The Key to Flambards by Linda Newbery

Author:Linda Newbery [Linda Newbery]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781788450065
Publisher: David Fickling Books Ltd
Published: 2018-08-02T16:00:00+00:00

‘Oh, no,’ Mum said. ‘That’s all you need. It’s awful for you, Gracey, I know.’

Grace waited for the ‘but’. There wasn’t one.

‘Friends are so important,’ Mum said, after a long pause.

Yes, Mum. I know that.

‘You can still see Marie-Louise. We’ll go to Paris, like she said. Maybe at half term.’ Mum gave Grace a cuddle. ‘Perhaps it won’t seem quite as bad in the morning.’

Yes, Mum, it will. How can it not?

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Half a Face

As soon as Grace woke up, all the disappointments of yesterday crowded back.

They piled in like a heavy duvet smothering her under its weight. She could only think of all that was lost. Her leg. Her home. Now her best friend. All things that other people took for granted – as she had, before.

She let herself wallow until she was bored with being in bed, having only added to her bad mood by being lazy. She got up and dressed, not bothering with breakfast.

You haven’t lost yourself, Grace, Marie-Louise’s voice said, slightly reproachful. Your self. Come on. No one can take that from you.

Grace didn’t feel so sure.

Without thinking she took her pen and sketchbook to the table. Working on one or more of her sketches had become a daily habit, usually alone in the flat while Mum was in the office, sometimes outside. Since she’d started using a fine black pen rather than pencil, her drawing had become bolder and more confident.

But today all pleasure had gone out of it. She opened the pad and looked through the pages, not even getting as far as picking up the pen. She could see only flaws and clumsiness where before she’d been pleased with her efforts.

In secret she’d been working on a detailed picture of the house to give Mum for her birthday in September; then she’d thought of drawing a portrait of Flash to give Marcus – if only she could do it well enough. She’d taken several photos of Flash to work from in private. But she’d never tried drawing a dog before, and she aimed to show Flash’s personality, which made it especially hard.

She’d been trying to draw Christina too, from the scanned photograph she now had on her phone. She liked to feel that Christina was always with her, in her pocket or rucksack, for company. But Christina – like Flash – proved hard to catch in a drawing. Although Grace could copy her figure, her pose, her clothes, with reasonable success, she couldn’t capture Christina’s face or expression. Any face that emerged from her pen seemed to push the real Christina out of sight.

It was when she wasn’t trying – when she just sat and thought, or when she was in the house or the stable yard – that she saw Christina most clearly. But today Christina was elusive. Too many gloomy thoughts were getting in the way.

What was the point? Grace shoved back her chair, ripped out the drawn pages, screwed them up hard and put them in the recycling box.

She went outside and stood by the gate looking down to the woods.

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