8. Kiss-Me-Quick and Kryptonite

The following morning Scarlet lay on the old red couch by the veranda steps. One foot was propped on the armrest with her freshly painted toenails drying in the breeze. She had a pure white quill from Ginger the goose, a bottle of red food colouring and a pad of clean white paper on her lap. A pair of Nell’s old spectacles with rhinestone-studded purple frames was perched on the end of her nose. Scarlet was wearing them to try to understand the world wisely, the way Nell did. She dipped her quill in the dye and wrote a red poem for Anik on the soft white skin on the inside of her arm while she wondered what she could do to change the world.

Indigo, Violet and Layla were swimming in the dam. Nell and Annie were being lifesavers. Amber was making lavender-and-lemonade scones for morning tea. Ben was in his shed. Annie said he was doing secret men’s business. But he wasn’t really. He was just sitting, looking at a pile of old timber which used to be a bridge and wondering what he could make from it.

Griffin had camouflaged himself with mud and was stalking lizards in the pumpkin patch. He had decided to become a vegetarian and thought Zeus should be as well. His Sunday mission was relocating lizards to the wood pile where Zeus couldn’t find them.

And Perry was doing his favourite thing, being Superman. He was wearing the costume Nell had made for him, all except his gumboots. He couldn’t wear them because an echidna had crawled into one of them and was too prickly to be pulled out. On Sundays, Superman collected the eggs. He was brave and could do it by himself. He did everything exactly the way he’d seen Nell do it.

Blue guarded the gate while Superman went inside and scattered a handful of golden grain over the ground. While the hens were eating, Superman said good morning to Madonna. Then he chatted to the others for a while about things like the weather and the size of the pumpkins growing in the vegetable patch and the Christmas puddings and the galaxy of tart-tin stars. He had to wait while one of the hens laid her egg. She clucked excitedly when she’d finished and Superman wondered if she had the same sort of feeling he got when he saved the entire universe from destruction. The hen jumped down from her nest and Superman picked up her warm egg and held it to his cheek before he put it in the old bent saucepan with the others. He thanked the chickens, because Nell said everyone likes to be appreciated for what they do. When he got close to the gate, Superman felt like flying a loop-the-loop and landing on top of Ben’s shed with his cape flying out behind him because he’d done everything right.

On the way up to the house Superman counted the eggs, starting with the speckled one Madonna had laid. But the others looked so much alike it was hard to remember which was which and he forgot where he was up to and had to start again.

When he got to the veranda steps, he saw Scarlet. Scarlet was scary. She was like Kryptonite. She made Superman lose all his powers and become Perry Angel again.

Perry had found something in common with almost everyone who lived at the Kingdom of Silk. Even Blue. Blue loved sprawling across Nell’s knees and having his back scratched. So did Perry. Amber liked cooking and so did Perry. Ben liked sitting in the shed, whistling and whittling soft green willow sticks and so did Perry. Then there was singing with Annie, painting pictures of deep mystery like Indigo and wearing wings like Layla.

Perry and Griffin often crossed the paddocks together and climbed the daisied hills where they lay on their stomachs sharing Ben’s binoculars and watching hawks hover in the never-ending sky.

And Perry spent hours with Violet, picking posies of pansies, Sweet Alice, Johnny-jump-ups, jonquils and japonica. He made bouquets of baby’s breath, kiss-me-quick, love-in-a-mist, granny’s bonnets and forget-me-nots and learnt their pretty names. He and Violet pressed their petals flat between the leaves of large heavy books. And weeks later they peeked between the pages to see the everlasting flowers they had made, flowers for keeping, for remembering and for putting in homemade paper.

There was nothing at all that Perry didn’t like doing with Nell. They looked for fairies amongst the bees when Nell was inspecting the hive. They walked in the rain, chatted to chickens, played pirates, danced the Spanish Fandango and ten million other things as well.

The only person Perry seemed to share nothing with was Scarlet. So it surprised him when she waved a leg at him this Sunday morning and said, ‘Want to do my other foot, Superman?’

Scarlet had never called Perry Superman before and today he wasn’t even in full uniform. It seemed like a good sign. So Perry sat the saucepan of eggs carefully on the top step, took the small bottle of red enamel from Scarlet’s outstretched hand and began to paint her toenails. It wasn’t nearly as much fun as painting deep mysteries and because he was nervous, Perry kept accidentally going over the lines and getting the red on Scarlet’s toes.

When Perry had finished, Scarlet screwed the cap back on the bottle and put her foot up next to the other one. Perry held his breath while she looked at her toes with her slanting sea-green eyes.

‘Good job, Superman,’ she said. ‘Want to hear a poem?’

Superman wasn’t sure. Sometimes poems are hard to understand, even for superheroes. But he wanted to please Scarlet, so he nodded his head and Scarlet patted the couch beside her.

‘Come on, lie down next to me. There’s plenty of room.’ She slid closer to the buttoned back of the couch, put her arm around his shoulders and drew him down beside her. He rested his head on the fringed and faded cushion beside Scarlet’s and tried to put his feet up on the other end next to hers. But they wouldn’t reach. Blue leapt up in the space at the end of the couch, turned around five times, scratched a lumpy cushion out of the way, then curled up with his chin on Superman’s bare feet and sighed contentedly. Superman was Blue’s favourite superhero. Blue didn’t know it, but he had secret powers of his own. Whenever Superman was feeling frightened, nervous or worried, he had only to touch Blue and he started feeling braver.

Scarlet adjusted her sparkly spectacles. Superman’s X-ray vision noticed there weren’t any lenses in them, but he didn’t mention it. Scarlet began to read.

‘It’s called “Being Scarlet”,’ she said.

 

‘Scarlet Silk is

a teenager

organises others

not herself

is

mostly loud

sometimes lazy

often angry

always loved

is

mean

is nice

is scared of mice

is sometimes good

and sometimes bad

sometimes happy

sometimes sad.

Scarlet Silk

writes poems in red

won’t make her bed

gets in fights

wears black tights

is

tragic

full of magic

blows schoolboys kisses

hates washing dishes.

Scarlet Silk

is

a mystery

to everyone

including

herself.’

 

Superman thought Scarlet had finished, but she looked at him and then wrote something else.

 

‘and Superman.’

 

She showed Superman what she’d written and told him what it said. Then she laughed. ‘Did you like it?’

Superman nodded.

The poem sounded exactly like Scarlet. But Superman hadn’t realised before that Scarlet was a mystery to other people as well as to him, even to herself.

‘You mean it? Really?’ Scarlet made her eyes the shape of sardines and looked hard at Superman’s face to see if she could tell what he was thinking.

Superman nodded again. ‘It’s good,’ he said. ‘I really like it.’

Scarlet turned back to her poem and read it quietly to herself. She sighed. Being Scarlet Silk wasn’t easy.