“I’m Bryn,” he repeated.
She scowled, poising herself to run.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” Mrs. Dibble scolded, grabbing her arm again. The little girl twisted and turned, then stood still, bristling with anger at the entire universe.
“We have ice cream,” Bryn said, holding out his hand. She clasped hers tightly together against her chest, defying him to come closer.
“Come on,” he urged. “You can sit next to me.”
Martha Dibble looked on in amazement as Elsa followed Bryn to their table, drawing her chair very close to his as if to shut out everyone else in the room.
“It was as though they made some kind of instant connection,” Martha later told the social worker, reflecting on the moment when the openhearted little boy had somehow managed to get through to a child who had been branded totally uncommunicative by all the experts in child welfare.
The Appletree staff had been warned that Elsa was emotionally unstable, having been deeply traumatized by her father’s death. Her stay at Appletree was supposed to be a brief stopgap between the foster home that had been unable to deal with her and a unit that would provide more specialized care. After Elsa’s interaction with Bryn, however, Martha managed to persuade Social Services to rethink their plan, insisting that the girl should be allowed to stay for at least a little longer.
Before she met Bryn, Elsa had been pronounced a danger to herself, snarling and refusing to eat, or just sitting in a corner staring into space, but from the moment she followed the dark-haired, warmhearted boy across the dining room to sit at his side and eat ice cream, everything changed. She still rarely spoke, only when absolutely necessary, but she followed Bryn Evans like a shadow, keeping to herself, watching him play and dutifully doing her schoolwork.
He talked to her all the time, telling her anything that came into his head, from the feelings he’d gone through when both his parents were killed in a car crash to his love of drawing and painting and his longing for a dog of his own. It seemed as if she knew every little thing about him, but let out nothing of herself. He didn’t know where she was from, why she came to Appletree or even her likes and dislikes. But somehow none of that mattered to him as long as she was there. The feelings she had raised in him all those months ago, when he first saw her in the dining room, were still as strong as ever.
She was just his Elsa, no more or less than that. Now and forever.
CHAPTER SIX
BEFORE I CAME TO APPLETREE, first there was my dad’s funeral. Mr. and Mrs. Mac didn’t go and I stood beside Ted, holding on very tightly to his hand. Victoria stood on his other side, rigid and still. There wasn’t much singing and my dad’s coffin didn’t have shiny brass handles like Daffyd’s. I hoped he didn’t look like Daffyd, swollen and gray, and I cried because he wasn’t an angel after all.
That was the last time I cried because my crossness came to soak up the tears. Being angry felt better than being sad, so I clung to it as tightly as I could.
I knew they were going to send me away. Victoria wouldn’t let me stay with Ted, and Mr. and Mrs. Mac didn’t like me anymore, so a lady came from somewhere called the authorities. Her name was Susan and she had very shiny hair. I didn’t like her much, but then again I didn’t like anyone anymore, so I just stopped talking and tried to build a wall around me.
* * *
I DON’T REMEMBER MUCH about the first place they sent me to. There was a tall smiley man, who tried to be nice, but I wouldn’t talk to him. And a big boy who pinched me when no one could see, but he couldn’t make me cry. And then they sent me somewhere else. “Somewhere better equipped to deal with you,” Susan said.
She came for me. I dug in my heels and refused to go, but the tall man picked me up and put me in Sarah’s car. She kept talking to me on the drive, but I stared out the window, wishing and wishing that everything could be like it used to. Oh, why couldn’t my dad have been an angel?
* * *
A LADY WITH GRAY HAIR and gray eyes dragged me through a hallway. I stomped on the wooden floor. I liked the sound, so I stomped even harder.
“Shush, child,” she said. “We don’t like rowdy children here.”
There were lots of tables and a sea of faces all staring at me, smiling and whispering. I wanted to go home so much, home to how things used to be.
“This, children,” announced the gray lady, “is Elsa May Malone. I hope you will all make her very welcome.”
I knew they wouldn’t. No one made me welcome anymore, for no one liked me. I closed my eyes and searched for my lump of crossness, the anger that kept any other emotion away. I didn’t care... I didn’t care... I didn’t care. When I opened them again, a boy stood in front of me. His eyes were very warm and he smiled at me.
“I’m Bryn,” he said.
I turned to run away but the gray lady grabbed my arm.
He repeated his name, holding out his hand. It was slim and brown and he held it very straight. I wanted to take it but my crossness wouldn’t let me, so I pulled away, clutching my hands tightly against my chest.
“We have ice cream,” he said, turning away. “You can sit next to me.”
The boy’s words went around and around inside my head. I had somewhere to sit, someone who wanted me to sit with him. I followed him slowly, clinging to him like a shadow. Everyone smiled at him, even the gray lady they called Mrs. Dibble, and I sat right beside him and ate ice cream. Here, I decided, is where I’m going to stay.
* * *
BRYN NEVER ASKED ME anything about myself.
“You can tell me when you’re ready, Emm,” he told me. He always called me Emm because of my initials, Elsa May Malone.
I had always wanted a dog, and we often talked about that.
“We’ll have a big yellow one like this,” he promised, showing me some pictures he had printed off the computer—Bryn was good at working the computer. “When we’re all grown-up, we’ll have a golden retriever.”
I nodded, smiling for the first time in ages because Bryn still wanted to be with me when we were grown-ups, and because we were going to get a dog.
My crossness faded just a little, and I decided to follow him always. I was scared, though, because Bryn didn’t know that everyone close to me eventually changed into something horrid. I didn’t want my Bryn to change and I couldn’t tell him about my fears. Perhaps if I didn’t let him all the way into my life, if he didn’t know me well enough, then he would stay the same.
At Appletree we were all in the same class, from five-year-olds right up to the big kids who would soon be moving on. I wanted to know where they moved on to, but I didn’t ask.
Bryn was nine years old; he had his birthday the day after I came to Appletree. So would he move on soon? I wondered. The thought ate at me like a disease, filling my dreams. If only I could ask him. I tried, I really tried, but the anger inside me got in the way of my tongue. When the social worker tried to make me talk, sometimes my words came out in a scream. But I never screamed when Bryn was there. He was my friend. My friend. I hugged that thought close to me, even though I knew we could never be proper friends. So I just listened to the things he said, hardly ever responding but hanging on to his every word so I could remember them later when I was alone in my bed.
He looked at me sometimes with a hurt expression, but I knew holding back was the only way to keep things as they were. It was all a waste of time, though, for eventually it wasn’t Bryn who changed, but my whole world.
* * *
MRS. DIBBLE CALLED US to the dining room