Extract from Monarch Memoir

The barn’s enclosed by fences lost to thorn hedges; wild walls impossible to breach.

There’s a barrel of water coated with brown slime but some of us cup our hands and drink. My fingers look white but they burn. The air snaps. I jig up and down but feel surprisingly good as the sun begins to rise. Perhaps, when the worst has happened, there’s nothing left to fear.

The others call the lady Miss Veronica. She says this is her brothers farm, seven miles from their closest neighbour, and we’re going on an aeroplane.

One flies low and sunlight flashes off a wing before it disappears behind brambles. The girls who’ve been on planes before tell us there’s often a meal served while it’s flying through the sky, they say bacon and eggs. I don’t know what to believe.

Veronica’s skin has stretched overnight; now it’s grey and baggy. Victor would hardly recognise her. Her brothers wife brings a tray of rolls for the adults but she shakes her head.

I nod, “You should eat.”

She ends up having two.

A man lights a camping stove and we gather round but he’s only making coffee for himself. The smell drifts.

We pretend holding coffee mugs and huff for the steam. My breath catches sunlight falling through a coin-sized gap in the hedge, illuminating it like a golden arrow fired into my chest. I breathe in and out deeply, filling up on golden light and imaginary coffee.

Two girls run from the end of our enclosure, red-cheeked and breathless.

“We saw a man!”

We gather round, “Who?”

“A man, walking by. He said lovely morning and are we camping.”

Veronica looks sharply, “What did you say?”

“We said yes and good morning.”

“Where?” I ask.

“At the end, where you can wee. He was on the other side of the hedge.”

Veronica raises her voice so we can all hear, “There’s no more going for a wee. Stay off the grass, it’s not safe.”

The hedge and long grass are dripping with dew. I squint to see any chinks of sunlight appearing or blinking out but there’s nothing.

Veronica claps her hands, “Right, let’s get ready. Everyone, follow me.” She disappears round the side of the barn.

Perhaps he’s already gone but I wade into the forbidden grass.

Two girls going the other way tell me off, “You’re going the wrong way. Miss Veronica said follow her.”

I don’t slow down, “I’ll be so quick.”

“She said we’re not allowed. You have to come with us.”

My legs speed up, “I’ll be right there.”

“We’re telling, then.”

I halt, “Don’t do that, why would you do that?”

The tallest of the two looks sensible, I appeal to her. “Those girls saw a man, he might still be near, he might rescue us. I’m going to look before she sees I’m gone.”

They give each other a quick and quiet look, “We’ll wait for you, then. Not on the grass, by the barn.”

If Veronica sees them, they’ll give me away, immediately. “Don’t. Either come with me or go to her so she doesn’t get suspicious but don’t stand in the middle and tell.”

I leave them to decide what they’re doing and press onward. Thorns snag my clothes and my feet slip and slide inside my jelly shoes.

Right at the furthest end, almost hidden by overgrown brambles and towering Cow-parsley, is a small, steel gate. A red-orange beetle clings to a stalk near my waist and something flaps in the thicket but doesn’t come out.

I climb up and lean over the gate. It’s a narrow footpath, almost swallowed between fields.

“Hello?” I shout, as quietly as I can. Crops sway peacefully in the field opposite. The path curves, I can’t see far.

“Helloo.” A cheerful man unfolds from behind the hedge and I nearly fall off the gate.

“Thank goodness. Can you please help us? We need to be rescued.”

“Ah.” He looks at me and touches his middle finger to his lips, “I saw some of you lassies camping, earlier. Wee Brownie-Guides, are you?”

“No, we’ve been stolen and we have to get home. Can you bring the police here and our mums and dads?”

He looks over my shoulder towards the barn. His face is brown, more like bark than polished wood.

“What’s this? Some sort of game, is it?”

I turn to see the two girls fidgeting at the corner of the barn. They beckon me to come, one of them glares.

“It’s not a game, it’s real and very serious.” I beckon them to come here, “Please will you rescue us?”

He shrugs, “Sure, I’m in. What do I have to do?”

“Um.”

I’d been hoping he’d tell us what to do, “If we could get this gate open it could be where we escape?”

“Good idea.”

He drops a faded rucksack and I climb down. The two of us start working on the gate. I stamp down weeds and he’s got a knife he uses to cut some tough, woody vines.

“What are you doing?” The more-sensible girl arrives and flops over, hands on her thighs, to get her breath back.

“Mind out. We’re getting this gate open so we can run away.”

The three of us push-and-pull, see-and-saw the gate until it opens enough for us to squeeze through.

“Come on, then, hen. Where are we off to, now?” The man stretches his back, hips forward.

I’m on the path. I feel some way I’ve not felt often and remember those birds that fly straight up the air, trilling with their entire body. I hope it stays.

“I don’t know. Can you drive us to the police station?”

The man tucks his knife inside his rucksack. The veins on his arms are like tree roots.

“Do I look like I own a car? Should we walk around the front, maybe?”

“No, we need to get away. Can you take us on a bus?”

He whistles, “Listen to Lady Flash-the-Cash.”

But I’m delighted to know something useful, “It’s okay, children go free on the bus.”

“And you’re paying my bus fare, are ye?”

The girl grabs my arm, “We can’t go without the others. I can’t leave Rosie.”

I forgot this; they think where one of us goes, we all have to go. Where Rosie was, is now empty.

“Are we coming or going, lassies? What say you?” He folds a thin piece of paper in half.

“We’re definitely coming.” I feel like if we don’t pin him down, he’ll blow away like a leaf taking our chance along with him.

“Let’s go and get the others and bring them here,” the girl says.

I shake my head, “It’s not safe.” I look between the wild man and the barn. “You stay. I’ll bring Rosie to you.” Maybe I should also get that other girl who put her arm through mine, yesterday, if this is how things work. Perhaps I can get them all; strength in numbers.

“No, no, she won’t go with you. I’ll have to get her.”

A fly settles on the knot of our joined hands. I’m too young to always be the leader.

The man breaks the moment, “I’ll tell you this, I’m going to start walking right the moment I’m done with this wee smoke.” He taps dry grass in to the fold of a little paper.

I make a decision, “We’ll both go, it’ll be quicker. You go one way round, I’ll go the other, we’ll meet in the middle with whoever we’ve found and run back here. You’ll have to be really fast, though.”

I look at our rescuer who’s concentrating on his… making-hobby, “Wait for us?”

“Time waits for no man, if you’re here, you’re here and if you’re with me, you’re with me.”

I bite my lip, “Okay, let’s go.”

We squeeze back in through the gate.

This was an extract from my memoir, titled Monarch Memoir by Jen If. Buy your copy today: