As I go down the stairs, I realise that I like having Harry's shirt on. It makes me feel different somehow. When he gave it to me, I thought it might be weird to be wearing a sick boy's shirt. But it isn't. It kind of feels like I'm hiding a secret, but it's a nice secret. It still smells faintly of pine needles. I brush at my muddy trousers as I go into the kitchen, try to pick off some of the worst patches. Jack's already there, shovelling his breakfast in.
‘You're in a hurry,’ I say.
‘Playing football before school. Meeting the others.’
‘Can I come?’ I say it without meaning to, before I even know why I'm asking. Already I can see him trying to work out how to say ‘no’ to me nicely.
I sit down opposite him, pour myself a bowl of Rice Krispies. I tip the milk in and mix everything around until I can hear the krispies crackle.
‘Why do you always want to come?’ he asks. He's suspicious now, looking at me funny.
I stir my spoon through the cereal. ‘I dunno.’ I think of his friends sitting together at the playground, the way they always seem so tight. I think of Crowy. ‘No real reason.’
Jack shoves his last mouthful in then clatters his spoon into the bowl. He sighs as he looks at me. ‘It's not Crowy, is it? You don't like him, do you?’
‘Course not.’
I say it too fast. I feel my cheeks go hot and red, and stick a spoonful of krispies into my mouth so I don't have to say any more. Jack notices, though.
‘Ha! Knew it!’ He throws his arms up into the air. ‘What is it with that guy?’ He frowns as he tries to work it out. Then he gets up from the table, turns as he has another thought. ‘So it's not just sick boys you like, then?’
On the way to the sink, he stops to hold his spoon above me, waiting for a bit of milk to drop off and land on my neck. I flinch to the side.
‘Get off me!’
‘Bird's got a crush,’ he taunts in an annoying singsongy voice.
‘I don't,’ I say. Because I don't have a crush on Crowy; at least, I don't think I do . . . no more than any other girl in my school. Anyway, it's Harry I've been thinking of lately. I turn and snatch the spoon from Jack's hand before he can drip any more milk onto me. ‘He's just the nicest of your loser friends.’
I fling the spoon towards the sink. Only it doesn't get there. It pings off the worktop and hits a glass, which topples and then starts to fall. Jack dives for it, catches it. Just.
‘Hey, didn't mean to make you mad,’ he says, laughing now. ‘I just think it's funny. First this sick boy in the hospital, and now Crowy. Settle down, sis!’
He washes the spoon then comes back to the table. He's smiling, but his eyes are still taunting me.
‘I don't like either of them,’ I say. ‘Not like that.’
Jack raises his eyebrows. I'd hate to know what horrible things he's thinking about me. If Dad was here, he would have told Jack off by now. He gets up from the table, grabs his schoolbag.
‘Don't you dare say anything, to your friends or anyone.’
Jack stops, half turns. ‘So you're saying it's true?’
I shake my head quickly. ‘As if!’
He chuckles as he takes an apple from the fruit bowl. ‘Go get your own group of friends. Crowy's mine!’
He's smiling as he says it, but it still stings. I pat the Rice Krispies further into the milk until it all turns into one big, soggy mess. Then I get my sketchbook from my bag and draw wings until it's time for Mum to take me to school.
CHAPTER 34
Mrs Diver gives us the whole lesson to work on our flying projects. She walks between our desks, checking our ideas.
‘Once you've completed your studies on paper, you can start on the model,’ she says. ‘Remember, it can be based on something real that flies, or you can design a flying machine like da Vinci's. Your models don't need to be big and you can use any material you like.’
I think of Old Swanson, and wonder if that's the kind of thing Mrs Diver means. A large stuffed swan hardly seems top of the standard list of art materials. I lean back on my chair and wonder how to use it. What about the wooden hang-glider idea, with the swan attached? It wouldn't have wheels and gears, like Leonardo's machines, but if I got it right it would look pretty amazing. Only it would be huge.
Mrs Diver jolts me out of my thoughts.
‘But before you start thinking about your model,’ she says quietly, ‘I want you to continue doing your observation sketches.’
I go back to sketching the swan. I draw her wings outstretched, as she looked when she ran across the surface of the lake. I think about the way her feathers angled into the wind, and try to capture that. Behind me, I can hear Jordan complaining to Mrs Diver about how hard this project is.
‘Imagine how hard it was for Leo,’ she tells him. ‘He was doing this kind of stuff over five hundred years ago.’
I stick my chin into Harry's shirt collar and smell the pine smell. Strange that it should smell so much like trees when Harry seems scared to go outside. I put my sketches of wings aside for a moment and draw a boy's face instead. Two big eyes. It's hard to make them sparkle with an ordinary HB pencil, though. I dot in the freckles on his nose. Stretch them out into his cheeks. I dig my pencil hard into the page until the lead snaps. The eyes are too big and the smile is too wide for Harry. And he doesn't look sick enough.
I take a light brown pencil from Sophie's desk and colour in the eyes until they're a chestnut colour. I scribble at the hair until it becomes longer and darker . . . a little more like Crowy's. I push away from my desk and look at it. What I've drawn isn't anyone. A bit of Harry, a bit of Crowy, and a bit of someone else entirely. Maybe it's my dream boy. Maybe Jack's right when he says I like them both.
Matt and Jordan start laughing. I turn around to them quickly. They're leaning forward over their desks, looking at my picture.
‘Who's that?’ Matt whispers. ‘Your boyfriend?’
I instantly cover it up with my hand. But they're hissing with laughter now, the noise coming through their teeth in breathy gasps.
‘You sound like a bunch of snakes,’ I say.
That only makes them laugh more. I pull a clean sheet of paper over my picture and go back to planning a wing-based flying machine. I can't concentrate, though, not now that I know they're watching. I stare at Sophie's page where she's trying to draw an aeroplane. She sketches out a faint kangaroo design running down its side. The boys are still sniggering. I turn my body away from them and stare through the window. The sky is light grey today, like swan feathers. I don't want to be here, not even in art lesson. I want to be at the lake, running with the swan. I want Harry to come with me.
When the bell goes, I walk down the school corridors still thinking about him. People shove into me as they try to get to their lessons, everyone in such a hurry. It's not like the hospital corridors. These corridors are crammed with lockers and schoolbags and laughter. Smells of wet jumpers and sweat. At the corner of the corridor, Mr Symonds, the IT teacher, is waiting for us. I imagine Harry's standing there also, waiting for me like how he waited near Dad's ward.
In IT, I forget about spreadsheets and what we're meant to be doing. I wait until Mr Symonds is busy helping someone then open Internet Explorer. I can flick back to my spreadsheet document if Mr Symonds comes close. It's not as if I'm the only one doing it. Most of the others are checking their emails, and the boys behind me are searching for dodgy sites. I hear them whispering as they click on to something new.
I type ‘how to make a winged flying machine’ into the search engine. There are over fourteen million results. The first things that come up are about making model aeroplanes. I click on a related search that says ‘make your own wings’. These results are more practical, giving me instructions and patterns. I click on a link that shows how someone made huge angel wings using two bags of turkey feathers, and then wore them to a party. But there is nothing about swan wings, and nothing about how to turn stuffed swan wings into a moving mo
del about flight.
I keep clicking.
On the ninth page, I find something different. The picture that comes up is of a pencil-sketched man holding his arms out straight. Behind him, attached to his arms and chest with what looks like some sort of harness, are huge white wings. Swan wings. They have to be. They're too big to be anything else. It looks like they're coming right out of his back. I lean close to the computer screen to see. The picture looks ancient and faint, as if it were drawn long before the Internet existed. It looks like something da Vinci could have drawn himself. I scroll down. Below the picture is a list of materials and, below that, instructions.
1. Acquire the wings of a large bird.
2. Bend stainless steel wire into shapes that follow the contours of the wings.
3. Make twenty small incisions in the skin along the wing bones . . .
The instructions get more complicated as I read through. I squint at the diagrams. They seem to show that, once finished, these wings would be able to twist and flap just like a real bird's. Leather straps lead out from a harness and fasten the wearer's arms to the wings, so that he can turn them just by moving his body. I keep scrolling through the pages of instructions. They look so hard: too hard. But I have Granddad's stuffed swan. And Granddad has loads of weird things in his barn that might help. Perhaps it's possible. I save this link. I minimise the browser and go back to my spreadsheet. When it comes to printing what I've done, I print these instructions too.
CHAPTER 35
On Saturday Mum drops me at the hospital, then drives off to do the shopping.
‘I'll meet you at Dad's ward later,’ she says. ‘Don't you dare be late.’
I wait until I see Mum's car pull out onto the ring road before I thread my way through the car park to the fence. I walk quickly through the trees. I'm certain the swan must have flown away by now. But she's still there. Still alone, too.
I drop my bag and go right up to the water's edge. The swan keeps watching me, waiting for me. I've told Mum I want to sketch her wings again, but that's not the only reason I'm here. I do up my laces. I start to jog and wait for her to follow. It's not long before I hear her feet slapping on the water behind. This time, I try something different. I slow down. I glance at her and see that she's slowing too. I speed up. She does the same, rising onto the water's surface and beating her wings. I stop abruptly. She does too. She sticks her feet out in front of her like brakes, making water shoot up around her, then waits for my next move. She's doing exactly what I do. Exactly.
I turn to her, suddenly angry . . . suddenly fed up with all this weirdness.
‘Stop following me,’ I yell. I run towards the water, waving my arms about. ‘Why won't you just fly?’
She flinches, but doesn't move back. She stares at me blankly, looking at me first from one side and then turning her head and looking from the other. She blinks. I pick up a stone from near my feet and skim it across the water. I don't know why I do it; I suppose I just want her to react like a normal bird. But she doesn't move away and the stone sinks before it reaches her. She waits a moment, then swims towards me. She steps onto the bank. Totally unafraid.
Her head is low and submissive. So I walk right up to her. It's as if she wants me to touch her. I hold out my hand then rest it against her head. She doesn't move back. I take a deep breath and force my shoulders to relax.
‘Why aren't you scared?’ I say, calmer now.
I stroke her neck, feeling her thin body beneath the feathers. She's unbelievably soft. So breakable. I could wrap my hands around her neck and squeeze. She'd let me. She shuts her eyes and I touch the tiny, yellowish feathers around them. I sigh out, sit down opposite her.
‘You're just stupid, aren't you? A head-case of a swan. Maybe I should tell someone to stick you in a zoo.’
I'm suddenly exhausted, frustrated by trying to work her out. There's a flicker of morning sunlight dancing across my face. It's making me sleepy. I lean up against the tree stump and look across the lake, absently counting the birds. Three mallards, two tufted ducks, four coots. After a while, the swan inches back into the water. She digs her beak into the wall of the bank and starts feeding. Just a normal bird.
The day gets brighter. Soon the sun has burst through the clouds and is bouncing onto the lake. It makes the water shimmer. Makes it hard to watch. I shut my eyes, enjoying the warmth against my skin. It feels like it's the first bit of sun we've had since summer. It feels special.
I concentrate on the warmth, try not to think about Dad and the hospital and everything bad. The insides of my eyelids are pink from the bright light. I try to make my body as still as the tree stump I'm leaning against. And soon, I feel my thoughts drifting away.
CHAPTER 36
I feel myself sinking . . . it's as if I'm falling down into the earth, being pulled towards the ground. The wind is whooshing at my ears.
Then the images come. Everything flutters at first. There are so many pictures, all flashing into my brain so quickly. I try to grasp at them. And slowly, I begin to see.
There's sky. Clouds. A whirr of wings. Swans are all around me. I look down and see the whole world stretched out below me.
I'm flying.
There's a smudge of a lake ahead. Swans start murmuring as we get closer. There's a wind, pushing from behind . . . pushing me forwards.
It happens so quickly.
The swan in front twists backwards. He looks around as he starts to fall, his wings useless and still. He screeches. I turn, try to find a different route. The wind is too strong. Another bird screams.
Suddenly I see them. There are two lines across the sky, blocking our path. I feel the flock splitting, losing formation. Scattering. I fly straight at the sun, and hope. I hear a sharp smack as another bird hits the lines. I keep beating. I twist my body, try to get a grip on the wind. The birds flying with me begin to drop away. But I can't stop. Not yet. Not until I'm far away. I look down at the land as I go.
And far, far below, there are two people. A big one and a small one. A cold gust whips around me as I realise, it's me down there! Me and Dad. We're on a path, at the edge of a lake, and we're waving our arms madly, yelling out.
It's what we were doing that first day, the day when the swans arrived.
CHAPTER 37
My eyes snap open. The swan is still drifting on the lake in front of me, still digging her beak into the bank and feeding. She's not looking at me at all. But it was her story I was dreaming, I'm sure of it.
I crawl towards her. Her head comes up as she checks where I am, then goes down again to feed. She drifts further away. She couldn't look more like an ordinary bird if she tried. I rub my eyes. Check the time on my watch. It's still early. I've only been asleep for about ten minutes, but already the sun's disappeared behind a cloud, making the lake look so much darker. I glance back at the swan, but she's floating further away, only intent on eating. I don't want to sketch her. Not now. I just want to talk to Harry.
I get to his room in a daze. It still feels like I'm half-asleep, still flying high above the reserve . . .
The same nurse lets me in.
‘He looks worse than he is,’ she tells me carefully.
Harry's in bed, propped up so he can see out of the window. The skin around his eyes looks grey and thin and makes his cheekbones stand out. I hover in the doorway. He squints as he focuses on me and I can see he's not totally with it. I sit on the edge of his bed, right up close.
‘I was watching,’ he says.
I smile. I'm glad. I reach for the glass of water on his bedside table and put it into his hands. ‘You don't look so good today.’
He manages a grimace. ‘More chemo.’ He blinks slowly, takes a sip. He pushes the glass back into my hand. ‘Help me sit up.’
He reaches out to me. I look at his smooth, pale hands. His long fingers. I lean towards him and he grabs me around my shoulders. Carefully I put my hands around his chest. My face is near his neck. He doesn't smell ill: he
smells like trees and life. I wonder if he can feel my breath on his skin. He pushes down on my shoulders, his fingers cold through my shirt, pushes himself up. He shuffles back against the pillows. I almost want to stay like that a moment longer, buried into his body, but I don't. Both of us look away as I take my arms back.
‘Now,’ he says, once he's settled, ‘what's been going on?’
He nods towards the window, really wanting to know. I tell him how the swan was following my movements exactly. I tell him how I fell asleep and dreamt about her flock flying into the lines. I watch his face as he listens. He doesn't laugh or look doubtful. Even if he doesn't believe me, he's making a good effort of pretending to.
He yawns, slowly. ‘Maybe you should find her flock,’ he says. ‘Maybe if she had her flock, she'd fly.’
It's a good thought, but I start laughing all the same. ‘How would I get a swan to a flock?’ I say. ‘Taxi?’
He smiles slightly. ‘Yeah, it is kind of stupid I guess.’
I look back out of the window. I can still see her there, floating alone.
‘I'm probably just overreacting,’ I tell Harry. ‘Whooper swans won't migrate back to Iceland for at least another three months, so there's time. Time for her to start flying again. Time for her flock to find her. I don't know why I'm so worried about her really.’
When I look back at Harry, his eyes are shut. He looks so much more relaxed now that he's slipping into sleep. His hair is definitely getting thinner: I can see patches of skin on his head, and there are gingery strands all over his duvet. His breathing becomes heavier as I watch. I move my hand across the bed and touch his fingers. They're still so cold, like Dad's hands in the ambulance. I think about holding Harry's hand in mine, making him warm again.