Farrant Flora in Love

COSTA AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR
Main
ISBN: 978-0-571-29798-6
Verlag: Faber & Faber
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, Band 2, 240 Seiten

Reihe: A Bluebell Gadsby Book

Just when Bluebell thought her crazy family were behaving normally, her parents make an announcement that could turn everything upside down. If only Zoran, their au pair, would come back to live with them. Unfortunately he's too busy teaching guitar to his new protégé, Zachary Smith. Blue is jealous at first, until Zach starts helping her little sister with a secret project and becomes a regular visitor at the Gadsby house. Then Zach goes missing. Blue needs her family to pull together if they're going to find him...

Natasha Farrant is the author of the Costa Award winning novel, Voyage of the Sparrowhawk, bestselling middle-grade novel, The Children of Castle Rock, the acclaimed Bluebell Gadsby series and Carnegie-longlisted and Branford Boase-shortlisted YA historical novel The Things We Did For Love. She was shortlisted for the Queen of Teen Award 2014. She lives in London with her family.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Farrant, Natasha

Leseproben

The Film Diaries of Bluebell Gadsby

Scene Two (Transcript)

The Concert

INTERIOR. AFTERNOON.

The drawing room at Richmond Hill Retirement Home. Resident students (all old) sit in armchairs arranged in a semi-circle around chairs taken from the dining room, where non-resident students (mostly children) squirm in the front rows with their parents behind them. JAS and FLORA sit at the back, next to CAMERAMAN (Blue) who is standing. ZORAN stands to one side at the front, introducing the musicians as they come up to play.

NOTE: To keep things moving along and in order to get to the really interesting part of the afternoon, this transcript is skipping detailed descriptions of all the acts, which included renditions of ‘Summertime’, ‘Frère Jacques’, Chopin’s Nocturnes, assorted pieces from the Music Examination Board’s books for Grades One to Five and a number of current rock songs. And then, right at the end . . .

ZORAN

Zachary Smith on guitar, singing ‘Broken Birds’, a song of his own creation.

ZACHARY SMITH stands up. Flora, Jas and even Cameraman crane forward. He is not at all how they imagined him. Medium height, slight and pale, with dark eyes and hair falling over his face. He wears black jeans, black high tops and a green-and-black checked shirt open over an old rock band T-shirt, and his wrists are covered in bands and bracelets. He takes his place at the front and scans the audience, but it’s clear he doesn’t find what he’s looking for. His face drops and he bends over his guitar, taking his time to tune it. His hands are shaking. The moment seems to go on and on. Somebody in the audience giggles. Zoran plays a few notes on the piano and Zach rallies. He strikes a few slow chords and begins to sing.

‘Broken bird in my hollowed hand,

Beating heart like you want to shout,

Beating hard to fight your way out,

Broken bird trying to fly,

Where are you going? What do you want?

Be careful the wind don’t blow you about.

And the waves draw lines upon the sand, the sand,

The waves draw lines upon the sand,

And when they’ve drawn them they take them away,

I hope they take me too some day,

I hope they take me too.

Broken bird, when I let you go

You mustn’t look back, you mustn’t, no.

Head for the sun and fly right to it,

Look for the light and go straight through it.

Don’t look down or you’ll fall and break,

’Cos the wind ain’t gonna carry you for ever.

And the waves draw lines upon the sand, the sand, etc.’

The lyrics (in Cameraman’s humble opinion) are a bit sentimental, but the melody is simple and haunting and the voice – throaty, rasping but somehow also, when it hits the high notes, pure – holds the audience captive. Zachary Smith finishes. He is still for a moment, holding the silence at the end of the piece. When he looks up, it’s like he’s come back from a long way away and is a little bit lost.

Camera takes in great-aunt Alina and her husband Peter, clutching hands, rapt. Several adult members of the audience are crying. A lot of the younger kids stare with their mouths dropped open in amazement because they never thought one of their own could ever sing like that. Two older boys, whose performance of ‘Wonderwall’ was unintentionally hilarious, look annoyed. Camera finally pans to Flora. Flora’s mouth is also open, but she does not look annoyed or even amazed. Flora’s eyes shine. She leans forward in her chair and she does not move, even when Zachary Smith stops singing, but keeps on looking at him like she cannot believe what she is seeing. He turns his head towards her. He catches her eye. Suddenly he doesn’t look lost any more.

He looks – amazed.

Suddenly there is nobody in the room but him and Flora.

Sunday 17 November (continued)

Jas made me replay the whole concert on the Tube on the way home, though we skipped over most of the acts, lingering only on the kid singing ‘Summertime’ and the old lady playing jazz tunes, until we got to Zach, and then she made me play his bit over and over again. Flora said nothing, just stared out of the Tube window. It was dark outside and there was nothing to see, but I don’t think she’d have noticed if a herd of elephants had cantered past playing ‘Wonderwall’ on the trumpet.

‘He’s not at all like I expected,’ Jas said. Then a little bit later she said, ‘I’m glad Zoran’s looking after him.’

Flora still said nothing.

Flora, who normally can’t shut up for an instant. Completely silent.

It was very unnerving.

Monday 18 November

Dad found the kittens this morning, or, more precisely, they found him. Somehow they got out of the shed in the night, and they were stalking up and down outside the kitchen doors when he saw them, mewing for their breakfast.

‘AGGGHHHH!’ Dad screamed, like they were full-grown tigers instead of seven-week-old kittens.

‘MEEEOWWWWW!’ the kittens yowled back.

‘Oh my God they’re adorable!’ cried Flora, clapping her hands.

‘They’re mine,’ Jas announced. ‘I found them starving in the graveyard and I’m keeping them for ever.’

‘We didn’t lose the rats to make room for disease-ridden strays,’ Dad declared. ‘They will have to go.’

‘We didn’t lose the rats, full stop,’ Flora reminded him.

‘I could sell them,’ offered Twig.

‘You could not,’ snarled Jas.

‘This is a very bad time to have new pets,’ said Dad. ‘Your mother . . .’

‘What about me?’ Mum wandered down into the kitchen and I have to say that her behaviour at the moment is almost as troubling as Dad’s. Normally on a Monday morning she would be tearing around in a suit, ready for work and nagging at us about being late for school, but today she was still in her dressing gown at eight o’clock, eating peanut butter with her fingers straight from the jar.

Jas said, ‘It is either the kittens or me.’ Dad replied that there were far too many children in the house anyway. Mum walked out, slamming the door.

‘That’, Flora said to Dad, ‘is probably the nastiest thing you have ever said to any of us.’

‘I didn’t mean it!’ cried Dad. He stared from Jas to the door Mum had just stormed out of, then back at Jas again, like he couldn’t decide what he should do next. Upstairs we heard another door slam. Dad yelled, ‘Just get rid of them!’ then sprang into action and tore out after Mum.

‘I did mean it!’ Jas yelled after him. ‘I’ll run away again and this time I won’t come back!’

‘No,’ Zoran said when Jas and I trudged round with the kittens this afternoon.

‘Just until Daddy calms down,’ Jas begged.

‘They peed on my duvet!’ Zoran cried.

‘If you don’t take them,’ Jas said, ‘they will probably die.’

‘When are you going to email me your recording?’ Zoran asked. ‘Loads of people are asking to see it.’

Jas started to scuff the carpet with her foot.

‘I would love to email you my recording,’ I said, ‘but the problem is I can’t find my camera.’

Zoran said, ‘What do you mean, you can’t find it?’ and I said, ‘I don’t know, I’ve looked everywhere, it’s really upsetting,’ and then Jas burst into tears and sobbed, ‘Oh, who cares about your stupid camera, what about the kittens?’ Zoran hugged her but was very firm and said that he would have a word with Mum about them. He went into his bedroom to call her, but we listened at the door. It was hard to hear everything, but basically he told her how good it would be for Jas to look after two needy little animals, especially when things were a bit traumatic.

‘What does traumatic mean?’ Jas whispered.

‘I think he means you’re upset because of the rats,’ I whispered.

Dad is sulking but Jas is over the moon, because after talking to Zoran Mum said of course the kittens can stay. I think possibly she only said it to annoy Dad, but this makes no difference at all to Jas.

And I’ve found my camera. It was under Flora’s pillow.

Tuesday 19 November

‘My sister is in love again,’ I wrote to Jake this evening. ‘She stole my camera after I filmed this boy in a concert he was in and she ran the battery flat watching my recording. I found it under her pillow. Then she went bright red at dinner when Mum asked how the concert went. I’m attaching the clip here so you can see it. Please don’t show it to your family.’

I stopped to think while the clip was uploading, and then I wrote, ‘On second thoughts, don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m not going to send this email, I do hope you understand,’ and then instead of pressing send I pressed delete, making today the first day since he went away that I haven’t emailed Jake. Sometimes I have really racked my brain to think of something to write and sometimes I have written much too much, but the point is I have written every single day, just like he asked, but he hardly ever writes back and when he does it’s always the same thing, about the awesome beach and how funny I am and...