Post by Olivia Skye on May 10, 2008 17:34:15 GMT
Shop assistants these days…
The search through the bookshop hadn’t yielded any results. The Little White Horse just refused to be found. It didn’t help that Olivia couldn’t remember the author’s name, even if she could remember phrases and dialogue from the book. The girl at the counter – who was the only staff member there that Olivia didn’t know from her hours browsing there, but wore a shiny silver rectangular badge stating “My Name Is Ambrea” - had looked as though she was going to kill Olivia with her insistence that, yes, there was a book called ‘The Little White Horse’, and yes, it was published in 1946, and no, she didn’t know who wrote it, or published it.
At the end of it, Olivia wasn’t sure who was growing more exasperated with the other, she or the sales girl.
The Little White Horse. She remembered the faded blue jacket of the book, the crisp black print on the yellowing pages, the old-fashioned names of the characters, so different to the ones she grew up hearing on her estate. She remembered the simple illustration on the cover; the white stencil of a unicorn with a flowing mane. She remembered the strange, pungent scent of dust that came from the pages at first, seeing as Elizabeth had owned it herself since its publication in ’46. She remembered all of that.
But apparently, if you didn’t know the author’s name, all that was useless.
Olivia left the bookshop completely exasperated, after spending the better part of an hour scouring the children’s book section for this one book, and about thirty minutes trying to ask “Ambrea” to search through a list - on a computer, for God’s sake, it wasn’t that difficult to type in a book title to find out. When she finally stopped insisting that there was no such book and actually put her finger to the keyboard, without the author’s name, she apparently couldn’t find it.
So as soon as Olivia got back to the school, she was logging onto her laptop and finding the book on Amazon, and was going to print off the details of it and giving it to the assistant, just to prove that being obstinate didn’t mean that you were right.
Still, it was a nice day, and Olivia wasn’t really in the mood to go inside. It was sunny, and the sky was clear; it would be nice to go for a walk. Madeleine’s cousin, Russ, had left the premises as early as he possibly could, just to “get the hell out”, as he said. It was probably a good thing: he was in a black mood that Olivia was starting to take as a norm with Russ, though Madeleine pointed out that Russ was even more claustrophobic than she was, and if Olivia had spent her life living outside and travelling, being trapped in one place would crack her up as well.
And while Olivia could sympathise, she wondered if this was how Russ (and even Maddie, with her inability to stay quietly in one place) reacted to being in a place as big as Orchid, how on earth would he deal with living in a council home in the middle of a cramped council estate, as she had?
Probably very, very badly.
Still, living there wasn’t that bad. Well… that was a lie, but it had a few good points. There was a nice park in the centre, where Olivia didn’t really spend a lot of her time as a child but now spent most of her summers there, seeing as she was forced to return for those few months in a year. The place where she had grown up was one of the places that gave estates a bad reputation - its high violence, crime, unemployment and teenage pregnancy rates were sky high. It was a shame, too; most places didn’t deserve the bad name, but this place did.
Of course, it wasn’t just teenage yobs, shoplifters and mothers living off the Welfare State there. There were genuinely lovely people there, and lots of them. Olivia knew; they were her babysitters for most of her life. It was just that they were, for the most part, quiet, and kept their heads down like normal people.
Like Elizabeth. Elizabeth Holden had been Olivia’s next door neighbour from her early childhood. A refined ‘older’ widow in her seventies, she had looked after Olivia once she had discovered that her cousin didn’t actually look after her when Angela was out, but invited her boyfriend over and got up to “gracious knows what”, as she’d said at the time. Elizabeth (she was always known to Olivia by her first name, never Mrs. Holden) had gotten married at the age of 21 to her childhood sweetheart, George Holden, and had had three children, Joseph and Christopher, who were both grown up but had no children, and Rose, who had died at the age of six. As Olivia became old enough to appreciate this, she wondered if Elizabeth’s caring for her was in some way related to Rose’s death and her lack of grandchildren, but never gave it much serious thought. Olivia’s days with Elizabeth were the only ones that she really looked forward to. The two became very close over tea (never coffee, Elizabeth was convinced it was an evil phenomenon. She would make every single type of specialist tea, but never, ever coffee) and talks, and Olivia looked on her as a grandmother figure, seeing as her own grandmother was absent. In fact, when Olivia discovered her powers, Elizabeth was the first person she went to.
But it wasn’t only that that made her visits so enjoyable. Elizabeth would read to Olivia in her well-tended back garden (so unlike Angela’s overgrown yard), which gave her her lasting passion for books. At first, she had started off telling Olivia fairytales, but when she discovered that she was a voracious reader, she dusted off her old childhood books and the ones that she had bought for her daughter to read when she was older, but had never been touched.
The Little White Horse was one of these. Olivia and Elizabeth had poured over it so many times, Olivia would be able to quote long passages of the book; and it was easily Olivia’s favourite. She would read through the words and passages of description hungrily, lapping up the jade and emerald countryside and the jewel-like flowers of Moonacre, because it was such a contrast to the grey, grey world of block buildings that lay just outside her window.
However, the colours weren’t quite so bland these days, Olivia thought, looking up at the clear cyan sky, dotted by bleached, bright white fluffy clouds. Since she had arrived at Orchid, just before Elizabeth’s death, her outlook on the world became considerably brighter, and as a result, so did the colours.
Thoughts of the book had sprung upon her while she was walking down into Cardsdale, past the fields, where a couple of horses had been put out to graze. One of them was almost pure white, shining out brightly against the olive backdrop of the grass. And with stunning speed, the following quote shot out…
It was that that started her thought train.
Now, she was walking through down one of the side streets leading off the square, and the sky was darkening. The cerulean sky was being hidden under a thick quilt of charcoal grey, the previously fluffy clouds thickening and knitting themselves together - and Olivia was starting to regret her decision to go for a walk.
Please don’t let it rain…
The search through the bookshop hadn’t yielded any results. The Little White Horse just refused to be found. It didn’t help that Olivia couldn’t remember the author’s name, even if she could remember phrases and dialogue from the book. The girl at the counter – who was the only staff member there that Olivia didn’t know from her hours browsing there, but wore a shiny silver rectangular badge stating “My Name Is Ambrea” - had looked as though she was going to kill Olivia with her insistence that, yes, there was a book called ‘The Little White Horse’, and yes, it was published in 1946, and no, she didn’t know who wrote it, or published it.
At the end of it, Olivia wasn’t sure who was growing more exasperated with the other, she or the sales girl.
The Little White Horse. She remembered the faded blue jacket of the book, the crisp black print on the yellowing pages, the old-fashioned names of the characters, so different to the ones she grew up hearing on her estate. She remembered the simple illustration on the cover; the white stencil of a unicorn with a flowing mane. She remembered the strange, pungent scent of dust that came from the pages at first, seeing as Elizabeth had owned it herself since its publication in ’46. She remembered all of that.
But apparently, if you didn’t know the author’s name, all that was useless.
Olivia left the bookshop completely exasperated, after spending the better part of an hour scouring the children’s book section for this one book, and about thirty minutes trying to ask “Ambrea” to search through a list - on a computer, for God’s sake, it wasn’t that difficult to type in a book title to find out. When she finally stopped insisting that there was no such book and actually put her finger to the keyboard, without the author’s name, she apparently couldn’t find it.
So as soon as Olivia got back to the school, she was logging onto her laptop and finding the book on Amazon, and was going to print off the details of it and giving it to the assistant, just to prove that being obstinate didn’t mean that you were right.
Still, it was a nice day, and Olivia wasn’t really in the mood to go inside. It was sunny, and the sky was clear; it would be nice to go for a walk. Madeleine’s cousin, Russ, had left the premises as early as he possibly could, just to “get the hell out”, as he said. It was probably a good thing: he was in a black mood that Olivia was starting to take as a norm with Russ, though Madeleine pointed out that Russ was even more claustrophobic than she was, and if Olivia had spent her life living outside and travelling, being trapped in one place would crack her up as well.
And while Olivia could sympathise, she wondered if this was how Russ (and even Maddie, with her inability to stay quietly in one place) reacted to being in a place as big as Orchid, how on earth would he deal with living in a council home in the middle of a cramped council estate, as she had?
Probably very, very badly.
Still, living there wasn’t that bad. Well… that was a lie, but it had a few good points. There was a nice park in the centre, where Olivia didn’t really spend a lot of her time as a child but now spent most of her summers there, seeing as she was forced to return for those few months in a year. The place where she had grown up was one of the places that gave estates a bad reputation - its high violence, crime, unemployment and teenage pregnancy rates were sky high. It was a shame, too; most places didn’t deserve the bad name, but this place did.
Of course, it wasn’t just teenage yobs, shoplifters and mothers living off the Welfare State there. There were genuinely lovely people there, and lots of them. Olivia knew; they were her babysitters for most of her life. It was just that they were, for the most part, quiet, and kept their heads down like normal people.
Like Elizabeth. Elizabeth Holden had been Olivia’s next door neighbour from her early childhood. A refined ‘older’ widow in her seventies, she had looked after Olivia once she had discovered that her cousin didn’t actually look after her when Angela was out, but invited her boyfriend over and got up to “gracious knows what”, as she’d said at the time. Elizabeth (she was always known to Olivia by her first name, never Mrs. Holden) had gotten married at the age of 21 to her childhood sweetheart, George Holden, and had had three children, Joseph and Christopher, who were both grown up but had no children, and Rose, who had died at the age of six. As Olivia became old enough to appreciate this, she wondered if Elizabeth’s caring for her was in some way related to Rose’s death and her lack of grandchildren, but never gave it much serious thought. Olivia’s days with Elizabeth were the only ones that she really looked forward to. The two became very close over tea (never coffee, Elizabeth was convinced it was an evil phenomenon. She would make every single type of specialist tea, but never, ever coffee) and talks, and Olivia looked on her as a grandmother figure, seeing as her own grandmother was absent. In fact, when Olivia discovered her powers, Elizabeth was the first person she went to.
But it wasn’t only that that made her visits so enjoyable. Elizabeth would read to Olivia in her well-tended back garden (so unlike Angela’s overgrown yard), which gave her her lasting passion for books. At first, she had started off telling Olivia fairytales, but when she discovered that she was a voracious reader, she dusted off her old childhood books and the ones that she had bought for her daughter to read when she was older, but had never been touched.
The Little White Horse was one of these. Olivia and Elizabeth had poured over it so many times, Olivia would be able to quote long passages of the book; and it was easily Olivia’s favourite. She would read through the words and passages of description hungrily, lapping up the jade and emerald countryside and the jewel-like flowers of Moonacre, because it was such a contrast to the grey, grey world of block buildings that lay just outside her window.
However, the colours weren’t quite so bland these days, Olivia thought, looking up at the clear cyan sky, dotted by bleached, bright white fluffy clouds. Since she had arrived at Orchid, just before Elizabeth’s death, her outlook on the world became considerably brighter, and as a result, so did the colours.
Thoughts of the book had sprung upon her while she was walking down into Cardsdale, past the fields, where a couple of horses had been put out to graze. One of them was almost pure white, shining out brightly against the olive backdrop of the grass. And with stunning speed, the following quote shot out…
“… and for a fleeting instant, at the far end of a glade, she thought she saw a little white horse with flowing mane and tail, head raised, poised, halted in mid-flight, as though it had seen her and was glad.”
It was that that started her thought train.
Now, she was walking through down one of the side streets leading off the square, and the sky was darkening. The cerulean sky was being hidden under a thick quilt of charcoal grey, the previously fluffy clouds thickening and knitting themselves together - and Olivia was starting to regret her decision to go for a walk.
Please don’t let it rain…
