A Sea of Stars

The next day, we pick Cat up from foster care and go for a walk along the cliff path. I love walking the cliff path – it’s my favourite, especially when it’s windy and the breeze streams right through my hair. I’m charging ahead with my arms stretched out wide like a bird when Cat runs to catch up to me.

“You didn’t say anything, did you?” she whispers. “About the garlic bread.”

“I’m not a tell-tale, Cat,” I say. “But you could’ve just asked. The waitress would have put it in a takeaway box and no one would’ve minded. You didn’t have to sneak it.”

She blushes and nibbles on a nail.

“Don’t go near the edge,” she whispers, tugging my jacket. “It’s too dangerous. You might fall.”

“It’s not dangerous!” I laugh, moving closer to the bit where the tufty grass ends and the ground slips away. “It’s fun! I love it! Every time I go near the edge I feel like the sea is calling me down, daring me to jump off. It makes me so dizzy. Same with tall buildings like the Eiffel Tower and the Empire State Building. Come and stand next to me, Cat, and I’ll show you. I’ll hold you tight, I promise. I won’t let you fall.”

“No,” she says, tugging me more. “I don’t want to. Come back here.”

I make my face go all ghosty. I wiggle my fingers in the air.

“Woooooooo,” I whisper. “The mermaids are calling me down! Woooooooooo! Wooooooohoo ooooo!”

“Maya!” shrieks Mum, catching up with us. “Come away from the edge. If the wind caught hold of you now you wouldn’t stand a chance. You’d be down on the rocks in no time.”

Dad laughs. He grabs me and tickles me and pretends to throw me down on the rocks so the fish and the mermaids can eat me up for tea. I start giggling for England and then Dad turns into the tickle monster and plays the game from when I was small. He tries to pull Cat in too, to get her giggling, but she and Mum back away looking scared, so it’s just Dad and me shrieking with laughter and splitting our sides.

“Over you go,” growls Dad in his tickle monster voice, holding me high in the air. “I’ll feed you to the sharks.”

“Stop it, you two! Please!” Mum shouts. “You’re scaring me to death!”

Dad smiles and puts me down.

“Calm down, lovely,” he says to Mum, folding her into a hug. “We’re just playing.”

I move even closer to the edge. We were only playing! We weren’t doing anything wrong. We’re allowed! I move closer and closer to the edge, so close that if the wind gets a teeny bit stronger I might actually fall. Then Cat, Cat, Cat puts her hands over her eyes and starts screaming. It’s a shrill, icy scream – a harsh, empty sound that rises up from a place deep inside her that’s never felt sunshine. And, if you were watching, you’d think she’d seen a ghost. Or a silver-tipped dagger heading for her heart. Or a horror film labelled ‘18’. Anyone listening might think a murderer was kidnapping her.

We freeze for a second, shocked by the noise that’s ripping up the sky. Then Dad and Mum rush to her side.

“It’s OK, Cat,” Mum says, fussing around. “We’re here.”

“You’re safe,” says Dad. “Maya’s safe. It’s OK.”

Their words are like special cream to soothe her, but they don’t help and Cat’s scream goes on and on and on, slicing through me, shredding my ears.

“Cat,” says Dad with a deep, firm voice, “stop this! Take a deep breath and look at me. You’re OK. Maya’s OK.”

A lady with a dog walks past, her shoulders hunched away from us, her brow knitted up with concern.

“That whole display was really unnecessary,” hisses Mum, glaring at me and Dad. “Look at what the pair of you have done to her!”

“It’s not my fault!” I shout. “We were just having fun. Me and Dad always do that! We always do the tickle monster.”

“Not today,” sighs Mum, pulling Cat in close, regardless of the continued screaming. “Not today. Remember, we’re supposed to be taking things gently.”

I feel angry now. Mum’s fear and Cat’s scream are like tight bandages on my legs, tying me down. Like great heavy boots on my feet. Cat’s scream goes on and on, filling the sky, freezing the universe. Mum’s face twists up with worry and panic. She strokes Cat’s hair, she rubs her back, she mouths to Dad, “Oh, God! What shall we do?”

I hate Mum like this. I want my old mum back, the cool one from ages ago who let me crawl around in the mud and eat stuff off the floor. The one who took me to festivals and climbed mountains in Nepal and slept on beaches in Italy, under blankets by the fire. Not this mum, who’s trembling with panic.

Huge tears well up inside me, sharp knives cut the back of my eyes. My throat fills up with hard pebbles that are impossible to swallow down. I want the mum back who bathed me in a bucket and tucked me up to sleep in a drawer. I love her to the moon and everything, but if she had it her way she’d put me inside a silver bubble of light and surround me with a thousand golden angel bodyguards. I know she wants to keep me really, really safe so I don’t die like Alfie, but she can’t wrap me up in cotton wool forever. I have to be able to play with my own dad and have fun.

Dad looks from me to Mum to Cat; he runs his hand through his hair and sighs.

“Cat, sweetie,” he says, kneeling down and clutching her shoulders, “listen to me. It’s OK; we’re all here. You’re safe.”

But Cat’s scream just goes on and on and on. She’s hardly even stopping for air and everyone’s staring at us like we’re a bad family doing something wrong.

An old man walks past and mutters, “Disturbed, that one is.”

Dad nods and stares out at the horizon, to the huge grey ship in the distance, travelling far, far away. I know he feels the same as me. Travelling was his whole life before Alfie and he wants that life back too. I know he does. Sometimes I see him exploring the world on Google Earth, having his own private mini-travel. But it’s not the same on Google Earth – you can’t smell the world from a computer or feel the wind in your hair.

My chest is burning now. I move so close to the edge that bits of earth start crumbling under my feet. I hold my arms out wide and let Cat’s screams drill through my skin. I let the wild wind lick my face with its salty tongue. I stare at the jagged black rocks rising up from the sea.

“Get away from the edge!” shrieks Mum. “Maya, please! You’re upsetting us all.”

Then something in me snaps. I flash my eyes in defiance and start flapping my arms like mad, like I’m suddenly going to take off and fly to the end of the earth.

“Maya!” shouts Mum. “Will you do as you’re told right now!”

Cat pulls her hands from her eyes. Her face is whiter than white. Her eyes are red raw and she just stands there, trembling. A part of me wants to run to her and tell her it’s OK, but I was only playing; I wasn’t doing anything wrong. Her scream gets quieter; it’s all raspy and juddery, coming in great huge gulps. She stares out at the sea, like a deathly ghost is about to come and swallow her.

“Please, Maya,” she says. “Please, I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“I’m not going to get hurt,” I say. “I was just having fun with my dad! We were just messing about.”

Cat stares into space. She starts nibbling on a nail and then a man attached to a paraglider runs past us. He jumps off the edge of the cliff, his kite crackling and billowing in the wind. The ropes tug and pull at his chest as he flies through the air like a beautiful rainbow bird.

Cat stares at him and shudders. “I don’t like your kind of fun. I hate it here.” She turns to Dad. “Can we go now?”

“Yes, of course we can,” says Dad, turning to leave. “Let’s go.”

I want to stay and watch the glider. I want to see where he lands. I want to stretch my arms wide with him and jump inside the clouds.

“We did that once, Mum,” I whisper, kicking the ground, “when I was a baby. Remember? You strapped me on to you and we did paragliding in India. There’s a photo of us in that box and the video.”

Mum shudders.

“I was stupid and young then,” she says, glancing back to watch the man. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I could’ve killed you! I could’ve killed us both!”

“You weren’t stupid, Mum,” I say. “You were brave. You loved exciting things! You loved adventure! And I didn’t die, Mum. Look at me – I’m alive!”

Mum stares at the paraglider swooshing through the air. She shakes her head. She stretches out her arm, grabs me and pulls me away from the edge, back towards the car, scared my jacket might turn into wings and whoosh me far away.

I wish it would.