Free Kite Spirit by Sita Brahmachari Page B

Her mind was thick with a dream-fog so heavy it took her several blinks to remember where she was. Cautiously she
opened her eyes to find that the rain had cleared, revealing a watery blue sky. Kite stared at Seth. As he sang, tears streamed down his face. Maybe he felt her watching him, because he half turned
towards her. She clamped her eyes shut as if she was in a deep sleep. It felt wrong to have witnessed him crying like that.
    She was desperate to get back into the dream, no matter how weird it had been. It was so long since she’d experienced anything more than a fleeting sleep. The game Ruby had played with her
and Dawn when they’d first camped out at a festival filled Kite’s head.
    ‘Close your eyes and open your senses,’ Ruby ordered them as they lay underneath the bright blue canopy of their tent, Ruby snuggling up to them both.
    Ruby had made it up for Dawn’s benefit. They had been nine years old then, but as long as she’d known her Dawn had always been afraid of the dark.
    ‘Listen! What can you hear?’ Ruby said.
    At first Dawn had jumped at every rustle of the earth until Ruby had gone through each sound and identified it. A squirrel skittering through the leaves, the hoot of an owl, a car door slamming,
the patter of rain on canvas and eventually Ruby’s voice had faded away as they drifted into sleep.
    Kite closed her eyes and listened to Seth singing and the cars and lorries speeding past on the wet road . . .
    I’m in the flat dancing. There is a loud knock at the door and then someone rings the bell over and over. I turn down the radio and look at the clock. I can’t believe it’s
already so late.
    It’s Dawn standing in the doorway, half scowling at me.
    ‘How can you be late on the day of your first exam?’
    ‘Sorry! Just got to find my shoes,’ I call back to her, rummaging around in the front room, grabbing my bag and a piece of toast off the table and slamming the door behind
me.
    Dawn runs down the steps, grabs a bunch of sweet peas and hands them to me as I catch up with her. ‘For luck!’ she smiles.
    ‘I’m going to need it,’ I say. At the bottom of the steps Jess runs across the road to greet us.
    ‘There you go! A black cat crossing your path – isn’t that supposed to be good luck?’ I laugh, reaching out for her arm, but there is no one there.
    ‘Dawn!’ I call into the empty street.
    Jess is at my feet, arching her back and miaowing louder and louder until she’s hissing and snarling, sticking her claws deep into my ankles.
    ‘Hey, Kite!’ Seth was shouting, turning around. ‘You’re kicking the back of my seat.’
    Kite opened her eyes to see Seth holding his mobile in one hand. She stared out of the window at an open green field with horses grazing. They’d pulled over on to a grass verge.
    ‘No, no, she’s fine, Rubes. Slept all the way up here. I can’t believe it . . . We’ll have to find another way to get her to sleep though – this old banger
won’t stand too much more of a battering! It’s Ruby calling to see how you’re doing,’ he told Kite, raising the phone back up to his ear. ‘OK, I’ll tell her . .
. don’t worry,’ he reassured her before hanging up. ‘Ruby’s going into rehearsals now, but she’ll call back later.’ Seth smiled at Kite as he pulled away from
the verge and continued slowly down a gravel track. ‘Just a bit of a detour!’
    Kite’s eyes were so heavy that it felt as if she’d been drugged. She propped herself up on her elbows and stared out of the window at a huge steel structure . . . a kind of giant
with great welcoming wings. The top of her head felt bruised from knocking against the side of the car. She decided not to tell Seth about her dreams. He was big on interpreting them, and the last
thing she needed now was for him to start analysing what was going on in her head.
    ‘Remember you said last year you wanted to see this. I know it can’t be a happy birthday but . . . !’ Seth