The Flight of Gemma Hardy Read Free

daydreams so vivid that my immediate surroundings vanished, but I was hopeless at sports and had crooked handwriting; I could not act, or play an instrument, or cook, or sew. The fires I laid smoked. I could swim but had twice failed my life-saving exam. Lying there on Christmas Eve, clinging to my hot water bottle, I had understood more urgently than ever before that I was alone in the world.
    Finally I had climbed out of bed and made my way downstairs. In the sitting-room the Christmas tree drooped beneath its burden of balls and tinsel. Around the base lay a pile of gifts. I knelt down and read the labels. Present after present was addressed to Will, or Louise, or Veronica. Near the bottom I came upon a single, hard, rectangular package: To Gemma from her cousins .
    The next day I had feigned a cold and remained in bed, coming down only to watch the Queen on television. Why should I play audience while my cousins opened their many gifts, and pretend gratitude for whatever dreary book my aunt had bought me? Even in this thought I gave myself too much importance. When I finally opened the package on Boxing Day I found a book about horses; Louise had received two copies for her birthday.
    N ow, a week later, alone in my uncle’s study, I listened to the leaves of the holly tree scratch against the window and turned the pages of Birds of the World . Each picture suggested a place I might someday visit—a steamy forest filled with tropical flowers—or reminded me of one I dimly remembered—a snowy landscape with matching white birds. I imagined myself wrapped in furs rather than the curtain, padding across the ice towards an albatross or a snow eagle. Suddenly the study door was flung open. Will appeared, loutish in his brown sweater and corduroy trousers. His game of cards with Louise must have ended. He didn’t notice me in my hiding place as he shambled over to his father’s desk and sat down.
    â€œIf only I had more players like Will,” he said, leaning back in the chair, “we’d win the season. The rest of you spineless wonders should take a leaf out of his book. That tackle he made in the first quarter was bloody brilliant.”
    My cousin, I realised, was pretending to be his football coach. I watched in fascination as he squared his shoulders and praised himself. It had never occurred to me that Will had an imaginary life. When he began to talk about making the Scotland team, my amusement escaped in a gust of laughter. He jumped to his feet, looking wildly around. Perhaps he thought his play-acting had summoned his father’s ghost. Then he spotted me behind the curtain.
    â€œWhat are you doing here, spying on me, you miserable little twerp?”
    Before I could answer he seized my arm. “Don’t you know that we all hate the way you sneak around, pretending to be such a Goody Two-shoes? All you do is scrounge off us. You eat our food, sit on our chairs, you pee in our toilets, and you don’t do one thing to earn your keep. Even the dogs are more useful than you are. Everything you’re wearing”—he jerked the sleeve of my cardigan—“belongs to my mother, and that means it belongs to me.”
    â€œAnd your sisters,” I said, in the interests of both accuracy and anger.
    His fingers pressed tighter. “So you ought to say thank you every morning when you get dressed, every time you sit down to eat, every time you—”
    â€œThank you, thank you, thank you, Master Will, most brilliant of humans, best of football players. You didn’t even make the junior eleven.”
    I got no further before he let go of my arm, grabbed Birds of the World , and brought it down, two-handed, on my head, as if he were trying to break the book in half. I fell off the window-seat, landing hard on my hip. I cried out and, as Will’s foot found my ribs, cried out again.
    â€œWhat on earth is going on here?”
    From my position on the floor,