Free Candyfloss by Nick Sharratt

flowerbed of pansies because Dad says they’ve got smiley faces, and an old sandpit I used to play Beaches in when I was very little, and an ancient gnarled apple tree that’s too old to produce any fruit, although it was the reason Dad bought the café long ago. He was going to make our own apple pies and apple cake and apple chutney and apple sauce. He painted a big new sign to go above the door – THE APPLE CAFÉ – and he painted the walls and windowpanes bright apple-green.
    He changed the name to Charlie’s Café long ago, but the apple-green paint’s still there, though it’s faded to a yellowy-lime and it’s peeling everywhere. Mum always nagged Dad to chop the apple tree down because it wasn’t doing anything useful, just causing shadows in the yard, but Dad reacted as if Mum had asked him to chop
me
down.
    ‘We’ll hang your swing on the apple tree!’ Dad said now.
    He spent all afternoon putting it up. He tested the branches first, swinging on them himself, yelling like Tarzan to make me laugh. I still didn’t feel a bit like laughing but I giggled politely.
    Then Dad went up and down a ladder, fixing one end of the swing rope here and the other end there. He had to take an hour’s break hunting down an ancient encyclopaedia in a box of books in the attic to find out how to do the safest knots.
    When at last he had the swing hanging we found it was too low, so that my bottom nearly bumped the ground. Dad had to start all over again, shortening the ropes. But
eventually
, late afternoon, the swing was ready.
    ‘There you are, Princess! Your throne awaits,’ Dad said, ultra proudly.
    I put on my birthday princess gown over my jeans to please him and sat on my swing. Dad beamed at me and then went pottering off again to find his old camera to commemorate the moment. He didn’t come back for a long time.
    I had to stay swinging. I didn’t
feel
like swinging somehow. I wouldn’t have told Dad for the world, but you couldn’t really swing properly now it was attached to the apple tree. The swing juddered about too abruptly and hung slightly lopsided, so you started to feel queasy very quickly. It wasn’t very pretty out in the back yard staring at the tarpaulins and bits of bikes, and the wheelie bins were very smelly.
    I sat there and sat there and sat there, and when Dad came back eventually clutching his Polaroid I had a short burst of swinging and smiled at the camera.
    ‘It’s a great swing, isn’t it!’ said Dad proudly, as if he had made it all himself. ‘Hey, why don’t you phone Rhiannon and see if she wants to come round and play on it too?’
    I hesitated. I’d asked Rhiannon round to play heaps of times, but always at Mum’s. I’d wanted to keep my time at the weekend specially for Dad. But now
all
my time was with Dad.
    ‘Go on, phone her,’ said Dad. ‘Ask her round to tea. Does she like chip butties?’
    I wasn’t sure. We always ate salads and chicken and fruit at Rhiannon’s. Her school packed lunches were also ultra-healthy options: wholemeal rolls and carrot sticks and apples and weeny boxes of raisins. But maybe chip butties would be a wonderful wicked treat?
    I knew I was kidding myself. I suspected it would be a big big big mistake to invite her round. But I felt so weird and lonely stuck here with Dad with nothing to do. If Rhiannon was here we could muck about and do silly stuff and maybe I’d start to feel normal again.
    I phoned her up. I got her mum first.
    ‘Oh Flora, I’m so glad you called! How
are
you?’ she asked in hushed tones. ‘I was so shocked when Rhiannon told me about your mother.’
    She was acting as if Mum had
died
.
    ‘I’m fine,’ I lied. ‘Please can Rhiannon come round to tea?’
    ‘What, today? Well, her grandma and grandpa are here. Tell me, Flora, do you see your grandma a lot?’
    ‘My grandma?’ I said, surprised. ‘Well, she sends me birthday presents, but she doesn’t always remember how old I am. Dad says she gets