Flight of a Starling. Lisa Heathfield

and empty squares where glass should be. I remember her eyes lighting up when she told me about it, and I thought I’d find a place sprinkled with rainbow ends.

      I follow Dean up some stairs. Through a door and there’s another with a lock on that he opens. It’s a small room and there’s a painting on the wall in front of us, two people sitting on a cliff, a blur of birds above them.

      ‘Did Lo come here?’ I ask. Did you leave your footprint?

      ‘She did this.’ He points to the wall next to us. There’s a long blue line and standing on the end of it is a stick girl with a too-pink face and a big red mouth. ‘She’s meant to be you.’

      ‘I’m smiling,’ I say.

      A stick man has his arm round me. I know it’s my da. Lo must have stood here, concentrating, but still she painted a leg too long. I imagine her laughing, looking away at the wrong time.

      ‘Who’s that?’ I ask, pointing to a figure lying down on the line.

      ‘Your granddad. That’s him too.’ The next figure is sitting up and has wide, round eyes. ‘And that one, that’s your mum.’ The stick woman has been drawn in the same raggedy way, clumsy lines making her fall slightly from the wire. But her face is clear as daylight.

      ‘You painted her face?’

      ‘I just helped.’ Dean looks away.

      ‘Why?’

      ‘No reason.’ But there is. Lo has secrets hidden in this boy.

      On the end, there’s a girl balancing tiptoe on the line.

      ‘Lo,’ I say quietly, but Dean doesn’t answer.

      He’s painted her with open arms and she’s smiling. Leaves are weaved into her hair and birds are scattered around her hands. Feathered wings curve from her back and rise in an arc above her head.

      ‘She’s beautiful,’ I say.

      Dean stands with his hands in his pockets. He has hurt and grief all folding in on themselves. Tears are on his cheeks, but I’m useless.

       What should I do, Lo? How did you know him, when he’s a stranger to me?

      Without asking, I go to the row of cans underneath the painting. I look through the colours until I find the one that I want. The lid is difficult to get off, but I pull until it’s free.

      I want to paint it above Lo’s head, but she’s too tall, with her angel wings. So I hold the can next to her and spray it on to the wall, turning the drips into a clumsy red heart. In the middle I write ‘Lo’. It’s better than a footprint, I tell her. It won’t disappear.

      With the can in my hand I look at Dean.

      ‘Where else did you go with her?’ I ask him.

      He hesitates for long enough for me to know that he doesn’t want me walking in all their memories.

      ‘The beach,’ he says.

      ‘Let’s go there.’ But before we leave, I lean my hand on Lo’s wall. I want her angel wings to come alive and fold round me until I sleep and sleep and make it all go away. I need her to step out of the painting, her bare foot leaving the line and coming away from the bricks until she’s standing here next to me.

      But she doesn’t, because she’s not alive. And all I can do is kiss her painted cheek and silently beg to go back to before.

CHAPTER ONE

       LO

      Rita, Sarah and I sprinkle sawdust over the waterlogged grass, making a path from our vans to the big top. Little chips that we scoop and throw and I know when we’re gone that they’ll slowly get trodden down and disappear, just as we do.

      Baby Stan, who’s named after his da, sits in the middle of us, his hands spread happy on the wet earth. Rita works in front of me, focused completely as she digs the spade into the wood shavings in the wheelbarrow, balancing it and throwing it steady on to the ground. She’s always faster than me. I’m happy to hide behind the fact that she’s eleven months older and must be stronger.

      ‘You should slow down, Rites,’ I tell her.

      ‘And you should get more clothes on,’ she laughs, pointing to the little gold top I’m wearing.

      Sarah slaps a piece of shredded wood from Baby Stan’s fingers.

      ‘Not in your mouth,’ she says. For a moment he looks at his big sister from where he’s sitting in the damp, deciding whether to cry, but she stares at him until he turns away. ‘Your hands are filthy,’ she tells him, even though she must know he hasn’t enough months under his belt to understand.

      She reminds me so much of Ash when he was her age. The pale face with freckles that never disappear. Their ma, Carla, says she stewed their hair in a copper pot when they were born, but Ash shaves his head so close now that you can barely see the colour.

      The rain is light, but the drops are still batting into my eyes.

      ‘Where’s Spider when you need him?’ I ask.

      ‘You reckon friends can change the weather?’ Rita asks.

      ‘You never know. If he can eat fire, I reckon he can stop the rain.’

      ‘I bet Ash couldn’t,’ Rita says.

      ‘Don’t you like him today?’

      ‘No,’ Rita says firmly, but I just laugh at her. Ever since we were children they’ve been in love, and we all know they’re meant to be together, even if sometimes their relationship rocks unsteady. ‘I wish he’d marry a flattie.’

      Sarah looks shocked. ‘You don’t mean that. She knows we’re not allowed to be with people who don’t have circus blood.’

      ‘You should be careful what you wish for,’ I tell Rita, as I scoop up the last scraps of sawdust from the barrow, throwing them high into the air, before we watch them settle heavy and wet on the ground.

      ‘Come on,’ Rita says. ‘Rob’ll be waiting.’

      ‘Is he really going to put in the new motorbike trick?’ Sarah asks.

      ‘He says it’ll bring in more people,’ Rita says.

      ‘Will it be dangerous?’

      ‘It has to be.’

      Sarah walks quickly to keep up, stopping with us as I balance the wheelbarrow against the props van.

      ‘Tricks’ll kill you if you leave that there,’ Rita tells me.

      ‘I’ll say it was you then.’ I laugh and link my arm through hers as we go into the big top.

      ‘What’s that?’ Sarah asks. A huge bowl takes up almost the entire space of the performance ring. Its walls are made from a giant metal spider’s web.

      ‘Rob hired it,’ Rita says. Ash looks over and smiles when he hears her voice. He’s standing next to Ernest, Spider’s da, and even though he’s taller than him he still looks like the boy we’ve grown up with. He’s handsome too and I wonder why Rita can even doubt him.

      Da’s back is to us. ‘The risks are too high.’ He’s an angel’s breath shorter than Rob, but he’s determined.

      ‘It’s what they want to see, or we lose them,’ Rob says.

      ‘I think it looks exciting,’ Sarah says and Da turns to us.

      ‘Lo and I are OK with it,’ Rita says, going to stand next to Rob.

      ‘But I’m not sure I am,’ Da says.