Grace McCleen - The Land of Decoration

I undid the tie and fell off the chair and began to cry, though it wasn’t much like crying and more like being sick, like turning myself inside out. I don’t know how long I’d been crying when I heard someone say: “Judith.” Father was standing there.

His face was white. Then he was beside me on the floor pulling me to him roughly, holding me so tightly, saying over and over: “I’m sorry”—and it was all very strange, as if I was dreaming.

I don’t know how long we stayed like that, but we were in no place and there was no more time. We were borne up high; we were burning. I never knew another person could do that to me, and perhaps I was doing it to him too.

And then something happened. The clock in the hall began to chime, and I stopped breathing and looked at him. I got to my feet and my chest was rising and falling.

He said: “What’s the matter?” He said: “Judith! What on earth—?”

I listened to those strokes, and at each one a little part of me passed into nothingness, and as each new stroke came, a new piece of me took its place.

Then the strokes were over and I looked at him. I said: “We’re still here.”

He blinked. “Where d’you expect us to be?”

“I don’t know.”

“Judith, what are you talking about?”

I began to cry again. I said: “We’re alive, aren’t we?” I held on to his sleeve, his shoulder. My hands were hungry.

He said. “Judith,” and then he was crying too.

I said: “I tried to save you. I thought the world was ending,” and we didn’t say anything more for a while. Then he laughed and sniffed and said: “Well, it looks like it’s still here to me.”

I shook my head. I stared at him. “What are we going to do now?” I said, because I really couldn’t think of anything; I couldn’t see how it would go.

Father wiped his eyes. He said: “Well, we could have breakfast.”

“ Then what?”

“I don’t know—we could go for a walk.”

“ Where? ”

He thought for a minute. “Up the mountain—the Silent Valley, maybe. We could watch the sunrise.”

I wiped my eyes. I looked around. “What about the Land of Decoration?”

“We’ll take care of it when we get back.”

My eye caught the card of Auntie Jo and I took hold of Father’s sleeve. “Let’s visit her,” I said suddenly.

He looked at me and then at the card. I kept hold of his sleeve. I gripped it tight. He said: “All right.” He got to his feet, as if he was very tired, and then he helped me up.

We were going through the door when I stopped.

“What is it?” he said.

“I thought I heard something,” I said.

He looked at me. “All right?”

“Yes,” I said. “I must have imagined it.”

AND NOW I will show you how to make a hot-air balloon, one that really does fly. It is not very difficult once you get the basic shape right.

You will need:

a wire helium balloon

all-purpose glue

string

scissors

acrylic paint

a small basket

a needle

burlap

cotton thread

tissue paper

a net bag oranges come in

cardboard (no thicker than a Weetabix box)

very sticky tape

a sharp pencil

rice

1. Take a helium balloon that is shaped like a pear. Not the flattened kind, not the perfectly round kind, not the novelty kind. Trim the seam that runs around the edges.

2. Cut a rectangle of cardboard and curl it around the bottom of the balloon so that it is a little cylinder and hides the tail. Glue it together on the inside and tape it to the balloon.

3. Paint the cylinder and the balloon in wide, brightly colored stripes.

4. Take a net bag oranges come in and cut off the label. Drape it over the balloon and gather it so that it tapers to the bottom. Sew down each fold of net with the cotton thread. Turn it inside out and snip off the net folds. Turn it the right way out and place over the balloon fixing it to the bottom of the cylinder at several points.

5. Attach string to the cylinder by boring holes in it with a pencil. Take a small basket (the very light kind that comes with little soaps), and attach four strings to it—one at each corner.

6. Push the stem of the balloon through the center of the basket and cut the stem at the very bottom into four. Open out the end, folding them beneath the basket. Tape in place.

7. Shred yellow, orange, and red tissue paper and gather into a tongue of flame attaching it to a wire taped to the inside of the cylinder.

8. Wrap up tiny people and sit them in the basket.

9. Light the flames above their heads.

10. Make four little burlap sacks of rice and attach them to the insides of the basket with plenty of string. If you want the balloon to fly, put the sacks on the ground.

You can forget the sacks altogether, but I would leave one attached, otherwise the balloon will soar up to the ceiling and bump around for days and crash when you’re not there to catch it, and lots of small people will die; it may fall on a town or a school or a marketplace and then even more will die. Or if you are not in a room but in the open air, it really will sail away and the little people will never be heard of again.

Of course, they will have the time of their lives because the view will be marvelous; it’s coming down that is the difficult thing. So always leave something attached. If you want to go higher, just let out more string.

Thank you to Clare for discovering the book, and for her care and advice.

Thank you to Clara—a fellow lover of little things—and to Sarah, for such sensitive and transformational editorial advice.

Thank you to Anthony, Val, and Mike for taking time to read the first draft and for such helpful feedback.

Thank you to Mark, Sos, Richard, and Karen for believing I could do something long before I did.

Most importantly, thank you to my mother, an extraordinary human being, for never giving up.

GRACE MCCLEEN is an author and singer-songwriter who lives in London.

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This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Copyright © 2012 by Grace McCleen

All rights reserved.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

McCleen, Grace.

The land of decoration : a novel / Grace McCleen.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-8050-9494-7

1. Girls—Fiction. 2. Fathers and daughters—Fiction. 3. Good and evil—Fiction. 4. Miracles—Fiction. 5. Religious fiction. 6. Psychological fiction. I. Title.

PS3613.C357745L36 2012

813'.6–dc23

2011038132

eISBN 978-0-8050-9527-2