirates’ hideout.” Masha rummaged for palm leaves.
    They built together for a while, until Masha started adding in pieces of spaceship.
    “That’s wrong,” Anastasia objected. “You can’t use those bits.”
    “Why not? They’re space pirates.”
    “No, they’re not. Why’ve they got palm trees and parrots if they’re space pirates?”
    “It’s a tropical planet in the Centauri galaxy,” Masha invented quickly. “And they flew the parrot out all the way from earth. You can buy them on this planet for two million blips, which is Centauri money.”
    “That’s stupid.” Anastasia started taking out the spaceship pieces.
    “I was building it first,” said Masha crossly.
    “It’s my Lego,” Anastasia retorted. “And they’re in the Caribbean and they’ve never heard of your stupid