Cecelia Ahern - The Book of Tomorrow

As I was staring at the glass, something else caught my eye. A movement. Thinking it was a reflection in the grass, I turned to see who was behind me but there was nothing but the trees moving in the breeze. I thought I’d imagined it but on further inspection, there it was again. A figure inside the shed. I moved slowly closer to the workshed, trying not to make much noise with my tray and really wishing I hadn’t bothered with it now, as the eggs and tea would surely be cold and the buttered toast would be soft. The workshed windowledge was shoulder height. I stood at the corner on my tiptoes to see inside. I didn’t dare look round the rest of the room, but kept my eyes on Rosaleen’s mother in case she saw me and came at me with a sharp piece of glass.

I could see only her back. Her figure, in a long brown cardigan was hunched over a workbench. She had long scraggy hair, more brown than grey, which looked like she hadn’t brushed it for a month. I watched her for a while, trying to decide whether to knock or not. I didn’t even know her name. I didn’t even know Rosaleen’s maiden name to be able to address her. Eventually I built up the courage. I knocked gently.

The figure jumped and I hoped I hadn’t given her a heart attack. She halfturned, slowly and stiffly. The side of her face that was towards me was covered mostly by her long tatty hair. Over her eyes were a pair of oversized goggles, protective glasses that covered half her forehead and pinched her cheeks. She was all hair and goggles, like a nutty professor.

I balanced the tray on one knee and while the cups and plates clinked and slid, wobbled and spilled, I quickly waved, giving the biggest smile I’d ever given a person just so she’d know I wasn’t here to kill her. She just stared at me, no expression, no registering of any kind. I lifted the tray as high as I could, then balanced it on my knee again to quickly make an eating motion. There was still no response. I knew then that I was going to be in big trouble; it had not gone to plan. Rosaleen was right: her mother was not ready for perfect strangers and even if she was, I should have waited for Rosaleen to introduce us. I took a few steps back.

‘I’m leaving this here for you,’ I said loudly, hoping she’d hear me. I placed the tray down on the grass and backed away. As I was moving backward, I glanced down past the workshed at the rest of the garden. My mouth dropped and I sidestepped to take a closer look. Rows of washing lines filled the lawn. There must have been between ten and twenty lines. On each line were dozens of glass mobiles, all different shapes, glass twisted and turned to make unique shapes, some ridged, some smooth, dangling in the breeze, catching the light, sparkling and silently swaying. A field of glass.

I passed by the workshed and went into the back lawn to further investigate. They were all far apart enough not to hit against one another. If they had been even a centimetre closer I’m sure they would surely have smashed. The lines were pulled tight, attached to a wall at the bottom of the garden and run tightly all the way to a pole at the other end. They stood taller than me so I was constantly looking up, seeing the light of the sky through the glass. They were the most beautiful things I had ever seen. Some appeared to drip, full and fluid, from the twine like giant tear drops but instead of falling, they’d frozen mid-air. Others had fewer swirls and curves, and were rigid spikes, more angry and sharp, hanging like icicles, like weapons. Each time the wind blew they swayed from side to side, I walked down the middle of one row, stopping occasionally to examine them. I’d never seen anything like them, so clear and pure. Some had bubbles trapped inside, others were completely clear. I held my hand up and looked at it through the glass, seeming obscured in some, perfectly as it was in others. Fascinating and beautiful, some distorted and disturbing others pretty and so fragile, as though touching them would shatter them.

I was going to go further and investigate the other lines when I turned round to make sure I was still alone and I saw Rosaleen’s mother had all of a sudden moved to a window that overlooked this second half of the garden. She was looking at me, her hand pressed up against the glass. I stopped walking and stood in one row, feeling like a Cabbage Patch girl in a field of glass, and smiled back, wondering how long she’d been watching me. I tried to make out her face, to see her features, but it was impossible. She was yet again showing only her silhouette, her long hair falling to her shoulders, not grey as I had thought earlier, but a mouse-brown with white streaks. She seemed to be ageless, faceless, even more mysterious to me now than she was before I’d seen her.

I left the field of glass mobiles, taking them all in as though I’d never see them again as punishment for trespassing. Once I’d passed into the other garden, I could see her watching me still, not at the window but further away, deeper in the room.

I waved again, pointed to the tray on the grass, made eating gestures, as though it was feeding time in the zoo. She continued to stare at me making no reaction. Completely uncomfortable-hot sun, good win, very dead-I turned round and quickly walked away from the garden, not looking back once but feeling as I used to feel as a little girl, running from my friend’s house to my own house in the dark, and thinking there was a witch behind me.

It was twelve o’clock.

I paced the living room, back and forth, up and down, left and right. Sat down, stood up. Made my way to Mum’s room, then stopped and went back to the room again. I wrung my hands and looked out the window now and then, expecting to see Rosaleen’s mother come racing across the road on her wheelchair, doing wheelies and cracking a whip. I also expected Rosaleen and Arthur to round the corner at top speed too. Rosaleen had lain traps around the bungalow: I’d tripped a wire, a blade of grass was out of place, I’d walked through a beam and triggered an alarm in her handbag. She was going to tie me to a bed, break my legs with a sledgehammer and force me to write her a novel. I couldn’t do that. I could barely keep a diary. I don’t know-I felt something, anything could happen. I broke the rules at home all the time, here it was different. Here it was all so strict and ancient, like living on an excavation site and everybody was tiptoeing around, not walking here, but only walking there, speaking quietly so as not to crumble the foundations, using little brushes and tools to scratch at the surface and blow away dust, but never going any deeper and I’d arrived stomping through the place with a shovel and spade and I’d ruined everything.

And now I’d have to go back and get the tray or else Rosaleen would know what I’d done. I hoped I hadn’t poisoned her mother-oh God, what if I had? Eggs could be dangerous things and I’d forgotten to wash the berries. Was salmonella lethal? I almost picked up the phone and called Weseley again but I resisted. After spending far too long frantically worrying, I realised nothing was going to happen-not immediately, anyway-and I really hadn’t done anything wrong either. I’d tried to be nice to an old woman. So shoot me. I hoped she was enjoying my eggs.

I calmed down then. Next on my list was the garage at the bottom of the garden. I opened the back door which led from the kitchen to the garden, and ran down the lawn, then through Rosaleen’s vegetable patch, which ran along the bottom. I looked up at Mum’s bedroom window, which was empty as she continued to sleep on.

As garages go, it was a fine one. It was clad in the same limestone as the house, or near enough to it, and looked better built than any of my dad’s developments. I say that with the greatest respect to my dad who was proud of what he built, I just don’t think he cared much for architecture. It was more about space and how to give the least possible amount of it to everybody. The garage almost filled the full width of the garden, twenty-five metres long. To the right of the house, on the other side of the neatly manicured hedge was a tractor trail, yet another path that meandered around the grounds. But before it left the house’s vicinity there was a turn-off which led to the garage’s double doors. I’d never seen Arthur park the tractor inside. Perhaps Rosaleen was correct, perhaps there wasn’t room inside for our possessions. I favoured this way into the garage because I wouldn’t be visible from the house, but there was a bigger door to open, a bigger lock to pick. I looked in all of the windows but I couldn’t see anything. They’d been covered on the inside by black sacks. I tried the single door, which was locked and then I went round to the double doors again. I pulled and pushed, I kicked and banged. I used a rock to continuously hammer at the lock, but that did nothing but dent the metal.