Free The Icarus Girl by Helen Oyeyemi Page A

you.”
    Liar , thought Jess, you were. You’re a liar .
    She blinked, surprised at this traitorous thought. What could have made her suddenly feel so hostile towards Tilly, who was mysterious and almost magical, opening doors that were locked, living in a deserted building next to a whole family of people without their noticing!
    “Just don’t ask me any more questions. It’s not fair. I don’t ask YOU any questions,” Tilly pointed out.
    “Except for when you first came up to me, and you were copying me,” Jess reminded her.
    TillyTilly suddenly looked confused, passing a hand over her forehead in a distracted manner.
    “What?” she snapped. “Shut up!”
    Jess’s mouth clamped shut. Now TillyTilly was sounding just like the other children at school. She wanted to turn back on her own, but she was scared because she didn’t know the way. She decided that she was going to keep on following Tilly, but she was going to let her know that she wasn’t happy about it.
    “You’re being really mean, Titiola,” she said firmly, not caring that she had pronounced it in an overly English way. Two could be mean.
    Instead of wincing, or getting angrier, Tilly looked at her thoughtfully.
    “Sorry,” she said abruptly.
    Jess revised her opinion all over again. TillyTilly had apologised, and had regained her place as the most interesting person that Jess knew.
    “It’s all right,” she said happily, and they linked arms and walked on.
    At the padlocked gates, the words AMUSE YOURSELVES were picked out in yellow-, red- and green-painted bubble letters above them.
    TillyTilly surveyed the gates.
    “Do you think you can climb over?” she asked.
    The gates loomed impossibly high.
    “No way!”
    She waited.
    Tilly cocked her head and looked at Jess consideringly.
    “Are you sure? I think you could. I could.”
    Jess shook her head emphatically.
    “I couldn’t, TillyTilly!”
    “All right,” said Tilly, and, leaning on the bars of the iron amusement-park gates, stretched her arms out and pushed them open.
    The gates went backwards with a gust of warm air, and the padlocks fell to the ground, their chains loosened, sunken in the sand. Jess stared at the enormous padlock at her feet, then up at the gates, then at TillyTilly, then around.
    No one was about. She was grateful for that.
    “TillyTilly,” she said. “What did you—?”
    Tilly grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her along. They ran into the park, which was empty of people, but full of swinging movement and the dusky brown of settling sand and dust. Jess whooped and jumped around Tilly in a circle, almost inaudible below the music from the bumper-car dome and the whirring of various machineries. The Ferris wheel, which stood a little distance from the slides, flashed bright neon red and green. Tilly and Jess slapped hands and bumped hips, laughing in disbelieving exhilaration. Jess ran over to the big yellow inflatable slide, and climbed to the top of it. Arms stretched up to the sky, her mouth ready to shout with elation, she launched herself downwards, slipping and skidding and bumping down to make it last longer.
    It was as if the amusement park was alive . The bumper cars were whirling about, dots of colour playing over the roof of the glass dome that they were housed in, and Jess could imagine ghostly passengers swerving crazily over the tracks on the floor.
    Jess climbed to the top of the slide again, and watched the Ferris wheel turn slowly at first and then faster, until it was a steadily rotating wheel of light. She stared around, gaping as she realised that all of this was really happening, and suddenly sat down.
    “TillyTilly,” she began to say, then the sound became a squeal as she found that she was freefalling down the slide again.
    When she reached the bottom, she caught her breath and then ran around to where TillyTilly was jumping up and down by the bumper-car dome.
    “Come on!” Tilly said and leapt into a moving car.
    Jess hesitated,