The summer that I turn seven, we go to stay with my uncle and his wife on their farm for a whole two weeks. Each morning, I am thrust into the mastery of my big cousin, Ella. She crosses her arms and says she does not see why she has to look after the baby. She rolls her eyes, throws her chin back and huffs like a horse shaking a fly from its nostril. I fear she will pull my arm out of its socket as she yanks me behind her into the garden. She likes four games; calling me baby while she combs my hair; hide and seek, in which she is always losing interest and wandering off; a game called dares (in dares, she makes me do things like put my hand inside holes in trees and steal change from coat pockets); and Ella’s favourite game is not what I call a game because it does not have rules and you cannot call time out. In this game she just tells me things to try and scare me. Once she told me that in the barn they cut the heads off chickens and the dead chickens run around for the rest of the day, spurting blood from their severed necks. Sometimes they escape from the barn and run into the house. I said I didn’t believe her and to prove it, she shoved me into the barn to look at the axe and the blood stain on the wooden stump. I wet myself. It soaked through my jeans, squelching in my sandals and mushing in the sawdust. Since then, Ella tries to spook me most days. Today she points out every creepy crawly in the garden in a witchy voice. The beetles and bugs that pour out of the flowers, the great yellow slugs on the back of the shed, and the monstrous centipedes under the flowerpots. She lifts up a log and drips woodlice on my upturned palm. I stick my nose in the air and declare that I am not scared. I think to myself, proudly, that I quite like insects. Their antennae and little legs waving in the air. The inkblot patterns on their backs. They all scuttle and shrink from Ella’s big feet, crunching through the grass, but when she slopes off, sick of me, and leaves me squatting quietly in the dirt, they venture out again. A clutch of beetles appear on a leaf, glinting brilliant green, their armoured backs splitting into fine wings. Now I am alone in the garden, I become Queen of the Insects, and these are my guards.
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As Queen of the Insects, I have certain powers. I command the spiders to sneak into Ella’s wellingtons and scuttle up her legs. Satisfied, I nod farewell to the beetles and remove my crown. I can hear the distant murmurings of adults and the squawking of the hens. This part of the garden is hidden from the cottage. My arms and legs tingle with the thrill of being alone. I shuffle my bum more squarely on the ground, and cross my legs. I close my eyes. I much prefer pretending to playing games, especially Ella’s. I pretend I have red ringlets and live on the farm. Except it’s the farm as it was a hundred years ago, so Ella isn’t there and I am wearing a dress and a white apron. I stand up and address a toddler at my knee. I pull some leaves off the brambles and stuff them into my pockets. Money is always tight but we sell strawberries and eggs to get by. I make some piles from the leaves and count them worriedly. I make shooing sounds and a sour face like my mother. I stand up and put my hands on my hips. I have several goats. I have to sweep them out of the kitchen, telling them off for eating the slippers. On my farm, we do not decapitate the animals, not even the chickens.
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My father finds me in a reverie, stirring my leaves with a stick, mud on my knees and streaking my arms. He crouches next to me. “Where has Ella gone?” I shrug. He is silent for a moment. He holds a finger up to the leaf and one of the beetles walks onto his nail, “It’s a Rose Chafer. Isn’t that a pretty name?” I look up at him. He whispers conspiratorially into my ear, “Come with me. I’ve got something to show you.”
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I skip next to him, swinging on his arm, my hand warm inside his. We sit down beside each other, by the chicken coop, and I lean gently into his musky, aniseed smell. The coop looks exactly like the cottage but in miniature. It would be the perfect size for dolls. My father opens up the roof and I stand on my tiptoes to see inside. There, nestled in the straw, are a huddle of little chicks. Their yellow wool is streaked with grey and clods of dirt. My father says, “You can have one if you would like.” They turn their heads quizzically up at us. They have black glossy eyes like the beads in my mother’s jewellery box, which she lets me sift through when I am poorly.
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My father pours a chick into my cupped hands and tells me to take it into the house. I can keep it forever.“We’ll put it in a box and you can take it home,” he says. I ask him where it will live. “Can it live in my room?” I ask hopefully. He shakes his head, grinning. He tells me that we can build a hen house of our own. He tells me to hold it very tightly so it doesn’t hop away. It is so soft. It is the softest thing I have ever held. I can feel its feet scratching at my palms and the restless throbbing of its tiny heart. With my finger I stroke the ripple of its ribs. A little cage moving rapidly. Its bones must be like pins. I worry it might trickle through my fingers like sand. I startle at the jerking of its head as it tries to peck my fingers apart. My father laughs at my bulging eyes. “Hold it tight now.”
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All the way up the garden path I focus fiercely on holding it still and tight. It is so warm snuggled into the nest of my fingers. I worry my father will tell me off if I drop it or let it run away. He might even make me carry it back to the coop. I try to pretend I am a farmer, who is always hiding a chick in her apron pocket. Instead of this, I imagine the chick falling out of my hands, where it would surely be ripped to shreds by one of Ella’s cats, or a dog, or a fox. The cats swing their tails from low branches as we pass. I can feel that the chick is scared. Its whole body seems to thrum with nervous life. My father strides ahead of me. I am filled with so strong a love that I can hardly breathe. I hold my chick close to me, right up to my chest where I imagine it can feel my heart beating as stridently and fearfully as its own.
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When we come into the kitchen, my father opens a special tin with holes stabbed into the lid and holds it out to me. He says I can put the chick in there. Ella comes over to look. I shake my head at my dad. I do not want to open my hands. I bite my lip. The chick is still. My tummy rolls. Ella tugs at my fingers. I do not want to open my hands. She dares me. The chick’s limp body tumbles into the box, like an old hanky. It looks odd, flat. Its wiry legs that had so furiously scratched at me lie at an awkward angle. My lip quivers. My father puts the lid on the tin and says nothing. I burst into tears.
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I was so afraid then, of the silence all around me; the yellow silence of the chick, radiating from the tin; of Ella’s silence, her hand still clamped upon my wrist; of my father’s hesitation before he gathered me into his arms, hush-hushing my sobs and holding me tight against his chest. Finally, my ear pressed to his heart, so I could hear it beating, real and steady and loud like a fist.
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Vida Adamczewski‘s writing has appeared in Ambit Magazine, Document Journal, Vittlesand The Mays. In July 2021, a staged reading of Vida’s debut lyric play AMPHIBIAN was performed at the Playmill New Writers Festival at the King’s Head Theatre in Islington. For AMPHIBIAN, Vida was awarded the UEA New Forms Award 2022 by the National Centre for Writing. Amphibian and Other Bodies is her first collection.