Deirdre, one for Sharon, though of course she won’t be able to eat it so I’ll get that one too, one for me, and one for Gill. Last week I had Sharon’s bun, and this week she’ll have mine. It’s more for the symbol than the actual bun, though goodness knows the actual buns are nice. I’m not buying one for Karen, because Karen calls me Hopalong, which I hate more than any of the other names. Commie’s almost affectionate, and Taffy’s inevitable, but using Crip or especially Hopalong means hostility.
Then I asked the bakery girl about the pond. “Is it a park?”
“A park, love? No, it’s the edge of the estate.”
“But there’s a bench by the pond. A park bench.”
“Council put that there for people to sit, like. By the road, that belongs to the council, so I suppose it might be a park, but not a proper park with flowers. But what you see behind, those trees and that, that’s part of the estate, and you’d find a No Trespassing sign before long, reckon, because there are pheasants. We hear them banging away over there in August.”
So it’s an estate with a country house, managed and with game keepers and things, but left half-wild for the pheasants. I bet there are fairies all over it.
S UNDAY 14 TH O CTOBER 1979
I got a telling-off after lunch, and an Order Mark, my first. Apparently it’s not done to give buns to girls not in your house or form, unless they’re a relation. And Gill, while she is in my chemistry class, isn’t in my house or form, so I’m not supposed to be friendly with her, and my giving her a bun is considered deeply suspicious, and possibly lesbian. I think from the way some of this got said that Gill may well be a lesbian. Fine. I have no problem with that. I’m not one, but I’m definitely with Heinlein and Delany on this.
Even Deirdre and Sharon thought I shouldn’t have given Gill the bun. Deirdre tried to make excuses for me, saying I didn’t understand because I hadn’t been here long enough, and maybe all the chemistry had addled my brain.
I will never understand this place.
M ONDAY 15 TH O CTOBER 1979
I didn’t write back again. But she keeps on writing to me and sending photographs like that. I get one or two every week. I am so desperate for the glimpses of Mor that I keep opening the letters, and I can never quite not read them. I save them until I am in the library, because I can’t bear everyone to see me reading them. Then today Lorraine Pargeter had a bad cold and came into the library and saw me looking at one of the cut-out photographs. Lorraine is a big-boned blonde stupid girl, captain of the form hockey team and a fly half for the house one. She’s certainly called me names and pinched me, but she stopped the others trying to trip me coming out of the showers, so I don’t feel especially antagonistic to her. Today her nose is very red and she looks truly miserable not to be out on her favourite games pitch. I heard her asking the teacher if she could wrap up and go out and watch.
“What’s that, Morwenna?” she asked. I didn’t want her to know I cared, which she would if I hid it, so I flicked it across the table to her. She picked it up and looked at it. It was a picture of the two of us getting prizes at school speech day, except with me burned out, as usual.
“My mother’s a witch,” I said, casually.
Lorraine gasped, and dropped the picture. “Is it voodoo?” she whispered.
I have been wondering that myself. I don’t know how these things work, and well, you just try looking it up. What does it mean to burn someone out of a picture? What could it do? What consequences could it have? I reached for my wooden charm, but of course it isn’t there, I can’t wear it with my uniform. I have a rock in my pocket and I reached for that. I don’t know if it helps, but it certainly is comforting. I touched the wooden library desk, which has been smoothed by time and hundreds of hands.
“Sort of,” I said, quietly. “She burns
Then I asked the bakery girl about the pond. “Is it a park?”
“A park, love? No, it’s the edge of the estate.”
“But there’s a bench by the pond. A park bench.”
“Council put that there for people to sit, like. By the road, that belongs to the council, so I suppose it might be a park, but not a proper park with flowers. But what you see behind, those trees and that, that’s part of the estate, and you’d find a No Trespassing sign before long, reckon, because there are pheasants. We hear them banging away over there in August.”
So it’s an estate with a country house, managed and with game keepers and things, but left half-wild for the pheasants. I bet there are fairies all over it.
S UNDAY 14 TH O CTOBER 1979
I got a telling-off after lunch, and an Order Mark, my first. Apparently it’s not done to give buns to girls not in your house or form, unless they’re a relation. And Gill, while she is in my chemistry class, isn’t in my house or form, so I’m not supposed to be friendly with her, and my giving her a bun is considered deeply suspicious, and possibly lesbian. I think from the way some of this got said that Gill may well be a lesbian. Fine. I have no problem with that. I’m not one, but I’m definitely with Heinlein and Delany on this.
Even Deirdre and Sharon thought I shouldn’t have given Gill the bun. Deirdre tried to make excuses for me, saying I didn’t understand because I hadn’t been here long enough, and maybe all the chemistry had addled my brain.
I will never understand this place.
M ONDAY 15 TH O CTOBER 1979
I didn’t write back again. But she keeps on writing to me and sending photographs like that. I get one or two every week. I am so desperate for the glimpses of Mor that I keep opening the letters, and I can never quite not read them. I save them until I am in the library, because I can’t bear everyone to see me reading them. Then today Lorraine Pargeter had a bad cold and came into the library and saw me looking at one of the cut-out photographs. Lorraine is a big-boned blonde stupid girl, captain of the form hockey team and a fly half for the house one. She’s certainly called me names and pinched me, but she stopped the others trying to trip me coming out of the showers, so I don’t feel especially antagonistic to her. Today her nose is very red and she looks truly miserable not to be out on her favourite games pitch. I heard her asking the teacher if she could wrap up and go out and watch.
“What’s that, Morwenna?” she asked. I didn’t want her to know I cared, which she would if I hid it, so I flicked it across the table to her. She picked it up and looked at it. It was a picture of the two of us getting prizes at school speech day, except with me burned out, as usual.
“My mother’s a witch,” I said, casually.
Lorraine gasped, and dropped the picture. “Is it voodoo?” she whispered.
I have been wondering that myself. I don’t know how these things work, and well, you just try looking it up. What does it mean to burn someone out of a picture? What could it do? What consequences could it have? I reached for my wooden charm, but of course it isn’t there, I can’t wear it with my uniform. I have a rock in my pocket and I reached for that. I don’t know if it helps, but it certainly is comforting. I touched the wooden library desk, which has been smoothed by time and hundreds of hands.
“Sort of,” I said, quietly. “She burns
Similar Books
