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

jail cells in the Shank. Over and over, echoing with the quality of habit. Because a wise sailor never leaves port on a Friday. He goes down to the Mission instead, drinks rum on dry land. And every time he did, every time he closed and locked the big red door against the light and the outside, Mum would send us into the entrance hall to listen for the bells. She’d go around the house and into every room, pulling on every bell pull, ringing every bell. And we’d write down which rooms they belonged to in pencil, so she could check them, rub them out, begin the test again the next Friday. Because it was never a game, never a telepathy test. It was so she could always warn us exactly where Bluebeard was. When he came back.

And then the long hours of running up the stairs, down the stairs, along hallways, across corridors, under tables and beds, into cupboards, into Mirrorland. El and I whispering and laughing; our hearts beating fast and well because these were only Mum’s drills, they weren’t real. Never fire drills, intruder drills, nuclear war drills either. Run faster! He’s coming! They were Bluebeard drills.

After dark, El and I would lie in our bed, holding hands and fighting sleep. Some nights there would be nothing, and we’d wake up to light and birdsong. But if a bell rang loud and long in the darkness, we’d get up quickly, already dressed, ears straining for the next. The kitchen was easiest to recognise because it had no bell of its own; Mum used the pull in the drawing room instead, ringing its bell twice and short. If we heard that, we always had more time, because the kitchen was where his rum stores were. We’d creep down the stairs, slower and slower as we neared the bottom. Mum would always try to shut the door of whatever room they were in; we’d hear her voice high and wild like the Throne Room bell, like a laughing stranger, and we’d rush around the oak bannister and the Berlin Wall, past the orange and yellow daffodils, and up into the cupboard. We’d find our torches and shine their light onto the blues and yellows and greens of The Island as we drew back the bolts and crept down into the dark. Into Mirrorland. On those nights, we’d always turn east to the wide decks and tall sails of the Satisfaction. And we’d wait for Captain Henry to come to our rescue while we battled frigates and brigantines, our ears ringing with the screams of splintering wood and dying men, the bellows of cannon and musketoons, the roar of the squall.

But some nights – more and more nights – we were what Bluebeard wanted. Instead of Mum. Some nights, the bells rang too many and too quickly. Some nights, he’d turn out all the lights – with a loud metallic thud of the fuse-box master switch – so that his deadlight was all we could see, jagged as it searched for us, roared for us, caught us. Some nights, it was the stovepipe; some nights, his big-buckled belt; more nights, his fists. And those nights were the nights that Mum didn’t only have to warn us but save us. Those were the nights we had to pretend never happened. Bluebeard demanded it. Mum demanded it. Mirrorland demanded it.

I’m shaking. I’m freezing cold. I remember crouching inside the dress-up cupboard in the Clown Café. Terrified. Because the Clown Café was only for hiding. It couldn’t protect us like Mirrorland could. I remember the thunder of boots on the stairs, the landing. Screaming at the ripped-open door, at the deadlight and Grandpa’s grinning teeth inside it. The smell of pipe tobacco and rum. The fist that grabbed me by the hair. The fist that squeezed El’s arm enough that I heard – felt – her bones groan. I’m goin’ tae kill ye this time, the both ae ye. Nasty wee ungrateful bitches. A sly look, cold and flat. Or maybe it’s time ye start earnin’ yer keep.

And I remember Mum’s voice, shrill and high, No! You can’t. They’re just children! Take me instead. Please. El and I holding on to each other and crying; hoping, praying that he would, the back of the cupboard rough against our clothes, our skin, as we pushed against it, feet scrabbling for purchase, for any way to keep hiding, to disappear.

In the thick, awful quiet, I hear the front door open. I get up fast, furious, desperate to do anything to escape all this truth at once like an avalanche, a terrible landslide, a towering wave – high and wide and freezing bright. I run through the hallway, wrench open the hallway door, see the card on the hessian mat with my name capitalised across it, and then I’m barging through the front door, throwing myself down the steps.

Marie freezes, her hand on the metal gate, her horror so great it manages to make her look ugly, childlike. She recovers more quickly than I do, slamming the gate shut and running across the road towards the Gingerbread Coop.

I don’t give myself time to reason, to stop, because that’s what I always do. Another truth. Marie’s already closing her door, but I ram into it, gritting my teeth and pushing. She cries out, the door gives way, and I stumble in.

She backs down a short hall and into the kitchen. Leans against a counter, breathing heavily. But when she looks up at me, her eyes are defiant. She glances at the big steel-handled knife in the block next to her. And then she looks back at me.

I should probably be afraid of her, but I’m not. ‘Why have you been leaving those cards?’

She presses her lips together. I make myself walk towards her.

‘Why have you been leaving those cards?’

Marie folds her arms. ‘Because I didn’t want Ross to hurt you. Either of you.’

She sighs, sits heavily