The Stolen Prince of Cloudburst by Jaclyn Moriarty

Author:Jaclyn Moriarty [Moriarty, Jaclyn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Published: 2020-08-14T00:00:00+00:00

‘Mother!’ I called, but at that moment, Mother marched across to where Astrid was waving. She stopped to admire the Grade 4 picture of a school of rainbow fish.

Well, she would come to me next.

Or perhaps to Imogen and the Grade 7 artwork, I supposed.

But then to me.

I turned back to our artwork.

Golden circle against a blue background—

A golden circle against—

I stopped.

You might be thinking it was taking a while for me to catch on, but remember my imaginary carpet? Everything was hazy through woven fibres.

So this was the first moment I wondered.

More slowly, I ran my eyes along the pictures—golden circle, golden circle—

I ducked around girls and parents—golden circle, golden circle—and that was it.

I had seen the whole painting.

‘Mrs Pollock?’ I asked.

She was standing to the side, arms behind her back, accepting compliments from parents.

‘Yes, Esther dear?’ Mrs Pollock crouched to hear. Some of the parents saw this and smiled lovingly.

‘I can’t see my painting.’

‘Oh, Esther dear,’ Mrs Pollock’s face became sorrowful. She spoke in a soft, confiding murmur. ‘Your painting was grey and rainy, remember? I couldn’t include it in an artwork called SUNSHINE, could I?’

That made sense. I nodded.

Mrs Pollock straightened and began chatting with Zoe Fawnwell’s mother. After a moment, I realised that Autumn and Pelagia were either side of me. They were the only girls in our class whose parents had not come.

‘Your painting would have looked perfect in the centre,’ Autumn commented quietly. ‘Rain with lots of sunshine radiating out from it.’

Pelagia spoke even more softly. ‘She didn’t have to name the artwork Sunshine.’

I hadn’t thought of that.

The three of us stood in a row staring at the sunshine.

I glanced across the gymnasium and caught sight of my mother in a crowd of Grade 7 parents. Imogen was standing on tiptoe, pointing out the crepe-paper flowers she had added to her class’s ‘Garden’ artwork. Mother looked pleased.

Any moment, Mother would approach and say, ‘Hello, Esther. And which one of these is your painting?’

I walked out of the gymnasium and back to my classroom.

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