Butterfly Summer (6 page)

“Don’t be silly, you’ll have to one day. I’m going to be a wildlife photographer or I might even be a vet. I don’t really care, as long as it involves animals.”

“But that takes years and years of studying,” she said, pulling a face. “How boring would that be? Perhaps I’ll get a job right here at the Butterfly Garden like my dad. Then I can spend all my time outside and I won’t have to study at all.”

“That’s a brilliant idea! I know, let’s pretend I’m visiting the Garden for the first time today and you’re my guide.”

Rosa May giggled. “Okay,” she said, jumping up. She changed her voice so that it sounded posh and grown-up. “Welcome to the Garden, madam, and how can I help you this morning?”

“Erm...” I looked around, trying to think of a good question. A delicate white butterfly fluttered about between us, landing on Rosa May’s shoulder.

“Come on, ask me anything you like,” she said. “Ask me which species of butterfly lives the longest, or how butterflies use camouflage to protect themselves from predators, or – I know – ask me how the first butterflies ever came to be!”

“Okay then,” I laughed. “How
did
the first butterfly ever come to be?”

“But that’s easy!” she cried. “Haven’t you heard of the Papago legend?”

We lay back in the grass and Rosa May began to speak.

“There’s a Native American legend, the Papago legend,” she said, her voice dreamy now, as if she was staring right into the past. “One day, after the Earth Maker had shaped the world, he sat watching the children play. He saw their joy and youthful beauty and he felt sad as he realized how, as time passed, the children would grow old and die. Their beauty would fade and they would no longer be strong enough to run around in the sunshine. It was such an awful thought that the Earth Maker decided he must make something to help them enjoy life, even as they grew frail and weary. Something that would lift their hearts and spirits...”

Rosa May paused for a minute.

“Come on then, what happened next?”

“This is the good bit,” she said. “He took his Bag of Creation, and he put in the blue from the sky and the white from the freshly ground cornmeal. He added the brown of the falling leaves, some spots of sunlight and the green of the pine leaves. He gathered red, orange and purple from the flowers and he put them all in his magic bag.

“Then when he was ready, when all the beauty he could find had been mixed together, he called the Children of the Earth around him and opened the bag.
Behold my new creation!
he cried.
Angels of nature!
And out flew hundreds of exquisite butterflies, each one more colourful than the next.”

“What an amazing story,” I breathed, rolling in to face her. “Do you believe it’s true?”

“Of course! How can you even ask? There’s more to that legend actually, but I’ll tell you another time.”

We spent the rest of the morning roaming the meadows, searching for a Silver-studded Blue. We chased every blue butterfly we saw, wading through the tall, dry grass from one part of the Garden to the next. Rosa May talked non-stop the whole time, teaching me the names of all the butterflies we passed. We saw a Black-veined White, and a Clouded Yellow, an Essex Skipper and a Comma. She told me a little story about each one; their favourite flowers, or how they got their names, to help me remember. We must’ve seen every species of butterfly
except
the Silver-studded Blue.

Later that afternoon, Rosa May led me down a tiny path running between rows of thick, tangled bushes. The path was so narrow and the bushes so overgrown, it was practically impossible to get through. “Close your eyes for a second, Becky,” she ordered, a little way along. “Now keep them closed and no peeking at all.” I clasped hold of her hand, stumbling forward a few more steps until she stopped.

“Right, you can open them now, but don’t make a sound.”

I stood there blinking as the sun hit my eyes. The secret path had taken us into a dusty clearing with a big rock in the middle.

“This is what I was going to show you,” she whispered. “When I said I had something special to show you yesterday. This was it.”

I took a step towards the rock. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen in my life. The entire surface was covered in a multicoloured velvety blanket of butterflies. It was actually impossible to see the rock at all. I felt strange suddenly, confused, as if the path had led us into a different time; different but familiar. A name bubbled up from somewhere deep inside.

“It’s Butterfly Rock,” I breathed.

“
What?
”

“That’s what it’s called: Butterfly Rock.”

I turned towards Rosa May. She was staring at me, her face pale.

“How do you know that?” she said. “Who told you? My dad named it for me. It’s his favourite area of the garden, but no one else knows it’s here.
No one
.”

I shook my head, shrugging. “I must’ve overheard someone talking about it. Joan in the shop, or someone in the Garden. I’m not really sure, to be honest; the name was just there, in my head.” But it was more than that, a fragment of something from long ago. Rosa May was still staring at me.

“Maybe
you
mentioned it?” I said, trying to reassure myself as much as her. “Remember, that first day when you showed me round?”

She nodded slowly, her eyes fixed on mine. “Maybe,” she said, but she didn’t look convinced.

I took about a hundred photos, tiptoeing right the way round to make sure I caught the rock from every angle. The butterflies fluttered occasionally but they were clearly far too comfortable to bother flying away. Rosa May followed behind me, whispering the different names, and species, and other bits of information, but otherwise she was quiet, deflated, as if I’d ruined her big surprise.

When the heat got too much for us, we left the secret clearing and hiked back to where we’d started, collapsing down under the trees. I’d packed some sandwiches and fruit but Rosa May said she wasn’t hungry.

“It’s way too hot to eat. It’s too hot to do anything except lie here in the shade or go for a swim.” She looked at me, her eyes gleaming suddenly. “I know, let’s go swimming together! Come on, I’ll race you down to the lake!” She jumped up, pulling my arm. “I’m not kidding, Becky; we’re going swimming,
now
!” She was challenging me. Almost as if she knew.

“I’m just eating,” I said, shaking her off. “You go for a swim if you want and I’ll wait for you here.”

“I don’t want to go on my own,” she said. “Why won’t you come in with me? We’d have so much fun. And anyway, I showed you Butterfly Rock, so you owe me.” Her voice had changed. She was getting fed up. Losing patience.

“I will,” I lied, “just not right now.” I felt awful. I would’ve done anything she wanted,
anything
, except go for a swim. “Listen, why don’t I take some photos of you instead?” I pulled out my phone. “I could go up on the bridge and take some really cool shots of you diving in and floating. Or we could even go into the village, to the green. That would be fun, wouldn’t it?”

She shrugged, disappointed. “Not as fun as swimming together. And anyway, I’m not allowed to go into the village. My dad doesn’t mind what I do all day as long as I stay in the Garden. He likes to know where I am.”

She flopped back down in the grass. “I’ve never had a proper best friend, you know, Becky. I couldn’t stand the girls at my old school. They were all so boring – scared of breaking the rules, sucking up to the teachers all the time. You should’ve seen them, it drove me half-mad.”

I stared at her, mesmerized. “What do you mean your
old
school? Where do you go to school now?” I crossed my fingers, praying it would be Farnsbury High, the school I was due to start at in September.

“I told you yesterday, school’s for losers.” Her eyes dimmed for a moment, as if she was remembering something sad, but then she shook herself and jumped up.

“Well
I’m
going for a swim, even if you’re not!” she said, and before I could say anything she was racing towards the lake, a streak of blue disappearing into the distance. I threw down my sandwich, feeling sick suddenly. I didn’t want Rosa May to think I was boring. I was desperate to be her best friend; she was easily the most amazing person I’d ever met in my life. But however desperate I was, however much I wanted her to like me, the one thing I couldn’t do was go swimming.

Mum was so busy over the next week or so I hardly saw her. She left for work really early, usually before I was up, and got back late into the evening. She said her job was okay, but she seemed to be stressed all the time. She hadn’t been shopping for days and she was barely eating, as far as I could tell. It was awful when she came home late. The hours seemed to crawl by and I could never quite relax enough to fall asleep until I heard her key in the door.

I tried to find the right time to ask about the photo, but it was tricky. She was snappy, on edge – either too tired or too busy. I could’ve just come out with it, told her I’d found the box under her bed, but every time I had the chance, something made me clam up. The truth is, I was scared. The more I thought about the photo, about what it could mean, the more uneasy I felt.

If the baby in the photo was my sister – and I couldn’t really think of any other explanation – then where was she now? Was she with my dad? Did she know about me? It was one thing rehearsing the questions in my head, but what would happen if I actually said them out loud?

I did try asking her about my dad one night, about whether he was still living in Oakbridge, but she freaked out. “Why don’t you ask me where he was when I
needed
him, not where he is now? Seriously, Becky, I’ve got enough on my plate at the moment without you dredging up the past every five minutes. Just drop it, can’t you?”

But I didn’t want to drop it. I wanted to know everything there was to know about my dad. I wanted to know where he was and what he was doing and if he knew about the baby in the photo. I was
desperate
to know, but Mum was the only one with the answers and she wasn’t telling. She’s always found it difficult to talk about the past, but she seemed to be even more uptight about it since we moved to Oakbridge.

It didn’t seem possible, but the temperature actually climbed a couple of degrees each day. You could feel the heat pressing down like a heavy blanket. I spent as much time as I could at the Butterfly Garden with Rosa May, hunting for the Silver-studded Blue. We came up with a different plan every day, searching for ants and eggs along the way. We were so caught up in our quest that we hardly noticed the time slip by. Stella kept promising Mack would drop by to show me round, but I guess he was too busy with his own mates. I wasn’t all that bothered to be honest. I was having such a brilliant time with Rosa May; I didn’t feel as if I needed anyone else.

Sometimes we’d abandon the hunt altogether and make up games to play. We’d choose a colour – say, orange – and then see how many orange butterflies we could spot in a five-minute period. Or we’d pick one particular butterfly and follow it wherever it flew for as long as possible until we lost sight of it again. And when we weren’t butterfly hunting, or playing games, we’d lie in the tall grass, talking.

I talked to Rosa May more in those first few weeks than I’d ever talked to anyone. There was something so intense about the time we spent together. Laura and I used to talk, obviously, but this was different. Rosa May wanted to know everything about me; school, friends, family. She hung on every word as if she couldn’t bear to miss a single detail. I told her all about my life before we moved to Oakbridge. About Mum and her headaches and how stressed she was, especially since she started her new job. I even told her about my dad. Not much. Just that I’d never met him.

“That must be hard,” she said. “I’m really close to my dad, I always have been. There’s a kind of special connection between us.”

I smiled but my stomach felt hollow, like when you’re starving but you don’t know what to eat. A gaping hole that nothing could fill. She was so lucky, I don’t think she even realized.

She was usually in the lake when I arrived, gliding through the water or floating on her back, her arms and legs spread out like a star. She kept on at me to swim with her but I didn’t even like watching – particularly when she disappeared underwater, holding her breath for minutes at a time. Sometimes I think she did it to wind me up – not to be mean or anything, but just to show me what I was missing.

“You’re not scared of the water, are you, Becky?” she asked me one Saturday afternoon. We were lying under the trees, talking about the heat and trying to work out how many days had passed since it last rained.

“Of course I’m not scared.”

“I wish you’d stop being such a wimp then, and come in with me!”

“I am
not
a wimp!” I rolled onto my front, pulling at the grass, willing her to change the subject.

“
Please
, Becky
.
Just a quick dip. I’ll be your best friend for ever.”

I curled my hands into fists. “For goodness’ sake, stop banging on about it all the time! Just because
you
swim like a fish! I don’t even like swimming. I’m not scared of it, I just don’t
like
it!”