Angel Fish by Lili Wilkinson

Author:Lili Wilkinson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Juvenile Fiction/Religious Christian
ISBN: 17560
Publisher: Black Dog Books
Published: 2009-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

fifteen

Today we see snow for the first time. It’s hard to believe that it is still summer in Machery. The green hills and valleys are gone, and now everything is cold and grey.

Many of the children have no shoes, and some stay up crying because their feet hurt. I am very glad to have my boots, but I wish I could share them with the other children. I see one boy with toes that are all black and tiny, like they have been burnt. I ask him if he put his feet too close to the fire, but he shakes his head.

‘Maman?’ he asks, looking at me with eyes that don’t really see.

He is shivering all over, so I give him my blanket, and go and share with Fox-boy.

It snows properly during the night, and nobody gets much sleep, except maybe the nobles in the red tent.

When the sun rises, everything is changed. The snow is crisp and as white as a river as it rushes around a corner, and it makes me sing inside.

Everyone is excited, and we throw snowballs and play and laugh, even the nobles.

The trees here are small and twisted, and snow lies heavily on their branches. I don’t think I have ever seen anything so white. It is whiter than a noble’s bread. Whiter than an Angel’s teeth. Whiter than the corners of Maman’s eyes. I want to be a soaring white bird flashing over the snow, so white that I can’t be seen.

We have no dry firewood left, but I don’t care. The mountain can’t be so dangerous, not if it is so beautiful.

I go to find the shivering boy to see if his toes are better, but he isn’t where I left him. He must be off playing somewhere. I smile and pick up my blanket from where it is lying, half buried under the snow. Towards the edge of the camp I can see another scrap of fabric poking out from the snow, so I go and tug it out to make sure it doesn’t get lost. We barely have enough blankets as it is, without losing more.

It’s not a blanket. It’s a tunic, the brown woollen kind that we boys all wear. I wonder who isn’t wearing his. They must be cold. There is a pair of farmer’s trews here too, and a woollen cap. I collect all these things, and then, right at the edge of the camp, I see it.

A hand.

At first I don’t think it is a hand, because it isn’t pink at all. It’s white and blue and black and purple. And if it is a hand, where is the rest of the person that it belongs to?

The hand is sticking out of a hump of snow. I reach out and touch it. It is frozen. I reach out and grab the hand and pull, and the hump of snow falls away, and the shivering boy is underneath.

He’s not shivering any more.

He is naked, and his body is blue and white, except for his hands, feet and nose, which are black as iron.

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