11. The Rearrangement of Mrs Ogilvy’s Face

This is the letter Scarlet wrote:

Dear Prime Minister,

My name is Scarlet Silk and I am fifteen years old. I live in a small town called Cameron’s Creek with my grandmother, my mother and father, five sisters and two brothers.

My sisters and our friends go to school in the next town because there is no secondary school here. One of my friends is Anik. He has only lived at Cameron’s Creek for a few months. He comes on the school bus in the morning and then goes to Advanced English classes after school. Then he teaches what he has learnt to his grandmother, aunties and uncle. They all live together in a flat above the Colour Patch Café. The flat and the café belong to Mr Kadri. It was Mr Kadri who got Anik’s family jobs at the Cameron’s Creek Smallgoods Factory. Mr Kadri used to work there a long time ago. He knows what it’s like to leave everything and everyone you know and love on the other side of the world. That is why he lets Anik’s family live in the flat with him and his wife and three children.

I know this is a long letter and I know you are a busy person, but it is important you get all the facts. The other day when I was going to school in the bus, they said on the radio news you were sending some more soldiers to the country where Anik and his people come from. My Social Studies teacher says there has been fighting there for a long time and people get killed there every day. Not just soldiers, ordinary people. The people in Anik’s village are ordinary people. Some are fishermen, some are basket weavers. None of them are soldiers. They have no guns, but they still get killed. Anik doesn’t know what has happened to his parents and sisters. I think it would be a good idea if you didn’t send any more soldiers until we find a better way.

I am not the only one who thinks this. My grandmother, Nell Silk, believes ordinary people like me can change the world. The thing I want to change most of all is for people to stop fighting each other. Ten days ago I declared peace on Cameron’s Creek. Since then my family and friends and I have been doing things to spread the word. I have discovered there are a lot of other people like me in Cameron’s Creek, who want to change the world. We know it might take a long time, maybe even years, but if we can get enough people to think like us, then there will be no one left to fire guns or drop bombs.

In my family we call wishes that don’t matter Red-Kite Wishes. Wishing for peace is not a red-kite kind of wish. It is important. You are an important person and I think you could help us make our wish for peace come true. We have arranged a peace march to be held in Cameron’s Creek on Christmas Eve and I would like you to come along.

I don’t know if you have ever heard of Cameron’s Creek. You will know you have come to the right place when you see a sign that says, ‘Welcome to Cameron’s Creek, Home of the Big Ham’. We are famous here for the Christmas hams made at the smallgoods factory. They also make sausages and bacon but we are not so famous for them. If you accept my invitation, you might help the people of Cameron’s Creek to become famous for something else. We have asked the Daily Beacon newspaper to send someone along to take photographs of the event.

I have enclosed your official invitation to our peace march with this letter. Also enclosed is a wishband in case you are unable to attend. I hope you will wear it when you go on official business to England or the United States of America or other overseas places. We want everyone to know the people of Cameron’s Creek have declared peace on the whole world.

Yours sincerely,
Scarlet Silk

On the last day of term Scarlet knocked on the staff-room door. Mrs Ogilvy looked through the glass pane in the top of the door. Her eyes took in Scarlet’s bare legs, the rhinestone teardrop on her cheek, the red poem on the pale skin of her arm and her mermaidenly hair spilling free over her shoulders. She opened the door.

‘I’d like to make a copy of this letter before I send it away, please,’ said Scarlet.

‘Wait here,’ said Mrs Ogilvy, taking the Prime Minister’s letter with her.

Scarlet leaned her back against the grey wall of the corridor and waited. She waited a long time.

Mrs Ogilvy sat down on a hard plastic chair near the copying machine and read Scarlet’s letter. Then she tried to remember what kind of girl she had been when she was fifteen years old and it was almost Christmas. And she wished she had been brave enough to ask questions about big things, lucky enough to have a grandmother to tell her she could change the world, wise enough to believe it and bold enough to try.

When she came back with the letter and one warm copy, Mrs Ogilvy’s face was rearranged into soft, sad creases and she said, ‘I owe you an apology, Scarlet Silk, and I hope your wish comes true.’