Page 52 of The Strawberry Thief
‘That’s good,’ said Morgane. ‘Keep going. Maybe think of someone you know. How about Monsieur le Curé?’
I smiled and drew a sad black crow, flying over the water. And then I shaded it, dark and slow, making coils of rising smoke come up from the water. I didn’t look at the practice sheet, or at my hands, or even at the picture I was drawing. I just let it come, like something that had been submerged for a long, long time, rising out of the shadows and coming slowly to the surface.
When I looked up, she was smiling. Her eyes were very bright and blue.
How was that?
‘Look for yourself.’
I looked at the sheet. It was better this time. The lines were steady, unbroken. But then it was a simple design, like something on a woodblock. I knew I could do better than that, but it was fine, for a first try.
I looked at the instruments by the chair. There were other attachments for the machine: special attachments for shading, different colours, stippling.
Those next, I said.
‘Next time. You’d make a good tattooist, Rosette.’
That made me smile, and Bam did a dance through all the leaves and mirrors. Morgane watched and smiled too. ‘I think he approves.’
I said:I want to try on real skin.
She smiled. ‘You’re keen. That’s good, Rosette. But maybe some more using practice skins before you start on a human being. Besides, who would you start on?’
Me, of course, I said.Who else?
She laughed. ‘First, more practice. Then we’ll see.’
6
Thursday, March 30
I stayed until her first customer came. After that she sent me away. No-one’s supposed to watch, she says. Otherwise, the magic won’t work.
I’d missed lunch, but that was okay, because I’d already had four croissants, and lots of coffee with sugar and cream. I could have gone back to thechocolaterie, but I was still too excited about learning to be a tattooist to think about Easter chocolates, and so I put my practice skins into my pink satchel and went off to Narcisse’s farm – well, I guess it’s the Montour farm now – in the hope of finding Yannick. I wanted to show him my tattoo skins. I knew he’d like them as much as I do. And I still needed to explain about taking Narcisse’s story. I hoped he wouldn’t be upset. I hoped he would know I was making amends.
I took the path to my strawberry wood, keeping to the line of the hedge. The hedge belongs to the wood, which means that it belongs to me now. It’s my responsibility. I picked up a couple of plastic bottles that had found their way into the ditch, and had a word with a couple of crows that were teasing a nesting blackbird. I didn’t want to drive them away, but I want them to knowI’min charge now. No-one gets bullied when I’m charge. I take my responsibilities seriously.
I was checking the entrance-gap in the fence when I saw that the big gate was open. I have the key to the padlock, but I’ve never needed to use it. I prefer my old way in and out. I went to the gate, and looked at it, and saw that the padlock was broken. It had been cut, using something like a heavy-duty bolt-cutter, and now that I was listening, I could hear voices from inside the wood, coming from the strawberry clearing.
For a minute I didn’t know what to do. I was too angry to think properly. Next to me, Bam made a horrible face, and screeched like a howler monkey. The murmur of voices stopped, as if someone had heard the scream, and then, a few seconds later, they started again: one low, the other high, like two owls calling each other.
I went through the open gate, picking up the broken padlock. I wondered who was there in my wood, and what I would do to make them leave. Yannick being there was one thing – he’s my friend, after all – but that didn’t mean it was okay for just anyone to come in uninvited. Besides, they had broken my padlock. That was proper trespass.
I can move pretty quietly, as long as Bam doesn’t misbehave. This time he moved as quietly as a hunting tiger, eyes shining, teeth bared. I wondered what I’d do if it was thieves, or a gang of boys from Les Marauds, come into the woods to smoke and drink cheap wine from the bottle.
But it wasn’t boys from Les Marauds. As I reached the strawberry clearing, I saw Madame Montour and Yannick, not far from the old well. Yannick was carrying something that looked like a cordless vacuum cleaner. Madame Montour was wearing shiny black boots, and she made me think of Mimi’s Tante Anna, with her boots and her silver cross. There was a spade sticking out of the ground next to her, and four piles of earth in the clearing that hadn’t been there when I went before. It looked like a cartoon mole had been at work all over the clearing. And there was more: I could see some tools propped against my wishing-well – a hammer and a crowbar. And someone had forced off the metal grille that served as a cover to the well, and chipped off some of the stones at the lip, so that they looked like broken teeth—
I stood for a minute in silence, watching what they were doing. Yannick was passing the vacuum-cleaner thing slowly over the ground, and I realized what it was. It was a metal detector. As I kept on watching, it beeped, and Madame Montour brought over the spade and started to cut a hole in the turf—
I couldn’t believe it. At first, I was too surprised even to be angry. But then the anger started to rise, and I knew I couldn’t stop it. It felt like a gentle wind at first, maybe even a summer breeze, but it was warm and smelt of smoke, and I could tell it was dangerous. It’s been a really long time since there was a dangerous kind of Accident, but I could tell that this time the wind could easily get away from me.
I said: ‘BAM!’as loud as I could, hoping to bring it to heel again.
Yannick and his mother both turned. I saw Yannick’s eyes open wide. The thing that looked like a vacuum cleaner fell from his hands onto the ground.
But Madame Montour wasn’t surprised. Instead she made a cross tutting noise and said: ‘For heaven’s sake, Yannick! We haven’t got all day.’ She didn’t look guilty, or even uncomfortable that she was trespassing, just annoyed to see me, as if I were the one who was in the wrong place.
I made a little warning sound, which was all I could manage without using bad words.
