1. Red-Kite Kind of Wishes

Scarlet is the oldest of the Silk sisters. Tishkin was the youngest, but she died in the night while the others were sleeping, without a kiss or a cry or one last goodbye. The Rainbow Girls, Scarlet, Indigo, Violet, Amber and Saffron, and their brother, Griffin, remember how terrible it was to wake and find their smallest one gone, before she had words or walking or even a name.

The Kingdom of Silk is a place where wishes sometimes come true. But even there, you can’t wish away something that has already happened, no matter how much you want to, or how tightly you close your eyes, or how hard you clench your fists when you wish. Nell says the best you can wish for is that it never happens again. Now she was fifteen, Scarlet wasn’t certain whether wishes ever come true. She had yet to discover what could be done with black tights and a broken bridge.

Nell grandmothers the Silks, tells them true things she has learnt over her many years of living. She is old and wise and perhaps a little magic, as many grandmothers are. Nell says Grandmother Magic is left over from childhood; that we all are born with magic in us but many of us forget about it when we are grown up. Nell is loved and listened to. So all Nell’s Silks, even Scarlet, wished no-one else would leave their home the way Tishkin did — without a goodbye and until forever. But when Griffin and Layla wished it, they wished a little more as well. The little more was: until we are grown up enough not to be sad.

Wishes like this are deep and silent and don’t need to be said. Made-aloud wishes are usually for fun and not important at all. For example, you might wish, like Griffin and Layla, that the rules were changed so dessert is always eaten before main course, or you got your name printed in The Guinness Book of Records for collecting the most caterpillars from the cabbage patch, or you owned a red kite that would fly and never fall. It didn’t matter much to Griffin and Layla whether these things came true or not. Their pleasure came from sharing red-kite kind of wishes.

And that is exactly what they were doing one hot Tuesday in December. The teachers of Saint Benedict’s were having a conference about next year’s curriculum and students were not required to attend school. Layla never forgot to give her mother not-required-to-attend notes. And she quickly followed the giving of them by suggesting she stay at Griffin’s house for the day, reminding Mrs Elliott there was always someone at home at the Kingdom of Silk. Always.

So that is why Griffin and Layla were inside the feed shed on that hot December morning, building a little-pig, little-pig, let-me-come-in kind of house with yellow straw bales and a hessian-sack roof. Their house of straw smelt sweet and summery inside and Griffin and Layla nestled like birdlets in the loose scattered hay, picking grass seeds from their peeled-off socks and making Christmas wishes.

First they wished wishes for themselves. Griffin wished for a complete set of encyclopaedias bound in blue, with golden titles on their spines. A set exactly the right size to fill the gap on the top shelf of his bookcase, between Gargoyles and Griffins in Architecture and The Comprehensive Illustrated Ornithologist’s Bible. Then he wished Layla could spend Christmas at the Kingdom of Silk. And last he wished for boots in a box. Layla’s eyebrows shot up at this wish because Griffin was a barefoot kind of boy. But it wasn’t boots Griffin wanted at all.

‘Then I would give the boots to Nell,’ he said, ‘and keep the box to put my crickets in.’ Griffin had a whole family of crickets. They shared a Black Magic chocolate box with his collection of foil wrappers and sang to him at night.

Layla wished for a baby brother. She had wanted one for as long as she could remember. Next she wished she could celebrate Christmas at the Kingdom of Silk. Then she wished for a real and true piebald pony and a pair of elbow-length pink satin gloves exactly like the ones she’d seen in the window of the charity shop.

After that, Layla and Griffin wished a wish for each other and then one for everyone else, which altogether took a very long time. Then, because everything inside the small straw house was good and golden and there was no hairy-chinned wolf huffing and puffing outside, Griffin and Layla could think of nothing more to wish for.

In the hush that followed their red-kite wishing, Griffin began thinking about the deep and silent wish, and the little more as well, that only he and Layla had wished. He thought for as long as it took a mouse to steal an ear of wheat from a feed bin and drag it down a knot-hole in the floorboards.

Then Griffin said, ‘I don’t think we can wish a wish like that.’

‘Why not?’ asked Layla. She knew which wish Griffin meant because she had been thinking about it too. This is often the way of things when you are lying on your back in the hush and the hay with your best friend in the entire universe.

‘It’s the part about being grown up enough not to be sad. I don’t think it can come true.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because when Tishkin died, Daddy and Mama cried as much as the rest of us. And they were grown up when it happened,’ Griffin explained. ‘And Nell’s the oldest person I know and sometimes when she’s talking about Tishkin, I can tell she’s trying not to cry because her chin gets out of control.’

‘Why don’t we change the wish so it can come true?’ said Layla.

‘How?’

‘Simple. We just make a wish that if anyone has to leave the Kingdom of Silk it won’t be forever.’

‘Can you wish things like that?’

‘Why not?’ said Layla. ‘It’s a good wish. It means that even if someone does have to go away, they’ll always come back.’

So because it was almost Christmas, when wishes sometimes come true, and because he couldn’t think of a better idea, Griffin agreed to change their wish.

Layla decided to write down the new wish to make it official. She’d brought her school journal with her because she’d persuaded her mother to let her sleep at the Silk’s house and to catch the bus to school the next morning with Griffin and Perry Angel. Perry Angel was her second-best friend in the entire universe and the next-best thing to having a little brother of her very own.

When Layla had finished writing, Griffin said, ‘Now I’ll tell you what to put in the fine print.’

‘What do you mean, “the fine print”?’ asked Layla.

‘It’s the tiny writing at the end that people always forget to read until it’s too late,’ said Griffin. ‘It tells you extra information. Just write this down: This includes Perry Angel. Annie is his mama now because his other mother left him at the Maxwell Street welfare office when she was sweet sixteen and couldn’t look after him properly.’

Layla kept forgetting what came next and sometimes Griffin had to help her spell the words. But at last she said, ‘Finished!’

‘There’s more,’ said Griffin.

‘Oh Griff, my hand’s nearly worn out!’

‘It’s important,’ said Griffin firmly and Layla sighed.

‘What is it then?’ she asked with a hint of grumpiness in her voice.

‘It also means Layla Elliott,’ said Griffin.

Layla looked up from her journal. ‘You mean that’s what you want me to write?’

Griffin nodded and Layla beamed.

‘And after you’ve finished, write: because Griffin’s daddy said Layla was sent to comfort them after Tishkin went away. Also because Layla’s mother said she might as well have been born a Silk on account of how much time she spends at their place.’

When Layla had finished the fine print, she and Griffin read through the wish together.

‘That’s better,’ said Griffin.

‘What about Blue?’ asked Layla.

‘He’s family.’

‘I know, but he’s different to the rest of us, so maybe the wish won’t work if we don’t write him in the fine print.’

‘Okay,’ said Griffin, ‘let’s put him in just in case.’

Without any help from Griffin, Layla wrote: And Blue because he is part of the Silk family except he is really a dog and not a person. Blue is deaf but we think he can lip-read. He might feel sad if he knew he wasn’t exactly like us. So we don’t mention it, because dogs have feelings too.

She peeled off a smiley-face sticker she’d been given for doing five journal entries in a row without any crossing out, and stuck it next to the fine print section, so people wouldn’t forget to read it. Then she and Griffin crawled out through the doorway of their straw house and set off to find Perry and Nell.