Dad wasn’t sure that Eva should go to the lodge that morning; he was worried that she was too upset. He said he’d call Gran and ask her to have her instead. But Eva said no. Gran wouldn’t like it. Gran wanted her to spread her wings. Eva had insisted on going.
But just because she was at the lodge didn’t mean she was going to speak to Jamie. It was easy to avoid him, because he was working under supervision. Melanie sat in the main hall. Her briefcase rested on a pile of bricks and she scribbled notes across pages. She had one eye on Jamie though. He was fixing the mural he’d ruined the day before.
Eva took one look and asked Sally if she could work outside again.
‘Yes, of course. Heidi and Dilan are in the outdoor gang today. You can work with them,’ Sally said.
She moved along the corridor, which was dark and clammy like a cave, and stepped out into bright sunshine. Heidi squealed a little when she noticed Eva.
‘I’m glad we got someone else,’ Heidi said. ‘We’re clearing the path today, so we don’t have to walk in the road and more hands make light work, my mum always says. And the path needs a ton of work.’
She waved her hand towards the trees. Eva couldn’t see a path.
Heidi grinned. ‘It’s overgrown. But we’ve got some of those cutty things, seca-wotsits.’
‘Hedge scissors?’ Eva suggested.
‘Hedge scissors! You’re funny.’ Heidi slipped her arm through Eva’s and led her to the pile of tools. There was something about Heidi that reminded Eva of a china doll. She looked as if her eyes would click shut if you tipped her flat.
Dilan was there already, handing out sacks and bright yellow jackets and rakes and anything else he could find to the group that had gathered. There were six volunteers altogether. Eva smiled shyly at the three she didn’t know. A couple said hello.
‘Right,’ Dilan said with purpose. ‘You see that path?’
He pointed at a hedge.
‘No,’ Heidi said.
‘Well, by lunchtime, you will,’ Dilan said.
Eva could just about make out where the path used to be – the leaves were thinner and light filtered through in whorls, like a giant’s fat thumbprint on the hedgeline. Once upon a time it had been an arch through the hedge, a shortcut to the rest of the park.
She picked up a pair of seca-wotsits and started cutting.
The hedge was a hundred-year-old bramble, thick as a dragon’s leg, wound round the palace of a sleeping princess.
Eva was a prince, cutting the brambles back, forcing a way through. Here I come, my lady, Eva thought as another slice of privet hit the ground. I’ll rescue you. The heat on her skin was the breath of the sleeping dragon. The dust and dirt and old spiders’ webs was the build-up of a hundred years of dreaming.
Eva raised her sword and hacked some more. The princess would soon be free, she thought with a smile.
‘Eva,’ a voice called, cutting through her daydream.
Shanika.
What did she want?
Eva wiped her face with the back of her sleeve. She felt hot and sweaty, but at least she hadn’t woken any sleeping dragons.
‘Eva!’
‘I’m here.’
Shanika was holding a clipboard and pen. ‘I’m going to do some publicity,’ she said. ‘I can’t believe no one has done it before. Local press, that kind of thing. Anyway, I need everyone to write a few words about why they’re here.’
‘No,’ Eva said, shaking her head. ‘I don’t want to be in the paper.’
‘It will just take you a few minutes. It doesn’t have to be a novel. Just a few sentences.’
‘I said no,’ Eva said, a bit more forcefully than she meant to. ‘I don’t want to. I hate all that stuff.’
Shanika frowned. ‘All what stuff?’
Words, Eva thought, words and letters and the maze they made on a page, the way that they slipped out of focus the longer you looked at them, like a photo taken too quickly. The way they slipped out of her mind like wet fish sliding off a plate. The whole stupid soup of words.
‘You know,’ Shanika said, ‘you can be a bit weird sometimes. I think you’ve been hanging out with that McIntyre boy too much. It’s rubbing off on you. Don’t worry about your story. I can get plenty of other people to do it. People who want to help. It doesn’t bother me.’ She turned on her heel and stalked back towards the lodge. Her ponytail whipped back and forth like the tail of an angry cat. Eva could nearly hear her hiss.
She suddenly felt tired. Tired of painting and cutting and moving stuff. Her arms were heavy and her eyes felt full of dust and grit. But she felt tired inside too. First Jamie had nagged her about Dad and now Shanika was having a got at her. Eva had had enough.
She put her secateurs back on the pile of tools and went to wait for Gran.