Before I Die by Jenny Downham

Author:Jenny Downham
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9780375849374
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2008-09-24T16:00:00+00:00

Twenty-three

Cal comes trotting up from the bottom of the dark garden, his hand outstretched. ‘Next,’ he says.

Mum opens the box of fireworks on her lap. She looks as if she’s choosing a chocolate, delicately picking one out, then reading the label before passing it over.

‘Enchanted Garden,’ she tells him.

He rushes back to Dad with it. The tops of his wellies slap against each other as he runs. Moonlight filters through the apple tree and splashes the grass.

Mum and me have brought chairs from the kitchen and we’re sitting together by the back door. It’s cold. Our breath like smoke. Now winter is here, the earth smells wet, as if life is hunkering down, things crouching low, preserving energy.

Mum says, ‘Do you know how truly horrible it is when you go off and don’t tell anyone where you are?’

Since she’s the great disappearing expert of all time, I laugh at that. She looks surprised, obviously doesn’t get the irony. ‘Dad says you slept for two days solid when you got back.’

‘I was tired.’

‘He was terrified.’

‘Were you?’

‘We both were.’

‘Enchanted Garden!’ Dad announces.

There’s a sudden crackle, and flowers made of light bloom into the air, expand, then sink and fade across the grass.

‘Ahhh,’ Mum says. ‘That was lovely.’

‘That was boring,’ Cal cries as he comes galloping back to us.

Mum opens the box again. ‘How about a rocket? Would a rocket be any better?’

‘A rocket would be excellent!’ Cal runs round the garden to celebrate before handing it over to Dad. Together they push the stick into the ground. I think of the bird, of Cal’s rabbit. Of all the creatures that have died in our garden, their skeletons jostling together under the earth.

‘Why the seaside?’ Mum asks.

‘I just fancied it.’

‘Why Dad’s car?’

I shrug. ‘Driving was on my list.’

‘You know,’ she says, ‘you can’t go around doing just what you like. You have to think about the people who love you.’

‘Who?’

‘The people who love you.’

‘Loud one,’ Dad says. ‘Hands over ears, ladies.’

The rocket launches with a single boom, so loud its energy expands inside me. Sound waves break in my blood. My brain feels tidal.

Mum’s never said she loves me. Not ever. I don’t think she ever will. It would be too obvious now, too full of pity. It would embarrass both of us. Sometimes I wonder at the quiet things that must have passed between us before I was born, when I was curled small and dark inside her. But I don’t wonder very often.

She shifts uncomfortably on her chair. ‘Tessa, are you planning on killing anyone?’ She sounds casual, but I think she might mean it.

‘Of course not!’

‘Good.’ She looks genuinely relieved. ‘So what’s next on your list then?’

I’m surprised. ‘You really want to know?’

‘I really do.’

‘OK. Fame’s next.’

She shakes her head in dismay, but Cal, who has turned up for the next firework, thinks it’s hilarious. ‘See how many drinking straws you can stuff in your mouth,’ he says. ‘The world record’s two hundred and fifty-eight.’

‘I’ll think about that,’ I tell him.

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