Pictures

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PICTURES






She is so small, small for her age. Although he is only five and she is six, Sammy has overtaken her. He is already long and thin. She is a speck of dust hiding in the curtains. The curtains are green velvet. Her bedroom walls are creamy white and scattered with sprigs of tiny green flowers. The carpet is pale brown, dark brown, grey brown, red brown, all coming together and going away again, like a big spider that will swallow her up. Like a thousand big spiders that cling to her legs every night as she runs across the room and dives into bed.
The carpet doesn’t go with the curtains or with the wallpaper. But the carpet is good enough for children who never appreciate anything, who will only get it in a mess. There’s no point putting down a brand new carpet in that room. It will only be destroyed. Especially by Stella.
Especially by Stella. Once Stella peed on the carpet. She woke in the night too late and peed all over the spiders as she ran for the door.
It’s a blessing we didn’t put down a new carpet.
The dust in the curtain makes Stella feel like she is choking. The smell, and the way it catches in her throat. The dust is so fine she can’t see it, and yet it chokes her. If she was dust she could disappear. No one would ever find her again.
You have to lie down and then wriggle up to get between the curtain and the lining. You can’t see much when you are inside, but there are enough holes in the lining that it isn’t dark. Stella closes her eyes and sees magical pictures. It is like painting, except the pictures are inside her head, so she can choose any colour she wants. Bright pink, lime green, red. Stella can see anything she wants when her eyes are closed. Sammy is afraid of the dark, and of squashed up places. He gets scared inside the curtain. Once he made a noise, and Stella had to dig her nails into his hand. You must be quiet inside the curtains, so no one can find you.
Then one day Sammy trips as he is looking for Stella. It is a game of hide-and-seek. Sammy runs up laughing, and he catches his foot in the lining. It tears. The hole is the size of a teddy bear and the shape of a banana.
Mummy doesn’t know, but one day she will find it, one day she will blame Stella. One day she will say

You are the most careless creature I ever met. Look what you’ve done. And you didn’t even have the common decency to tell me you’d done it. Did you think I wouldn’t find it you stupid girl? These are no good now, no good at all. Well, I’m not buying new curtains for someone who cares so little, who looks after her things so badly.

Stella doesn’t like the curtains any more. Because of them she is in trouble. She will never again hide between their layers of velvet and lining. Besides, Stella is bigger now, and it is not so easy to disappear. And she likes to draw. You can’t draw when you are inside the curtains. Now Stella takes her pencils and paper and sneaks past the kitchen, down to the basement and her own secret place where no one ever goes, not even Sammy, where no one will ever find her.