THAT NIGHT THE letter box crashed again. I know that’s what it was because as I woke I heard the boys laughing and the gate spring shut. I got up and stood by the side of the window and looked through the curtains. I couldn’t see much without moving them, so I slipped into the other front bedroom.
Neil and Lee and Gareth were down below, with Neil’s brother Tom, who I sometimes saw at the school gates, and some older boys I had never seen before. When Father opened the door, they rode away. But they came back about five minutes later. One of the older boys was swigging from a can; the others were doing wheelies on their bikes and spitting on the ground. The phone rang in the hall, and I heard Father come out of the kitchen and the door slam behind him. The phone stopped, and then I heard him say: “Mrs. Pew!”
“Yes,” he said. “Thank you. I’m dealing with it.”
He said: “Everything is being taken care of, Mrs. Pew. Please don’t worry.”
I was cold then, so I went to bed.
When the boys came back they shouted: “Where’s the witch?” through the letter-box slot and threw chippings at the upstairs windows. I felt the noise in my chest like a shower of red-hot pellets, and I wondered if this is what it felt like to be shot. I couldn’t lie there, because my body was on fire and I was shaking, so I got out my journal and wrote. But the noise went on so I put the journal away and sat against the wall. I sat there for a long time, until it was quiet in the street, until the hall clock struck twelve. Then I got up and opened the curtains.
It was very still and very bright. The full moon cast long black shadows from the houses and trees in the Land of Decoration. The shadows stretched right across the floor. I wondered what they reminded me of, and then I remembered that the graveyard in town looked like that when shadows fell from the headstones.
“God,” I said quietly, “why is this happening?”
“Well,” said God, “to Neil it looks like you’re the cause of all his problems at the moment.”
“I can’t help it if Mrs. Pierce doesn’t like him,” I said. “What should I do?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re God!” I said.
“But you got yourself into this.”
“
“No,” said God. “It was you.”
“But I’ve only done what You told me to do.”
“You’ve done what you
“It’s the same thing,” I said.
“What?” said God.
“I don’t know!” I said. I began to feel hot. “I don’t know why I said that.”
I didn’t want to talk to God anymore, I didn’t want to be in my room anymore, I was afraid the cloud would come over me again like it did the day I made the snow, so I went to the door, but when I got there I couldn’t go out, and I sat back down. After a minute I went to the door again and this time I went down the stairs.
Halfway down, I screamed.
A figure was standing in the hall. The figure whirled round and Father’s voice said: “
“You frightened me.”
“What are you doing up?”
“Nothing. I—I didn’t want to be in my room.”
He turned back to the front door. He looked like a boy with the moonlight catching the back of his head.
I couldn’t see any reason for him to be standing in the hall, so I said: “Are you all right?”
“Yes.”
I suddenly wanted to say something to him very badly, but I didn’t know what. “Don’t worry about the boys,” I said.
“I’m not worried!” He turned and his eyes flashed.
“Good,” I said. “I was just checking.”
“Everything’s under control!”
“OK.”
“They won’t be back tonight anyway.” He sniffed loudly and put his hands in his pockets as if that settled it, but he continued to stand there.
I said: “Are you sure you’re all right?”
“I’m fine! You’re the one who’s all bothered! You should be asleep! What are you doing up?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, get back to bed.”
“OK.”
AFTER A WHILE the boys came back. I heard Father go out. He stood in the street and they rode around him, calling him names and spitting at him.
At last he came back in. I heard him open the front-room curtains and saw the light stream across the road. I heard a creak and knew Father had sat down in one of the wicker chairs. I didn’t understand what he was doing. Then I heard him begin to whistle, and I knew he was thinking good thoughts. The boys hung around for a while and then they went away.
My Perfect Day
FATHER SAYS WE should never underestimate the power our thoughts have to help us. He says that all we need is One Good Thought to save the day. I have a few good thoughts. These are some of them:
1) that the world is about to end,
2) that everything is actually quite small,
3) that I am in the Land of Decoration, having my perfect day.
The last is the best thought of all.
I HOPE THAT there are still things from this world left over in the Land of Decoration, because I am very fond of some of them. If I could have all of my favorite things in one day, that day would be perfect, and this is how it would be.
To begin with, there would be Father and Mother and me. I know Mother will be in the Land of Decoration, because God has promised to bring the dead back to life if they were faithful, and Mother is dead, and she is the most faithful person I know. They still talk about her in the congregation, about what an example she set, about how she died, about how she trusted. Margaret still has a dress Mother made for her, and Josie has a shawl.
I’ve tried so many times to imagine meeting Mother, but all I have are odds and ends. I know, for instance, that she had brown hair and eyes like me. I know she smiled a lot, because she is smiling in most of our photos. I know that she liked making things. But after that I have to use my imagination.
In my perfect day, it would be one of those days when you wake up to sunshine, with nothing to do and all the time in the world to do it in. This day would be like a bubble floating past your window. It would be like opening your hand and it landing right in your palm, the light touching it the way it does, so that only the surface seems to be spinning and the inside of the bubble is perfectly still.
The day would begin with Mother and Father and me having breakfast, and as we ate I would tell Mother all about my life in this world and how I had been looking forward to seeing her, and she would tell me what it was like to be dead and how she had been looking forward to seeing me. Then I would show her the things I have made with the things she left, and she would shake her head as if she couldn’t believe it, she would hug me, and then we would go outside.
It would be one of those days when everything shimmers and the world is made up of jostling pieces of light. The air would be warm and smell of summer and the hedges would be filled with cow parsley and butterflies. There
