Submission by Various

Author:Various [Various]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2012-01-14T05:00:00+00:00

The Ugly Duckling

Primula Bond

The dust they’d kicked up formed a cloud in the cooked air. Odette stretched her neck to relieve the tension. The heat settled on the patches of skin not shaded by her floppy hat and big shirt.

‘Let’s leave Odious behind!’

How could they not wonder at the undulating landscape, already composed for painting, this humming solitude? A blade of grass, brushed by a careless leg, creaked upright again, protesting. A bleached white stone rolled into a nest of others with a tiny knocking sound.

‘You’ll get freckles all over your goosebumps!’

‘Leave her. Let’s get to the shops!’

‘Vaffanculo,’ she muttered in reply. She’d heard the minibus driver shout something like that earlier. It sounded suitably angry and rude.

Right on cue the honking of his horn shattered the air, shocking a distant church bell into an echo of midday ringing, as if it thought its mother was calling.

There was Miss Drake, draped in her usual flowing turquoise, waving at the driver and chivvying the class. They all glanced up the track where Odette was slowly descending.

‘Pit pat paddle pat!’ they chanted, waddling into the bus.

The only spare seat was next to Miss Drake. They accelerated with no warning down the hill, spilling Odette’s mineral water all over the teacher.

‘Careful, Odette! You’ll smudge your painting.’ Miss Drake mopped at her dress. ‘You have an amazing talent, you know. But sometimes I think you’re in cuckoo land.’

‘Who cares about being the best artist!’ Jemima Rivers poked her head over the seat in front while her friend Petra sprayed scent around. ‘We only came on this trip to pull some Italian boys.’

‘Really, Jemima,’ Miss Drake said with a sigh. ‘This is educational. We’re going to see Botticelli’s Birth of Venus, and Leonardo da Vinci’s Annunciation, you know. Florence was the cradle of artistic civilisation –’

Odette stood up to open the window. Bellini’s hills and olive groves were flattening into parched verges as the bus charged towards the main road. Jemima hissed into her ear.

‘Just keep your head down, Odious, and then Drakie won’t notice that the rest of us can’t draw for toffee.’

‘Talking of cuckoos,’ Miss Drake remarked, picking up Odette’s sketchbook and turning the pages carefully, ‘have you noticed how these girls are blonde English roses, and you’re the only dark one?’

‘Well, at least I don’t burn.’ Odette covered her mouth. Her voice sounded too clear now that the braces had been removed.

‘No. You have beautiful skin.’ Miss Drake spoke quietly, her mouth close to Odette’s cheek. ‘I know you try to cover up, but I’ve seen your arms. Like caramel.’

Odette turned, but Miss Drake had leaned back and shut her eyes. Her generous mouth was slightly open as she gasped in the heat. Odette’s sunglasses pinched her nose. They were new, too, like her teeth. As she cleaned the lenses she exchanged a glance with Paolo, the minibus driver. His eyes were black, like a bird’s, glittering in the sunlight glancing off the passing traffic. Sneering at her ugliness, probably.

* * *

‘He’s a bit lame,’ Jemima remarked later, as they stood in front of Michelangelo’s David.

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