‘Zara, did you want to come?’ Immy asked,
‘No, I want to finish this painting.’
‘OK, no worries.’
Immy took Etta’s hand and they walked out and down Cherry Lane. The whole of the town was getting ready for the Easter weekend. The Knit ’n’ Natter group had yarn-bombed everywhere, post boxes, lampposts, telegraph poles. Trees, telephone boxes, ATMs had been covered with knitted Easter eggs, chicks, bunnies and spring flowers. It looked wonderful. At the end of Cherry Lane, outside the sandwich shop they were heading to, was a twenty-foot driftwood tree, made and donated by one of the cool home accessory shops in the town. It stood there throughout the year as a seasonal tree, decorated with hearts and flowers for Valentine’sDay, spiders and bats for Halloween; currently it was bestowed with hundreds of Easter decorations.
They went to the sandwich shop and gave their order, but as there were quite a few sandwiches to make, the assistant asked Immy to come back in ten or fifteen minutes so they’d have time to make them. Immy and Etta wandered back outside.
‘Can we go and look at the tree?’ Etta said, happily swinging Immy’s hand.
‘Yes, I love looking at people’s art.’
‘Do you do any art?’
‘I love painting and clay work, I love watching something come to life where before there was only a blank canvas or a lump of clay. I’m not very good at it though, I couldn’t sell anything like your cousin Quinn.’ Immy screwed up her face as she tried to work out what Quinn was to Etta – cousin once removed maybe? Surely they didn’t call him that.
‘Quinn makes little monsters from forks and knives and spoons,’ Etta said. ‘I have one in my room. And he’s very good at painting. Archer is an artist too, he makes dinosaurs.’
‘I know, he is amazing. I see some of the models he makes and they are incredible.’
‘I wish I was good at art,’ Etta said.
‘But you are good. I’ve seen your art around the house and it’s wonderful. Besides, Quinn and Archer and the people that made these beautiful tree decorations weren’t born with this talent, they weren’t amazing at painting or making dinosaurs when theywere five or six years old. It took many years of practice and learning different techniques. If you want to be an artist when you grow up you just have to keep painting, keep learning and practising different styles. With painting you can choose watercolour paints, acrylic, oil paints, or some people like to draw and colour using pencils or pens. Just try everything until you find a style you like. There are so many videos now on YouTube teaching people how to paint or how to do clay or wood sculptures so you can watch some of those and have a go at that too. I’m sure your daddy can find some videos for you to watch.’
They walked closer to the tree and Etta looked at one of the beautiful, jewelled eggs that looked like something Fabergé would have made, only without the hefty price tag.
‘I want to make these,’ Etta said, reverentially.
‘Well you can certainly do that too. In fact we could paint some eggs this evening, we could use your glitter pens or glitter glue. And I know you have a load of sequins and beads in your toolbox, we can add those too. There is a company called Fabergé that makes jewelled eggs as necklaces or rings or bracelets. We could look at pictures of them for inspiration.’
‘Yes, that sounds like fun, I want to do that.’
‘OK, we will.’
Immy inspected the tree. There were many styles represented in the Easter decorations. Knitted eggs; crocheted, wooden, metal, clay and glass eggs; ones seemingly made entirely of flowers; others that evenhad fairy lights inside or wrapped around them. It looked beautiful.
‘Can we go inside?’ Etta asked.
‘Inside the tree?’ Immy asked in confusion.
‘Yes, Hailey’s mum lets us sometimes when I’m with her,’ Etta said, talking about her best friend from school.
‘Umm, I’m not sure we’re supposed to—’
‘I’ll show you,’ Etta said, already getting on her hands and knees and crawling underneath the branches. Immy blinked in surprise as her tiny charge disappeared from view. She was pretty sure Xander would want her to keep an eye on Etta at all times so she felt she had no other option but to crawl under the tree to join her. Immy looked around to make sure there wasn’t anyone nearby to tell them off but no one was paying her or the tree any attention, so she quickly crawled underneath.
She was surprised to see there was enough room to stand inside. The tree had an internal clear plastic cone that the branches were attached to all the way up, and the cone part was hollow so you could easily stand up and even move around a little bit inside. Immy clambered to her feet and looked around. She could see all the decorations from the inside and as the sun shone down on the tree it gave the inside of the tree puddles of colour. It looked lovely.
‘I love it in here, it’s so quiet, it feels so safe,’ Etta said, staring up at the branches, dreamily.
Immy frowned slightly at the word ‘safe’. ‘What are we safe from?’
Etta blinked as if she wasn’t sure how to answer that. ‘I just like it when it’s quiet sometimes. I don’t like loud noises. When we go to firework displays, Daddy gives me special headphones to wear to block out some of the noise. I don’t mind firework bangs too much because you know it’s going to happen but when people are shouting and screaming, I don’t like that. It’s peaceful in here, you can’t hear the noise outside so much.’ She paused. ‘Mummy and Daddy used to shout sometimes. Well, Mummy would shout at Daddy, Daddy would never shout back at her and sometimes, when Daddy wasn’t there, she would shout at me. I told Daddy that it scared me and that’s why he made me a secret room to go into whenever I got scared or if there were loud noises.’
‘Ah I see. Yes, I like it when it’s quiet too. Especially when I’m reading.’
Etta span around, her arms outstretched, laughing as she turned.
