To Flourish I Need ______
By Laura Theis
The bell rings for morning break time. Mouse’s desk is closest to the door, so she has made it a point of pride to be first out of the classroom, always. Her legs are short but fast, and they take her down the corridor, out towards the courtyard in record time. She starts with the bin by the big red gates, but no luck today. She has missed her chance. They have already emptied it. She checks the other one, further out towards the bike racks. Nothing but an empty can of coke. It doesn’t matter, she tells herself. She is good at paying attention. With her eyes close to the ground, she slowly makes her way back towards the gates. There. Someone dropped a pringle, stepped on it. Mouse kneels down and carefully collects the crumbs. Her skirt has two pockets. She puts the crumbs in the left one. The right one is already full of all the leaves she picked on her way to school. She is going to need those later, if she doesn’t want to spend another lunchtime hiding in the toilets. Her tummy rumbles loudly, and she tries to calm it like a wild thing. Shhhh, it’s ok.
***
Harley can’t afford to get in trouble. She has to be smart. This is why Brewdog is useful. Brewdog is not smart, he’s a full-on idiot whose insecurity is making him sadistic. Harley can work with that. All she needs to do is sort of trail in his wake and pick up the broken pieces along the way. Brewdog has this thing where he likes to go up to smaller boys and take their bags, turn them upside down and shake them out until everything is strewn over the floor. Then he walks off, breaking their stuff underfoot, grinning. This is the point where Harley swoops in and helps the victims collect their belongings and refill their bags. Everything except the food. There is always some food. It’s easy to take whatever edible thing Brewdog has or hasn’t stepped on, frown at it saying ‘Ew, gross. Trust me you don’t want to eat this anymore’ and pretend to toss it. This is Harley’s favourite way to make use of Brewdog, because it’s easy and doesn’t make her feel particularly bad. The Hen Thing is not Harley’s favourite way to use Brewdog, but she does it when things are desperate, and it’s not like she can be picky at this point.
When Brewdog and Harley pass her in the hallway, Hen turns pale, which is a feat because she started out pretty ghost-coloured already. Harley doesn’t know why Brewdog has been so obsessed with making Hen’s life this unpleasant. Hen is a quiet loner. As far as Harley knows, her only crime is having a dad who drives her to school in a flashy car, and her bad luck is that she is often on her own. Harley lets Brewdog walk on by himself and turns back towards Hen with a friendly smile on her face.
“Hey Hen, you alright?”
She makes sure that to anyone watching, it looks like a normal pleasant conversation. She needs plausible deniability. Hen shrinks a little towards the wall and doesn't reply. Harley's smile does not waver.
“While I’ve got you, I think you owe me some money. You didn’t bring it, did you? No worries if not, Brewdog can come round to collect it tomorrow.”
Hen still doesn’t say anything, but her eyes are two dark pin holes. Just when Harley thinks she can’t stomach the look in Hen’s eyes for a second longer, Hen looks down, rummages in her bag and pulls out a couple of ten pound notes. Her hands are shaking when she hands them to Harley. God. Harley does not want to know what exactly Brewdog did to make her shake like that.
“Ah brilliant, thanks so much. See you around, Hen.”
She pockets the money. It’s not going to be enough for everything, and she is going to have to think hard about how to use it, but a little is always better than nothing at all.
***
Sometimes when Jules and Mouse complain and say what is the point of having to go to school anyway, Harley gets that scary look in her eyes and they both know it’s time to back off and comply. Harley doesn’t even need to say a thing. But if she is being honest, Mouse doesn’t really mind that Harley never lets them skip school. She understands why they can’t. And she mostly uses class for daydreaming. It is a pretty perfect environment. She is safe, she is warm, her teacher’s voice is a pleasant background babble, like a brook. Mouse’s daydreams are filled with adventure and populated by animals, talking trees, and elaborate banquets. But today something her teacher says catches her attention in the middle of an imaginary feast. It’s a beautiful word she hasn’t heard before. It blooms before her, she can’t resist. She shyly lifts her hand. Her teacher smiles, surprised.
“Yes, Michaela?”
“Mrs. Cox. That word you just said. What does it mean?”
“Which word? Oh, you mean ‘flourishing’?”
“Yes.”
“That is a great question. It is a very interesting word with lots of different meanings.”
She writes it on the whiteboard.
“To Flourish. It comes from the Latin word flor. Can anyone guess the meaning?”
“Is it a flower?”
“Very good, Michaela. And so, to flourish means to blossom, to flower; but also to prosper, to thrive. When we flourish we do well, like a flower that has lots of water. I want you all to write down the start of a sentence now. To flourish, I need__. And your homework for today will be to finish this sentence, listing as many things as you can think of that make you feel like that.”
***
“Shall we chance it?”
Jules is grinning at Sylvana, wiggling her eyebrows. Sylvana, luckily, does not not need a whole lot of persuading. They have done this a couple of times before and not gotten in trouble yet. Having somewhere to sneak off to is one of the perks of having a friend who lives practically round the corner from the schoolhouse. They aren’t supposed to leave school grounds for all the dumbest reasons, but all you have to do is not get caught. In Sylvana’s kitchen, Jules always feels like she has entered a sort of fairy land. There are bowls of fresh fruit and a basket of eggs on the marble counters. There is a little cupboard full of candy and protein bars, a shelf with seven kinds of cereal, and best of all, there is an entire chest freezer full to the brim with pizza and ice cream.
“What shall we have?”
Sylvana opens the fridge and scans the shelves with a frown.
“Maybe just a salad?”
“Oh no remember we need protein,” Jules says quickly.
“Otherwise you screw up your metabolism, right? That’s Dieting One Oh One.”
“Alright. Fish or steak?”
“Both,” Jules says.
“I’m not even kidding.”
“Easy for you to say,” Sylvana purses her lips.
“You’re so skinny it makes me sick. I would literally kill to look more like you.”
Jules swallows.
“Yeah. I’m just one of the lucky ones I guess.”
“Let’s have steak and salad.”
Sylvana fries two massive pieces of sirloin and Jules makes salad dressing and slips a couple of protein bars into each sleeve while her friend’s back is turned. They eat on Sylvana’s pristine white cloud sofa rather than at the delicately carved wooden dining table. They balance the plates on their laps. It makes it awkward to cut the steak. Jules is terrified of getting cow blood onto the snowy velvet. She feels her eyes filling with tears when she takes the first bite.
“Ohmygodthisissogood,” she says, with her mouth full. “Jules, are you crying?”
“You’re just such a good chef. This is such a good steak. I dunno.”
She tries to laugh it off. “You’re such a weirdo,” Sylvana says.
She picks at her salad. She left off Jules’ dressing. And by the time Jules has devoured her plate, she still hasn’t touched her own steak at all.
“We should get back soon.”
“Ok,” Jules says, disappointed. She had been hoping for ice cream, but she doesn’t want to push her luck with Sylvana.
Sylvana takes both their plates and carries them into the kitchen. Jules expects her to put her own steak back in the fridge to eat later. Instead, Sylvana upturns her entire plate unceremoniously into the food bin. Jules stares at her, trying to hide her horror. She thinks of her sisters and feels a horrible stab of guilt and anger. Guilt about her own meat-filled stomach and anger at Sylvana’s oblivious cruelty. She is starting to hate her a little. She thinks of bony little Mouse and her ever-grumbling tummy. Harley and her pinched mouth, crying in the shower when she thinks no one can hear. Sylvana never had to live in a house with no heating or wifi. Sylvana probably knows where her mother is right now.
***
Mouse has decided to try something new for lunch break today. Rather than hide herself away in the toilets, which can get teachers suspicious, she is going to be a giraffe. A giraffe’s favourite food is leaves from the tops of trees. Mouse is much shorter than a giraffe, so the leaves she has collected this morning are from the lower-hanging branches, but it doesn’t really matter. She gets the leaves out of her pocket and puts them in her lunch box. Then she sits down far enough away from Mrs Cox and the other children so that they can’t really see and opens her lunch box with wide-eyed excitement.
“Oh, yum!” she says loudly.
Then she takes the first leaf, puts it on her tongue, and starts chewing. It tastes bitter, but she reminds herself that she is a giraffe, and this is her favourite food in the world.
“Yum,” she says again. And swallows.
***
Mouse’s school day is shorter than her sisters’ one. She always has to wait a bit so that the three of them can walk together, but that is nice because she can spend the extra time with her friends. They have been expecting her, she can tell.
“I’ve got something special for you today,” she announces. She shakes out the contents of her crumb pocket onto the ground.
“Pringles!”
The ants scurry excitedly and fight over who can carry the biggest crumb.
“Don’t worry,” Mouse tells them, “there’s enough for everyone.”
Time passes quickly today. She has just finished telling the ants a new story when Jules and Harley show up, waving. She races towards them to hug them. They both seem a bit happier. Jules hands her a protein bar. Harley hands her a slightly squashed banana. Mouse grins, and imagines stuffing both into her mouth at the same time. Instead, she takes a tiny bite from the bar and chews it fifteen times. This makes it last longer. And it gets rid of the bitter aftertaste of her giraffe lunch. Jules watches her with a strange look in her eyes.
“You know you can eat the whole thing, kiddo.”
Mouse nods, but she still only eats half the bar and a third of the banana and puts the rest in her lunch box for Future Mouse.
Instead of heading straight home, the three of them go to the library. It’s warmer there, with better light.
“Oi, homework first,” Harley snaps when Mouse tries to run off into the children’s section. Mouse sighs and gets her pencil case out. For a while they all sit there working quietly with their heads down. Then Mouse shouts “Done!” and sprints towards the New Books display before anyone can stop her.
***
Harley gives up trying to concentrate on the essay she is supposed to write. She keeps thinking about something she saw on the way to the library. The curry place on the corner had been closed, but there had been a new note in the window. The other two hadn’t noticed it. If you are hungry and can’t afford to eat, the note said, come in and ask for a free meal. No questions asked. Harley chews her lip, wondering again how true the no questions part is. If they can really risk it. It sounds too good to be true. But she also knows they can’t go on like this. It would be a lifeline. She looks over at Jules who is busy frowning into her maths book. They’ve all started to look hollow. Then her gaze rests on Mouse’s abandoned homework. On top of the page it says, To flourish, I need __ Beneath that, Mouse has drawn herself as a sunflower getting watered by two rain clouds wearing Harley’s and Jules' smiling faces. Underneath it all, Mouse has written a single word in her painstaking scrawl. SISTERS.
Laura Theis gained a Distinction in the MSt Creative Writing at Oxford University (Keble College) as well as an MA in Theatre Studies, German and American Literature from LMU Munich. My exophonic work appears in Poetry, Magma, Rattle, Asimov’s, Mslexia, Aesthetica, etc. My Elgin-Award-nominated debut ‘how to extricate yourself’, an Oxford Poetry Library Book-of-the-Month, won the Brian Dempsey Memorial Prize. I was the recipient of the AM Heath Prize, Oxford Brookes Poetry Prize, Mogford Prize, Hammond House International Literary Award, and a Forward Prize nomination. Shortlisted for the Women Poets' Prize and the Bridport Prize, I have been a finalist for numerous literary awards including the National Poetry Competition, the BBC Short Story Award, the Cambridge Prize and the Alpine Fellowship. My new collection 'A Spotter's Guide for Invisible Things' has won the 2022 Live Canon Collection Prize, received the Arthur Welton Award from the Society of Authors and will be published by Live Canon later this year.
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