pocket diaries

Diary extract No. 16

I bought one hundred wishes today at the penny shop. One hundred wishes for one hundred pennies. Not the ones that streak across dark skies or drop into empty wells, but little periwinkle draw tickets. Perforated, periwinkle dreams. I wished for grand summer parties in The Garden again. Honeybees chased after us, remember, our fingers sticky with Eton Mess and Candy Floss. Citronnade à la menthe would cool us when we'd run for far too long, ice clinking against our tiny teeth. Chattering parents lounged around picnic blankets dressed in light suits with bowties and summer gowns and boater hats and our giggles echoed against the endless blue above. The sun would dust our cheekbones with freckles and Papa would always try to kiss mine away, swung up in the air by his arms. 

Being a little girl is like growing up in that garden. Bony knees all bruised and skinned below our perfect pleats. We wore our brightly coloured plasters proudly, like wounds from The War. We stained our lace pinafores playing ring-around-the-rosy in the fields and Maman had told me one hundred times to stay away from the beck, but we were questing to find the faerie queen, hiding cake in the flowerbeds. Remember my itsy bitsy hand in Luna's as she dragged me over to meet the dairy farmer's son, tow-headed and Magnificent like Peter Pevensie. Remember the warmth in my cheeks, like Tigerlily Skin, but with that oddly tremendous feeling curling my toes into the grass. Then, Maman would call us over and re-plait the ribbons in our hair and we would sit demurely beside her, hands folded in our laps, collected flowers crushed in our pockets.

It was Everything I ever needed.