Mirrorland by Carole Johnstone (books for 6 year olds to read themselves txt) 📕

on one of my few expensive dresses, short and black, trimmed with blue silk thread. I pin up my hair, loose and high. I paint my nails the same red as my lips. And when I look in the mirror, I see El before I see me. And then convince myself I don’t.

At the top of the stairs, I’m suddenly paralysed by an awful sense of foreboding. It makes me want to run back to the Clown Café and stay there. Fingers push against my spine, my shoulder blades. Stop being afraid of falling. Or you’ll always be too afraid to fly.

‘You ready?’ Ross calls from the kitchen. And I grip hold of the bannister, heart thundering, until the vertigo, that old terrible urge to let go, to fall, vanishes to the same dark place as Mum’s furious voice.

*

The restaurant is along a narrow close off Leith Street, its cobbles lit only by old Victorian lanterns. Ross puts his hand on the small of my back as he opens the door. Inside, it’s busy without being noisy; low-beamed and cosy, with red-and-white chequered tablecloths and chocolate-dark walls.

A fat bearded man waves, makes his way over to us.

‘Ross!’ he says. ‘It’s awfy good to see ye, my friend.’

While he shakes Ross’s hand, I’m treated to a scrutiny as uncertain as it is unsubtle.

‘I heard there was still no news,’ he says, still looking at me, and the penny drops. He thinks I’m El, but at the same time he knows I’m not.

‘No, not yet,’ Ross says. ‘Sorry, this is, em … Cat, El’s twin sister. Cat, this is Michele. He also owns Favoloso in the Old Town.’

Michele shakes his head. ‘Aye, it’s a terrible thing … a terrible thing.’ His gaze slides back to me. ‘It’s uncanny, hen, how much ye look like her.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Ross says again. ‘I know we haven’t booked or anything, but I wondered …’

‘Aye, of course, no worries. Come wi’ me.’

We weave around tables until we reach the rear of the restaurant. I can hear the muted clatter and chatter of the kitchen. Michele ushers us towards a corner booth. ‘I’m afraid it’s a wee bit, em …’

It is a wee bit em. The booth chairs are high, and two long-stem candles flicker at each side of the table, a single red rose in a vase between them. There are no other tables anywhere near it. Clearly this is the designated special romantic occasion corner.

‘It’s fine,’ Ross says. ‘Thanks.’

I take off my coat, and when Ross looks at me, I try not to enjoy the brief flare in his eyes.

He clears his throat, sits down. ‘You look great.’

We order some antipasti and a Frascati that Michele recommends. His departure precipitates what seems like an endless procession of waiters to our table. It’s around about the fifth – a teenage boy bearing a second basket of bread – that I realise this is just more scrutiny. I feel like a freak show curiosity.

‘How many times have you and El come here?’

Ross stops pretending to be oblivious, rubs a hand over his face. ‘I’m sorry, Cat. I didn’t think this would be weird, not even when I got here, you know? I’m really, really sorry. D’you want to go?’

‘No. It’s fine.’ Even though it isn’t. But it’s the situation that I’m really angry with, not him. It’s El. The whole Mouse thing isn’t just annoying, it’s snide. Because she’d always really been my friend, not El’s. The Mouse to my Cat. My creation. Her existence meant that I couldn’t ever be at the very bottom of the pecking order; meant, too, that I could always be guaranteed kind company, a sympathetic hearing. And now El’s hijacked even that. So why the hell should Ross and I feel like a sideshow? Why should we feel guilty? We haven’t done anything wrong.

Our starters are delivered to the table by a waitress who tries so hard to avoid looking at us, she ends up nearly dropping Ross’s plate into his lap. It makes me want to laugh, but I can see it just makes Ross even more tense. When she goes, he starts eating like it’s his last meal. I want so much for him to relax. I wish I could take just a small part of his worry, his stress, his pain, and swap it for my anger. But I know he won’t appreciate the effort, won’t even want to listen to it, so all I can do is distract him.

‘D’you remember the Rosemount?’

He stops, fork halfway to his mouth. ‘The Marshalsea Prison?’

‘It wasn’t that bad.’

‘It was, according to El.’

‘Not that she isn’t prone to exaggeration.’ The wine has settled my nerves somewhat, stretched me less thin. ‘Remember the Shank in Mirrorland? Now, that was bad.’

‘Of course I remember.’ He looks at me a little too sharply. ‘Do you?’

‘Of course.’

El pretending to be Andy Dufresne, ordering me about: hide there, spy there, look out there. I think of the old gravel yard – replaced now by that flat paving in the back garden – the only part of Mirrorland that was ever outside. An exercise yard that El would insist she and I march around and around for endless, restless hours. Sometimes in the rain, sometimes until dark. Kicking up those silver and grey chuckies. The sound of their crunch and give under our prison boots, their powder chalky against the too-long drag of our prison clothes: Grandpa’s old waxy fishing dungarees and jackets.

Inside the Shank, Ross was always the warder or the wing guard of Cellblock 5, built on top of the old wooden fruit-crates that used to be Boomtown’s boardwalk. I remember his stern glares of authority. The illicit thrill of his threats to lock us up and never let us go. We’d been fast approaching our teens by then; the Shank was the last bad gasp of Mirrorland, I suppose.

‘I remember the Rosemount, but only vaguely,’ Ross says. He refills our glasses. ‘You’d both already done nearly