A Hole in the World (9 page)

The clearing is a playground. There’s a set of swings, some climbing bars, a roundabout, a sandpit and a seesaw. The playground is surrounded by a fence, which Bianca slips through and pulls Alexandra with her, and the main gate at the opposite side leads onto a small residential road.

There are a few parents with small children playing, but not too many. Bianca offers a lady she recognises a wave and a smile and gets the same in return, then turns to Alexandra and says, ‘Tadah!’

Alexandra looks confused. ‘This is a playground?’ she enquires.

Bianca nods. ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Come on.’ She leads Alexandra directly across to the nearest swing set, pushes her down on one and sits on the next one along. Within seconds, she’s swinging. Alexandra looks even more confused.

‘Swing,’ Bianca says, grinding to a halt. Alexandra reacts with a furrowed brow and a lame attempt at swinging without moving her legs or kicking off.

‘Here.’ Bianca climbs off her own, walks around behind Alexandra and pushes her.

Alexandra squeals – loudly – and clings on for dear life. ‘Oh my!’ she exclaims as Bianca pushes her hard and she flies upwards. ‘This is...’

‘Fun?’ Bianca suggests.

Alexandra looks like she’s thinking of a whole other word, but then the swing starts to slow down and Bianca sits back on her own.

‘Kick off like this,’ Bianca says, walking her swing back and letting go. She stops again when she sails backwards. ‘When you’re swinging, bend and straighten your legs. Watch me.’

She swings higher and higher, leaning back on the way down and straightening her legs, tucking them up and leaning forwards when she swings back up. ‘See?’ she says, scuffing her shoes against the ground to stop.

Alexandra shakes her head. ‘I do not see the appeal of this undertaking.’

Bianca laughs. ‘It’s fun, Alexandra. Just try it for me. Come on.’

Alexandra sighs and Bianca watches, amused, as her first three attempts at getting any kind of momentum fail grandly. Her fourth, however, results in her swinging back and forth without any problems or complaints.

‘Ooh!’ she exclaims as she swings higher.

‘Liking it now?’ Bianca says, smiling.

‘Oh yes!’ Alexandra shouts on her way past. ‘This is
exciting
!”

The amusement grows. ‘I wouldn’t say
exciting
,’ Bianca says, ‘but it
is
fun. All kids do it in our world.’ She gestures at the children on the next swing set, some pushed by their parents, others just swinging happily by themselves.

‘What, may I ask, is the round thing?’ Alexandra enquires when she slows down a bit.

‘Come on, I’ll show you.’ Bianca climbs off her swing and offers Alexandra her hand. The blonde seems reticent to leave her new toy, so Bianca promises, ‘We’ll come back. We have all day.’

Alexandra beams and accepts Bianca’s hand, following her across to the roundabout and climbing on with Bianca’s assistance.

‘Hold on tight and try and keep your eyes on the centre,’ Bianca says, finding the idea of cleaning up Alexandra’s vomit unattractive.

Alexandra nods her understanding and Bianca kicks off. The roundabout spins, faster and faster as Bianca shoves her foot against the ground. Alexandra squeals, happily, and clings on to the roundabout with one hand and Bianca with the other.

Bianca almost misses the subtle vibration of her phone in her pocket and when she checks it she can’t help but smile.

Wtf where r u ur missing skool! Txt me! Tell me u didnt die or get eaten by a dragon or sumthing

‘I may have forgotten to tell Scotty where we are,’ Bianca says, with a smirk, as she texts Scotty back. ‘He’s worrying.’

We’re skiving @ the park! Wont be in 2day teaching Alexandra about swings & roundabouts.
xx

The roundabout has slowed down so, gingerly, Alexandra pokes her toe off the edge and makes it spin again. Bianca giggles as it goes faster and clings on to Alexandra.

By the time the roundabout stops spinning again, both girls are so dizzy they stagger together clambering off and drop to a heap in the grass, laughing hysterically.

‘The world, it spins!’ Alexandra exclaims.

‘I’d like to think you already knew that,’ Bianca says.

*

‘Here.’ Daisy hands Alexandra a cup of jelly and a spoon and the blonde accepts it with a smile.

‘You didn’t have to skip too,’ Bianca says, as she tucks into the tuna sandwich Scotty brought her.

‘You kidding?’ Scotty says. ‘My choices: double maths and two hours of sex education, with a nice pop quiz mixed in, or spend the day with my favourite girl and her princess.’

‘What’s
your
excuse?’ Bianca aims in Cory’s direction.

‘As far as I care, you don’t need an excuse to skip school,’ Cory says.

‘Actually, you do,’ Scotty says, ‘but we don’t care. That’s the difference.’

‘We’re probably going to get in trouble,’ Daisy muses as she pulls long strands off a cheese string. Alexandra watches her, curiously, so she feeds the princess one, laughing when she gobbles it up from below.

‘Probably.’ Bianca lounges back in the grass. ‘But I don’t care. It’s been worth it. You know she’s never been on a swing before today?’

‘Blasphemy!’ Scotty exclaims.

‘Exactly! I had to teach her how!’

‘Alexandra, you are a strange one,’ Daisy says.

Alexandra grins. ‘Swings are fun,’ she says. ‘When I return to my land, I will make it so every village has a set!’

‘Now, that’s a law I can get on board with,’ Daisy says. She grins and leans against Cory’s shoulder. She’s shivering slightly so he takes off his blazer and drapes it around hers. ‘Thanks,’ she says.

‘No problem.’ Cory smiles at her, she smiles back and Scotty snorts.

‘It’s too cold to be out here anyway,’ Cory muses, goose bumps rising on his now bare arms.

‘Yeah.’ Bianca shivers.

‘What else hasn’t Alexandra done?’ Scotty enquires.

‘There’s a list,’ Bianca replies.

‘Hmm...’ Daisy sits up. ‘There
should be
.’ She pulls her homework diary out from within her bag and clicks the top of her pen. ‘Let’s make one. We can list things Alexandra hasn’t done or tried and then we can introduce her to them.’

‘Cinema,’ Cory suggests immediately. ‘I bet she’s never seen a movie. We could take her to see the new Harry Potter.’

‘Cool. Adding it.’

Bianca watches, amused, as everyone starts listing things. Scotty wants Alexandra to try his Xbox, Cory wants to take her bowling, Daisy wants to have a sleepover and do manicures, pedicures, face masks and have some kind of pillow fight and watch DVDs (she jokingly suggested the Princess Diaries or Enchanted) and, finally, after the list has reached four pages, Bianca says, ‘Supermarket.’

Everyone looks at her.

‘She’s never seen half the stuff we eat, guys,’ she explains. ‘I gave her basically everything in the house for breakfast and she’d never even seen
toast
before. I could get some money and we could go to the supermarket and just... buy her some things to try.’

‘Marshmallows!’ Cory exclaims.

‘Bananas!’ Daisy counters.

‘Chocolate,’ Scotty suggests.

Bianca looks at Alexandra. ‘You okay with this?’ she says, gently.

Alexandra nods, excitedly. ‘Oh yes!’ she exclaims. ‘I cannot help but wonder of your world and the wonders it contains.’

‘Well, it’s not like we have unicorns,’ Bianca says. ‘But we have some cool stuff. Disneyland, for instance is pretty cool.’

‘Disneyland!’ Cory exclaims.

‘We are not taking Alexandra to Paris,’ Daisy tells him, deadpan.

‘Who was talking about Paris?’ Cory retorts. ‘Florida, baby!’

‘We’re not taking Alexandra out of the country!’ Scotty shouts.

‘Fine, but when she doesn’t know who Mickey Mouse is, don’t come crying to me.’

‘Ooh.’ Daisy writes something down. ‘Early morning Disney Channel.’

‘Agreed.’ Cory leans over her shoulder and eyes what she’s writing down. ‘Bubble bath?’

‘Every girl should know the wonders of a bubble bath, Cory.’

*

Bianca’s hand is almost numb from where Alexandra has been clinging to it throughout the film. They decided to cross ‘cinema’ off the list to start with and went to see the newest Harry Potter which, incidentally, scared the living daylights out of Alexandra. And Cory.

It took them until about half way through the film to finally convince Alexandra through hushed whispers that it wasn’t
real
, that it was fiction and entertainment. Then, no matter how scary she found it, she started to quite enjoy it.

Daisy has already promised to break out her DVDs to show her the rest.

‘Come on, let’s do the supermarket next,’ Bianca says. ‘I don’t know about you guys but I’m hungry.’

‘Popcorn not enough for you?’ Cory says.

‘No, because you and Alexandra ate it all.’ Bianca smirks and runs on ahead with Alexandra, leaving the other three to walk a few feet behind. ‘You having fun?’ she asks Alexandra, gently.

Alexandra nods. ‘Oh yes,’ she says. ‘Your friends are so nice to me and your world is exciting.

Bianca smiles. ‘I’m glad you feel that way.’ She tightens her grip on Alexandra’s hand and pulls her in a little. ‘I like having you here.’

‘I like being here.’ Alexandra beams at her. ‘What is this ‘supermarket’ of which you spoke?’

‘Ahh. It’s this place where you buy food and stuff. This way.’ Bianca leads Alexandra down the street and onwards for ten minutes, the two of them chatting idly as they go. When they arrive at the supermarket, the automatic doors catch Alexandra by surprise.

‘Magic!’ she exclaims.

‘Nah, just electronics.’ Bianca shoves Alexandra in through the door and into the shoppers.

Daisy, Cory and Scotty catch up behind them, bringing a trolley with them, and Daisy says, ‘So, where do we start?’

‘Fruit,’ says Bianca. ‘Then sweets and chocolate.’

‘Fruit?’ Alexandra enquires. ‘We have fruit in my world.’

‘Really?’ says Scotty. ‘Even... bananas?!’ He produces from seemingly nowhere a large bunch of bananas. Alexandra raises an eyebrow.

‘We have bananas,’ she says.

‘Hm...’ Daisy picks up a melon. ‘What about this? You like melons, don’t you Alexandra?’

Bianca smacks Daisy around the head and the redhead bursts out laughing. Alexandra, however, just takes the melon and says, ‘We do not have melons.’

‘We’ll take that then.’ Bianca pops it in the trolley and the small group spends the next ten minutes going through the sweets section.

‘Try one of these, too,’ Bianca says, adding a packet of Sour Skittles to the trolley.

‘And this!’ Cory drops some Lemon Sherberts in.

‘Are we trying to make her fat?’ Scotty enquires, contributing large amounts of fat free and sugar free sweets to the trolley.

‘One binge won’t hurt, Scotts,’ Daisy says, practically leaping on him and wrapping her arms around his neck from behind. ‘You’re just jealous because your metabolism is slow like Homer Simpson and you eat one chocolate and you start to look like him.’

Scotty huffs. ‘
Hardly
,’ he says, haughtily. ‘I just don’t want her getting fat and blaming us.’

‘A large stomach is a sign of wealth and nobility where I am from,’ Alexandra announces. ‘But my family and I prefer to spread our wealth to the people and help them to eat, rather than eat ourselves.’

‘See?’ Daisy says. ‘She doesn’t mind!’ She hops down off Scotty’s back and grabs a large box of chocolates, full of truffles and creams.

‘How much is this all coming to?’ Cory asks.

‘Uh, forty I think,’ Daisy says, consulting her list upon which she’s been jotting down prices. 

‘All right.’ Scotty tosses a big bag of fruit sweets at Bianca, who puts them in the trolley. ‘We done?’

‘Yep.’

*

They emerge back into the sunlight from the warm interior of the supermarket and head straight for the nearest area of grass, which happens to be a small park.

‘Here.’ Bianca spreads out the bags and reaches for the first item: a large box of chocolates.  She’s never been as horrified by anything as the discovery that Alexandra’s world does not have chocolate. ‘Try this.’

Alexandra accepts a dark chocolate truffle and bites into it. After a moment, her face lights up and she looks almost reverent. ‘I have never tasted anything so exquisite!’

‘I know right?’ Bianca grins. ‘And that’s not even the best one. Here, try this, it’s a champagne truffle.’

The group spend the next half an hour feeding Alexandra random choices from the large collection of sweets and chocolates and noting which she likes and which she doesn’t. Sour Skittles, for example, cause her to wrinkle her nose, do this funny head-shake-shudder and squeal. She’s not a fan of those. She seems to like milk and white chocolate, although dark is her favourite, and she doesn’t like it when the chocolate is accompanied by citrus. Lemon truffles are completely off the menu.