Read Online Remember Me by Lesley Pearse - Free Book Online

something she could make at home for nothing, and anyway girls didn’t fly kites.
    Mary didn’t care about being the only girl to fly a kite, and she thought Dolly was foolish wanting daisies on her bonnet. Besides, kites made at home were too heavy to fly well; hers was made of red paper, with yellow streamers, and the string was waxed so it slid through her hands smoothly.
    The very next day after church, Mary took the kite up on the hill above the town to fly it. Dolly came with her, but only because she wanted to show off her newly trimmed bonnet. As always on a fine day with a strong breeze there were many boys flying kites, and they all looked enviously at Mary’s when it took off effortlessly, soaring up into the sky way beyond all their homemade ones.
    Dolly overcame her prejudice about it being a boy’s game, mostly because there were several boys she liked up there, among them Albert Mowles whom she was sweet on. Mary might have known she shouldn’t haveallowed Dolly to persuade her to let her hold the kite. She only wanted to do it so she could attract Albert’s attention.
    A gust of stronger wind came, and to Mary’s horror, Dolly didn’t hold the string tighter, but let it run right through her fingers. The kite was off, swept along on the wind in the direction of the beach at Menabilly.
    Everyone gave chase, some abandoning their own kites to rescue the superior one. Mary remembered how she ran like the wind, determined to beat all the boys, and they were all whooping and shouting at the unexpected excitement.
    The kite came down suddenly and dramatically as the wind dropped, landing on some rocks to the side of the little beach. The tide was out and Mary didn’t stop to think about her Sunday clothes and shoes, but ran full tilt across the seaweed, sand and mud, her mind only on rescuing her kite.
    She tripped on a half-submerged rock and fell face down. It was Albert who reached the kite, then turned back to help her up.
    ‘You can run faster than most boys,’ he said in admiration.
    Now, as Mary lay sweating in the stinking hold, she thought she ought to remember the wallop she got from Mother when she returned home soaking wet and smeared with mud. Perhaps too she should remember Dolly’s baleful look when Mary was the recipient of Albert’s praise. Maybe she would have been wiser to havetaken note of her father’s lecture that girls who acted like boys came to a sticky end.
    Yet none of those things were important to her then, or now. Nothing could detract from the thrill of seeing the red kite soar up into the sky, feeling the warm sun on her face and the soft grass beneath her feet, experiencing the joy of running wild and free, the beauty of that little beach where she so often caught crabs and mussels. It was even more important now to hold on to those memories, to think of herself as that kite, straining to be free. For hadn’t she been told at Sunday school that if you prayed hard enough for something, it would come to you?
    But it was hard to believe God listened to her prayers. Did He know or care that she was terrified she’d never see Fowey again? Was it too much to ask to go back to stand on the hill and look down at the pretty little town as the sun was setting? To watch the fishing boats come in, laden with their quivering silver pilchards, or hear the men singing in the tavern by the harbour?
    Tears came into her eyes as she reminded herself that she had lost the chance to make her mother and father proud of her. That she’d never be able to dance at Dolly’s wedding. Mary knew they despaired of her for being a hoyden, but she had always known they loved her. What would it do to them when she didn’t come home again?
    Just as Mary was beginning to believe that the hot weather would never break and she was going to be stuck in thehold for all eternity, she was called out for work again. This time it was just herself and Sarah.
    It struck Mary that Sarah must have had some hand