4. Wren #2
Sometimes I wish I was Goldie. She’d have something snarky to say in response, some cutting comment to bring Cuckoo down a peg.
Or even Cuckoo herself, who’d probably do a dramatic replay of her dumb moment, happy to be the source of the laughter even if she’s the butt of the joke.
Instead I’m me, and my throat seizes up and I can’t say anything and I have to wait for the moment to pass.
“Alright,” Goldie says, to my relief. “That’s enough.”
“It’s only a joke,” Cuckoo protests, but Goldie fixes her with one of her glares, and she shuts up.
We head through the gate and straight for the climbing equipment.
It’s daft, and we can barely see a thing, aided mainly by Cuckoo chucking her phone onto the bark with its torch on, but we start acting like kids again.
I’m uncertain at first, but soon I can’t help joining in.
We run up and along the balance beams, we grip the monkey bars and cheer for each other to get across, we push each other down the slide and collapse with giggles when we end up in a heap at the bottom.
An untangling of limbs later, Crow pushes us on the merry-go-round, faster and faster until we shout for her to stop and end up wobbling around, hands outstretched to try and counteract our dizziness.
The dark doesn’t help matters either, and one by one we fall to the ground.
Cuckoo practically topples over me, and I’m finally laughing as much as everyone else.
We haven’t been like this in years—maybe even since primary school.
Just having fun, playing around. When we became teenagers doing stuff like this was uncool.
Somehow it was collectively decided that standing around on our phones was far more entertaining and the play equipment was for babies.
And yet here we are now, having more fun than I can remember, and we don’t have to worry about anyone from school seeing us because they’re all inside, and it’s us breaking the rules for once, the good, well-behaved girls who never got a detention, and we’re protected under a cover of darkness that makes me feel like we could do anything.
Breathless, still chuckling, Cuckoo staggers to her feet and makes a beeline for the swings. The others quickly follow, and I heave myself up and trail behind them. There are only four swings, but I pretend not to mind leaning against one of the supporting poles while they each have a go.
“Can you believe we’re doing this?” Crow says, gently swaying, her dark hair loose for once, bouncing with each swing. “Imagine if Miss White could see us.”
“Imagine if anyone could see us,” Cuckoo says. Her hair is on the verge of coming loose from its high ponytail, the kind she always wears to keep it out of her face. “None of us have ever even had a detention and here we are.”
Goldie sighs. “And what was the point in that? Everything’s canceled anyway.”
“We’re making up for it,” Starling says.
“Patricia can’t wait to get shot of me,” Goldie says. “Lockdown has sped everything up. If I was eighteen already, she’d have kicked me out. This summer was meant to be fun.”
Goldie doesn’t know how lucky she is. Mum and Dad are infuriating, the way they constantly try and control me.
She’s free. As soon as she’s eighteen, she’ll move to London and make something of herself, and it will be all off her own back.
I’m trapped unless I do something drastic.
Mum and Dad are so ecstatic about Cambridge that it makes my stomach twist even at the thought of it now.
Goldie never has to worry about what her mum and dad think because she hasn’t got parents.
And I’m not saying I don’t want a mum and dad, but Goldie will never understand how hard it is.
Cuckoo stops swinging, twirling herself around instead, the chains grating together with each tightening spin. “Dad’s already hinting I should be applying for a job. It’s like we’ve skipped a step. Gone straight from school to being an adult, and no one realizes.”
“I’m glad,” Crow says. “I can’t wait to leave this dump.”
“Too good for this place, Your Highness?” Cuckoo says.
“We all are.”
“And why is that, exactly?”
“Oh God, don’t start!” Goldie says. “Can we all at least agree tonight has been fun?”
Crow and Cuckoo glare at each other. They’re never going to be 100 percent best buddies, but they’re both far too stubborn to admit they’re actually very similar.
Cuckoo breaks first, shrugging. “It was a great idea of mine, obviously.”
“It feels like we can do anything out here,” I say.
I half expect Cuckoo to make fun of me, but her face lights up. “I wish it could be like this forever,” she whispers.
I think I’m the only one who hears her. Crow leaps off her swing, digging in her bag for her phone.
“We shouldn’t have brought our phones,” Starling says.
“Why not?” Crow asks.
“Duh, it can track where we’ve been.”
“I don’t think anyone really gives a shit,” Goldie says.
Starling folds her arms. “We’re breaking the law. We need to be careful. They should be switched off. Mine is.”
“Alright, Sherlock,” Crow says. “I was checking the time. We need to get going.”
Starling frowns. “A watch can do that.”
This time I’m up ahead, the first to open the creaky playground gate, the first on the path toward the park exit.
Someone is muttering behind me, but I don’t care to listen.
I take in the surroundings again, the intriguing way the dark can mess with the brain.
I know there is a bench underneath that tree over there, but shadows turn it into an amorphous shape.
My mind plays tricks, pictures it a beast, a jaguar, a person lying down in need of help.
It does this with almost everything: The walls around the perimeter become someone hunched over, waiting to grab us; lampposts across the street silent figures; a rustle of wind a whispered warning. I shiver.
I slow my pace as we rejoin the vacant streets.
“What if the lockdown doesn’t end for ages?” Starling asks. “What if it cancels our university placements?”
“It wouldn’t,” Crow says quickly. “They can’t do that.”
Imagine. Cambridge contacts me instead, tells me there are extenuating circumstances and my place has been withdrawn. Or they force me to take the course online. I’d be free then, surely, to tell Mum and Dad this isn’t working out, this isn’t what any of us planned.
“Maybe you’ll all have to stay here,” Cuckoo says. She almost sounds hopeful. But then something distracts her.
“If I have to—” Crow is interrupted by Cuckoo clamping a hand across her mouth.
“Cuckoo! What—” Goldie’s words die.
I follow their stunned expressions. Only a few meters away, as frozen as we now are, is a fox.
“Oh my God,” I whisper.
Its pointed ears twitch, catching my words.
It is far bigger than I imagined foxes to be, tawny and matted and imposing and yet thin, with scrawny legs and a hungry frame.
There are scars across its nose, signs of a violent life, but its tail is bushy and the color of burnt orange, like autumn leaves, and it flicks around so much I can pretend it is a wave.
It turns its head, and we are eye to eye.
Starling lets out a small gasp, and Cuckoo immediately grabs her arm to quiet her.
The fox’s yellow gaze is intense, unafraid, staring at us with curiosity.
The moment stretches endlessly, us and this fox and the dark street.
It’s beautiful and terrifying, all at once.
And then it ducks its head, carries on. Soft padded paws cross the road, and it knows to look left and right even though nothing is coming. The bushy tail and its slender legs are the last we see of the fox before it rounds a corner and vanishes.
“I’ve never seen a wild animal before,” Goldie says. Her eyes are shining. “That was . . .”
“Amazing,” Cuckoo finishes. “He was huge! I wish we had some food we could have given him. Next time, someone bring something. What do foxes even eat?”
“Whatever they can,” Crow answers. She is still looking ahead at where the fox has disappeared, expression curious.
Being in the background a lot, I’m normally good at reading people, but Crow is always tricky.
The others are joyful, while she’s more .
. . wistful. “And what do you mean, next time?”
Cuckoo smiles. She glances at me, a nod of acknowledgment. At me. I’m included, I’m first for her gaze.
Next time.
I feel that thrill again, warming me from the inside.