Read Online Kite Spirit by Sita Brahmachari - Free Book Online Page A

that she was moving
flat. Then a removal van had appeared in the courtyard below. Ruby and Kite had popped down with tea and home-made muffins to find that it was Dawn Jenkins moving in, and they had giggled till they
cried to find that they, who were already inseparable, were to be neighbours!
    ‘Now we really are like thithters!’ Dawn joked, even though, by then she had lost her lisp.
    Ruby placed an arm around Hazel’s narrow shoulders and steered her towards the sofa. ‘I’ll make us some tea,’ she soothed as she went through to the kitchen.
    ‘I made her tea in a flask and left a croissant on the table for her breakfast,’ whispered Hazel. ‘You see, I was on the early shift and Jimmy was on nights and he was coming
in just after school time. He was hoping to get back earlier, but it was all over by then anyway.’ Hazel was rocking gently in her seat, clasping the doll in her lap as if it was a baby. Kite
wasn’t even sure she was talking to her. ‘When the school called me to say she hadn’t arrived, I told them I’d set out her uniform all washed and ironed, and her breakfast
– you know I always leave a good breakfast . . . and a new pencil case with the fine tip pens in . . . she says . . . she said . . . made her writing the neatest, and a little good-luck card
because God help me, I didn’t want to wake her.’ Her voice cracked.
    Kite leaned forward in her seat, searching desperately for something kind to say to Hazel, whose hands were now clasped tight to her face. The skin on her hands and arms was rubbed raw and her
eczema had opened into bloody cracks between her fingers.
    ‘It’s true, you always left breakfast for her,’ was the only thing Kite could think of to say, but her words seemed to calm Hazel down.
    ‘I’m sorry, love; I came to wish you well, not upset you.’ Hazel took a deep breath to compose herself again. ‘I’ve been going through Dawn’s things,’
she whispered, placing her hand in her jacket pocket, ‘and I found this.’ She handed Kite a sealed white envelope. ‘It’s your birthday card!’ Hazel’s voice
sounded strange and distant. She looked down at her sore hands and Kite watched as she clasped and unclasped the cracked tips of her fingers. ‘It was under her pillow, and I’m afraid we
had to open it. With all of this autopsy business, the police said she might have left a message for you. Anyway, it turns out it’s just a birthday card. I thought you should have
it!’
    This was what made Kite feel worse than anything: the sense that when people looked at her they thought that she might hold some of the clues to why Dawn had done what she did. If Dawn had
confided in her, did they think she would have kept it to herself? She heard it in all the questions she was asked . . . in Ruby’s ‘If there’s anything, I mean
anything
,
you want to talk about . . .’ In Miss Choulty’s kindly ‘You are not to blame for anything’. And now, worst of all, she read it in the searchlight questioning of
Hazel’s eyes. Kite held her hand out for the card and for a moment Hazel kept hold of the envelope, as if she was reluctant to let go.
    ‘We also found a letter from the conductor who came to the funeral. It was addressed to me and Jimmy, but I suppose Dawn must have hidden it. It said how the conductor wanted to have a
meeting with us all. It was a kind letter, you know. What was it he said? That she wasn’t just good, she was “extraordinary”. They wanted her back as their top oboe. I can’t
understand why she hid it from us.’
    Kite nodded, but she felt as if she should find a way of telling Hazel what she felt to be true. Music wasn’t just a hobby to Dawn. It was her way of speaking . . . and once she had
stopped playing, she had stopped speaking too. Sitting here with Hazel, it felt like a mistake to be going away at all. It seemed that the only people who would really understand what was going on
inside her were Hazel and