How to Be Brave Read online

  Calla did not think it was wonderful. She felt rather as if she wanted to cry, and one of the things that Calla North knew about crying was that if you wanted to do it, then you really should. So she simply shook her head, and ran upstairs, and then she cried.

  MALLARDUS AMAZONICA

  Elizabeth took a deep breath. She knew that she should go and talk to Calla about what had just happened, but she also knew that her daughter needed a few moments by herself. And so, instead, she thought about a small brown duck that she’d released back into the wild all those years ago and how that little brown duck might now be the solution to all their problems.

  After a long while, Elizabeth stood up. She went into the kitchen, turned the oven off, and left the casserole inside to stay warm. She picked up the biscuit tin and walked upstairs and sat down on the top step, just outside of Calla’s bedroom door. She picked out a chocolate wafer, and the last white chocolate finger, and waited.

  After a few minutes, Calla came out of her room and sat down next to her. The two of them squeezed together on the top stair, and Elizabeth offered Calla the last white chocolate finger. It was both the best biscuit53 and a peace offering. Sometimes Elizabeth could be very wise that way.

  When the two of them had finished their biscuits, Elizabeth put the tin down and said, “I’m sorry.” She rubbed her hand on Calla’s back. “I didn’t tell you properly. I was overexcited and I didn’t think about your feelings. Will you accept my apology?”

  Calla nodded. “Yes,” she said slowly. “But it’s a bit—I mean—what if you don’t come back? The Amazon is a long way away.” Her voice felt very shaky, and her head hurt. The bit after crying was always the worst bit, but sitting like this with her mother was perfect. It felt like it was just the two of them against the world and that was something Calla understood very well.

  Elizabeth smiled in that pale, watery way that people do when everything is a little bit tender inside of them. “I’ll phone you. Every minute that I can. I’ll check in on the way there—we’ll make it so that you know when to expect me—and then I’ll call you when we set up base camp, and that’ll all be in the first week—”

  “You don’t even properly know where you’re going.”

  “If you’re going to worry about me, then I won’t go.”

  “You have to go,” said Calla. She swatted Elizabeth’s arm lightly and tried to ignore the wobble in her throat. “You’ve wanted this your whole life. The ducks need you. And we need the money.”

  Elizabeth shook her head. “You need me more.”

  Calla bit her lip. She thought of those times when the pile of IMPORTANT and FINAL NOTICE envelopes had grown almost as tall as her head, and that Christmas when they’d not been able to afford the heating, and the look on her mum’s face when she’d read out Belinda Freeman’s letter.

  “I’ll be all right,” Calla said.54 “It’s just going to be six months.”

  “Would it help if I told you a bit more about the school?” said Elizabeth. She picked out another biscuit for each of them. “It was a good place. We did our work and the nuns, I think, just marked it and threw it in a cupboard or something. Nobody really cared about that sort of thing. Now that I think about it, I bet all of our old schoolbooks are still there.“55 The nuns weren’t for doing dull things like tidying up. They were more for making chocolate chip cookies and sharing recipe tips. Good Sister Honey could make a mean Baked Alaska, let me tell you. Don’t ever underestimate a nun. They are remarkable women. Good Sister June was my favorite56 apart from Chrissie. I mean, technically she wasn’t a nun then, but she is now.”

  “Who’s Chrissie?” said Calla.

  “My best friend,” said Elizabeth. “We lost touch after school. She went to teacher training college and then she decided to become a nun and teach at the school. One of the rules is that the staff don’t have any personal belongings. I couldn’t call or text Chrissie without it going through the landline, and then when our phone got cut off and things happened, I had other things to think about.”

  Calla knew all about other things to think about. She had spent her life thinking about other things. “But I need a phone,” she said, “so you can call me. You have to call me.”

  “I won’t forget.”

  Calla gave her mum a Look.

  “I promise,” said Elizabeth. “I’ve already arranged it so that you can take a phone to the school. It’s all sorted. I’m buying you one and Good Sister June knows all about it. She understands that I need to phone you directly. I won’t forget. I’ll set reminders and—”

  “All right,” said Calla. “I’ll do it. I’ll go to the school.”

  “Are you—are you sure?” said Elizabeth.

  Calla nodded. “Yes,” she said, “but you have to bring me back a duck.”

  “I shall bring you Mallardus Amazonica,” said Elizabeth. “It is the best duck.”

  “I don’t really want a duck,” said Calla.

  “I know,” said Elizabeth.

  THE UNEXPECTED STRENGTH OF CALLA AND ELIZABETH NORTH

  Once the decision was made, everything started to move very rapidly. The Good Sisters sent a list of essential requirements, and Calla and Elizabeth spent a whole two days shopping for everything that they needed. Calla had to have all her clothing labeled and then they had to find a brown trunk to pack all of her belongings in. Neither of them was quite sure what that meant until Elizabeth googled and found a picture from a website about schooling in Victorian times. She looked concerned. “I’m not sure if we can afford this. They look very expensive.”

  “Did you have a trunk when you were there?” asked Calla. She had finished balling up her black socks (knee high, six pairs)57 and was officially Between Jobs.

  “No. But to be fair, I don’t think I would have noticed if I had two heads and three legs. It wasn’t the easiest time in my life.” Elizabeth tapped her fingers against her thigh and thought deeply for a moment. “I’m going to send an email to some of my old friends at the university, and see if they’ve got something like this tucked away. It’s the sort of weird thing they might have.”

  “I don’t know why I can’t have a rucksack like a normal person.”

  “Me neither,” said Elizabeth. “I’m sorry. We should have finished this already. I made soup for supper“58 and everything.”

  “It won’t burn,” said Calla. She had, of course, already checked this.

  “I don’t know what I’m going to do without you,” said Elizabeth. “Are you sure you’re going to be all right without me? You just have to say the word and I’ll cancel.”

  A part of Elizabeth really wanted Calla to tell her that she didn’t have to go.

  A part of Calla really wanted to tell Elizabeth that she didn’t have to go.

  “You have to go,” Calla said firmly.59

  “I might die of hunger without you to help me,” said Elizabeth.

  “They do have food in the Amazon,” said Calla. “Probably even cake shops, too. The expedition should have supplies, but you should probably buy something extra. Just put it in the plane. Make sure it can still take off, though.”

  “Did you know that Mallardus Amazonica can lift twice its own body weight?” Elizabeth said dreamily. “It’s a rather marvelous bird. It’s very small, very brown, but with a distinctively long bill.”

  Calla gave Elizabeth a Look.

  Elizabeth grinned back at her before twisting to tap out a swift email on her laptop. “Fingers crossed this gets you a trunk, or we’ll just have to get you a case from the charity shop and hope for the best.” She pressed SEND. “It’s a good thing your last day at school is tomorrow; otherwise we wouldn’t have time to do everything before you go.”

  Calla wondered whether she should give her mum another Look but decided against it. Sometimes Elizabeth could be very clever but sometimes she could not, and thinking that Calla’s last day at school was a Good Thing was one of the moments when she was being Not. It was because o
f this that Calla decided to change the subject. “Tell me more about the Good Sisters,” she said.

  Elizabeth looked thoughtful. “They helped me out a lot when your grandparents died,” she said. “They really helped me learn who I was. My mum had named them as my guardians in case something happened. And well, when something did happen, Good Sister June stepped in. She was my guardian until I was eighteen.”

  “Do I have a guardian?”

  “Two,” said Elizabeth. “Good Sister June and Mrs. Merryweather from downstairs.”60

  “But why did you pick Mrs. Merryweather?”

  “She makes an excellent Victoria sponge,” said Elizabeth. “Now, will you please hand me that sweater?”

  A SUNNY DAY IN MARCH

  Calla’s last day at school was full of sunshine. It also involved cake, and presents, and a long and complicated fight with Miranda Price. The fight began when Miranda Price said, “Is it true you have no money?” and when Calla got to lunch, Miranda Price said, “Is it true that you’ve never bought any clothes that weren’t secondhand?” and when Calla got to afternoon registration, Miranda Price said, “Why is your mum so weird?” and it was then that Calla told her to shut up, which was, to be frank, quite the act of restraint.

  “Shut up,” said Calla.

  “Whatever,” said Miranda Price. “I’ll make a new friend.”

  And that was when Calla realized that Miranda Price had never been her friend in the slightest.

  Calla didn’t talk to anybody for the rest of the day, and when the bell rang she was the first to grab her bag and run out. She went home via the chip shop instead of going the normal way and counted out the last of her long-saved pennies for a cone of chips. She put extra salt and extra vinegar on them, and walked down to the pier where she ate them in front of the setting sun. The sky turned pink and rose and gold, and as Calla ate the best chips she’d ever had in her life, she slowly started to realize that she wasn’t going back to that school. No more fights with Miranda Price. No more detentions because of William Perry. Not for six months at least, and maybe not ever again.61

  When Calla got home, she realized that her mum had been cooking. She couldn’t smell anything burning, but Elizabeth was standing in the kitchen looking hopeful, and the table was already set, which indicated either dinner or the offer of a trip to the Amazon. As she could rule out the latter, Calla knew that dinner was imminent. She put her bag down in the corner of the room and began to pull her shoes off. “What’s for tea?”

  “It’s rather remarkable how flexible language is,” began Elizabeth. “Did you know that the word “duck is derived from Germanic origins? Essentially it’s a diving bird, which is ironic if we consider Mallardus—”

  “I had a fight with Miranda Price.”

  “I’m sure it was justified,” said Elizabeth.62 “I’ve found tenants for the house. They’re a young couple with a baby and one of them is a scientist, which is terribly exciting. We had quite the wonderful chat. Her husband is an artist, and I’ve given him permission to do whatever he likes inside the house as long as he makes it good on our return. Also his favorite film is Howard the Duck and I think that’s a good sign even though it’s a film that’s absolutely full of biological inaccuracies.”

  Calla decided to focus on the important things. “What are we having for tea?” she asked again. The casserole the other day had been surprisingly good, even though due to Circumstances and Having Biscuits on the Stairs they’d ended up having it three hours later than teatime should have been.

  “It was meant to be roast chicken and salad,” said Elizabeth.

  “And what is it now?” said Calla.

  “Salad,” said Elizabeth.

  GOODBYE, CHARLIE NORTH

  One day to buy last-minute things, another day to pack everything that they’d forgotten, and then all of a sudden, like a trip to the dentist or an exam that you’d forgotten all about, it was here. The last day. The worst day.

  Calla and her mum went by the graveyard on their way to the station and while Elizabeth sat on a bench63 and tried to hide her tears, Calla sat on the grass and told her dad everything. She explained about the expedition, and leaving one school and going to another, and how Elizabeth had to go abroad to make sure they could pay their bills and maybe shop from the top shelf in the supermarket every now and then. Once she had covered all of that, Calla reached the most difficult point of the conversation.

  And so, as you should always do when you reach a difficult part of a conversation, Calla stopped speaking and took a moment to make sure that she had all her words in the right order. She placed her hand palm-flat on the grass and studied the headstone64 in front of her.

  “I’ll never forget you,” said Calla when she felt that she was able to speak. “Neither of us will, I promise, but we have to do this and that means you’re going to be alone for a while. Mum will be somewhere in the Amazon, and I’m going to school, and you’re going to have to be brave. But after it’s all done, I’ll find her and she’ll find me, and then we’ll come back and be together.” She thought that she might want to cry when she said that, and so when she finished speaking, she held her breath and waited for it to happen. But it didn’t. She just felt a strange sense of calm. They had been coming to the graveyard all her life, and giving her dad the news was part of her life. He might have died just before she was born, but that didn’t mean that he was a stranger.

  “You like chocolate but not hot chocolate,” said Calla. “You would eat so much jelly and ice cream that you couldn’t move without moaning. Your surname was so long and silly that instead of asking Mum to take yours when you got married, you took hers. And you are the bravest one of us all and I will tell you everything when I get back. Every single last bit.”

  When Elizabeth came over, Calla pretended not to notice that her mum had been crying. They didn’t have any biscuits on hand, so this was probably the best thing to do under the circumstances. She did squeeze Elizabeth’s hand just a little bit, so that she knew that she had noticed her crying but wasn’t mentioning it, and Elizabeth squeezed Calla’s hand right back to say thank you.

  “Have you updated him with all the news?”

  Calla nodded. A part of her wanted to stay here forever but she knew that that wasn’t possible. But even though she knew it, that didn’t make her stop wanting it. It was the sort of wanting that came with eating too much ice cream. You want to stay in the moment almost more than anything, even though you know that it won’t work out well in the end.

  “Okay, then,” said Elizabeth. “We have to go now.”

  “All right,” said Calla. “I’m ready.”

  THE 11:33 TRAIN TO LITTLE HAMPDEN

  Because they had spent so long saying goodbye to her dad, a thing that neither Elizabeth nor Calla was remotely sorry for, they arrived at the station at eleven twenty. This left them with just thirteen minutes to buy Calla some sweets for the trip, to get her to the right platform, and to say goodbye. They pushed through the station and as they reached the shop, Elizabeth ran in and came out almost instantly with a bar of milk chocolate and honeycomb. It was Calla’s favorite and the gesture almost made her cry. She distracted herself from doing so by checking that her mum had actually paid for it.65 “I paid at the self-service till,” Elizabeth said proudly. “Didn’t have to queue. Now, which platform do we need?”

  They arrived on platform five with two minutes to spare and by the time they’d figured out where their carriage was going to stop, there was only a minute to go and the shape of the train was already on the horizon. All that was left for Calla and Elizabeth was a goodbye but, as everybody knows, a goodbye is not a thing to be rushed.

  And neither of them knew where to begin with theirs.

  “Did you know that the Gunnison duck returns to the nest where it was born?” said Elizabeth as the train to Little Hampden pulled up. Her voice was rather faint, and her grip on Calla’s shoulder was rather tight. “Every year, wherever it might
be in the world, it flies back to where it was born. The pull of home is so strong. It always comes back to the nest.”

  A group of football fans pushed their way off the train, shouting and cheering, but for Calla the station was practically deserted. All that mattered was her mum. She let go of her suitcase and flung herself at Elizabeth, wrapping her arms around her waist and hugging her so tightly that it suddenly felt as though she might never let go.

  “I like the Gunnison duck,” said Calla, when she eventually released Elizabeth. “It’s my absolute favorite.”

  The two of them looked at each other for a second longer before Calla gritted her teeth and clambered up onto the train. Elizabeth threw the suitcase up to her. They hadn’t had time to find a trunk. Neither of them cared. Their eyes met. The door closed. Neither of them moved until the other was out of sight, and even then Calla stayed by the train door and Elizabeth stayed on the now-deserted platform until the station cleaners came along and asked her to move.

  ENCOUNTERING THE LOCAL PENGUINS

  After three hours and thirteen minutes, the train slid quietly into Little Hampden station and stopped. It was the final station on the line, and so there was no rush. Calla knew she couldn’t miss her stop. Her mother had told her this in a comforting sort of way, despite both of them knowing it was not comforting in the slightest, and so Calla took the time to have a little cry before she got up and grabbed her suitcase off the luggage rack.

  By the time she reached the platform, it was deserted. Calla didn’t let herself think about that. Instead, she thought about her mum and how she’d be on her way to the airport right now. They’d looked up the trains together, and checked out the times. Calla had even written them all down and highlighted when Elizabeth would need to change trains to get her connection. After that, they’d planned out when Elizabeth needed to make her first phone call to Calla, and decided that the first would be when she landed in South America.66 Two plane rides, two days. They had thought about having the first when she got to the airport but it would have been too soon. Goodbyes were not the sorts of wounds to be opened easily.