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One
Connie
I have a thing for shells.The delicate shapes, the pretty colours, the sharp points and curved edges. My bedroom is full of them. Jars line my window ledge, each one filled to the brim with all manner of shells. Not one is the same, but all of them are beautiful in their own way.
When I replace the lid to one of the jars and pop it back next to the others, I see my friends Jack, Alice and Georgia walking up the garden path. They’re laughing, happy to be getting off the island, even if it is only for a few days. My best friends since we were toddlers, we’ve grown up together. Just a few weeks ago we all graduated from our tiny village school, leaving only a handful of children behind.
Living on a small island means that our school is made up of one class and twelve kids ranging from four to eighteen, eight kids now we’ve left. Come September, my three best friends will be going to Kent University in Canterbury, but this four-day minibreak to the mainland is a chance to check out their halls of residence and the bars and clubs they’re so looking forward to getting drunk in. In contrast, I refuse to leave the island. It’s my sanctuary. I don’t long for the fun of the city like they all do. I’d rather be here, safe, surrounded by the ocean, cut off from the rest of the world and all the trouble it harbours.
Below, Grandma Silva calls for me to answer the door and I run out of my room, bounding down the stairs two at a time. I rush towards my friends in a whirl of happiness and excitement, not because I’m leaving the island with them, but because I feel like the universe is smiling down on me today. As though something good, something life changing is about to happen.
My grandma thinks I’m‘empathic’. According to her I’m just like my mother, that I have an innate ability to know when both good and bad things are going to happen.
I still don’t know whether it’s a gift or a curse. Maybe it’s a little bit of both.
The day my parents died was one of those days when my ‘gift’ felt like a curse. A few days before they died I’d watched them drive away, my heart galloping and my stomach churning. The hair on the back of my neck had stood on end, my skin prickling as goosebumps scattered in an unpleasant rash up my arms. I remember my mum turning to me and waving and I’d felt this heavy kind of feeling in my chest. I’d begged them not to go. Begged and pleaded. But they didn’t listen to my ten-year-old self. They’d left the island. They’d left me, returning three weeks later in two identical mahogany coffins.
Refusing to think about that time, I push all thoughts of my parents and their tragic deaths out of my head. When my feet hit the hardwood floor of our hallway, Grandma Silva steps out of the kitchen at the end of the hall, her hands covered in flour. She’s baking again. I can smell blueberry muffins and my stomach rumbles.
“Morning, sweet child,” she says, the fine lines around her eyes crinkling as she smiles.
“Morning, Grandma,” I respond, smiling brightly, thankful that I’m not completely alone and that I still have Grandma Silva who I love as much as I loved my parents. She’s all I have left in the world now.
“Can I expect you back for lunch?” she asks.
“Absolutely, I won’t be long. I’m just waving off my friends at the harbour. I’ll be back in an hour or so,” I reply, grabbing my rucksack and yanking open the front door.
“Make sure you tell Jack to drive carefully!” Grandma Silva calls, her laughing voice following me out of the door only to be tugged away in the warm breeze as it slams shut behind me.
“You’re particularly happy this morning. Have you changed your mind and decided to come with us instead of staying behind on this dump?” Jack remarks, his auburn hair flopping into his pale amber eyes as he grins at me.
He’s always moaning about our little island. He hates the ocean, doesn’t like cows and sheep and pretty much lives for the day he gets to go to university and finally leaves this place permanently.
“I happen to like thisdump,” I retort, winding my hand though Alice and Georgia’s arm, and winking at him. He rolls his eyes.
“You’re about theonlyone, Connie…”
Alice gives him a playful shove, pushing him forward down the path and back towards his second-hand Fiat. It’s nothing more than a dark green rust-bucket that continually breaks down, but is his pride and joy, nonetheless. There are some bonuses growing up on an island like this, plenty of fields to practice your driving skills. All of us could drive a car by the time we were fifteen, though of course Jack was the first to pass. Alice and Georgia are going to be taking their test the day after tomorrow, which is another reason for their trip, and whilst they’re more than happy to leave the island to do that, I’m not ready just yet. I’m not sure I’ll ever be ready. Besides, on the island I don’t really need to be able to drive. I can walk from either end in a couple hours, and I have my bicycle to get me about when I’m feeling too lazy to walk.
“Are you sure you don’t want to come with us to the mainland?” Georgia wheedles, pulling a face at the enthusiastic shaking of my head. “I feel bad that you’re just coming to wave us off at the harbour.”
“I’m all good.Promise. Besides, you know I love living here. I don’t crave the big city like you all do.”
“You’re weird, do you know that?” Jack laughs as he opens the passenger door and flips the seat forward so Georgia and I can climb onto the backseat. Alice always gets to sit up front given she’s the one who gets car sick. Though, honestly, I’ve never seen her throw up. Georgia and I are convinced the pair are secretly in love. Not that it matters to me either way. I’m just glad to get to ride around in a car that moves quicker than the ten miles an hour speed limit my grandma insists on me going during the rare occasions she allows me to drive.
“Come on then, let’s do this,” Georgia says, slamming the flat of her hand against the back of Jack’s seat.
“Yes, ladies! Let’s get the fuck out of here!”
He puts the car into first gear and rams his foot down on the gas. The car jolts forward and we all cheer. I get lost in their excitement, feeling the thrill of good things to come. The last time I felt this kind of…energywas when Grandma Silva came home one afternoon, a few years back, with an acoustic guitar. That’s when I’d first discovered my love for music. I’ve several more guitars now and a couple ukuleles, but that first Blueridge is my favourite and most well-used.
A quick ten-minute drive later, we arrive at the tiny harbour where the small ferry awaits. Jack pulls into the carpark and we all climb out. There’s no road that links our island to the mainland, and that’s just the way most of us islanders like it. Except of course, Jack, Alice and Georgia.
“Ugh, not looking forward to the crossing today,” Alice complains, swallowing a sickness pill with a gulp of water as she eyes the ferry and the ocean beyond with wary eyes.
“You’ll be fine. By the time you feel like you’re going to throw up you’ll be on dry land,” Georgia reassures her.
“Easy for you to say, but you’re not the one trying to hold down your breakfast the entire journey. Forty minutes may as well be twenty hours.”
