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.I start to run back downstairs, to try and keep it in, but after two steps I feel the sting, then the burning on the side of my foot.Oh, Maman, it’s there! On the stairs! Oh it stung me! Maman! I cry.The scorpion has run to the corner of the stairs.I get down to the kitchen and climb up on to the bench.Pulling my feet up behind me.Maman! Get it! It’s on the stair!Which step, Peony? Which step? Maman daren’t come down the stairs.Her feet are bare and she can’t see the scorpion.Her belly is in the way.Maman! It stung me, Maman! Please, it hurts!My foot is already starting to go red and swell up.The kitchen feels like winter.The darkness in my stomach is spreading out into my arms and legs.Maman has gone from the stairs.Wait there! she is shouting.I’m coming, hang on.At the top of the stairs, Maman is wearing Papa’s tractor-driving boots and carrying a bottle of shampoo and a fat green syringe.She stomps down the stairs heavily, watching her feet as she goes.She stops, and starts thwacking at the stairs with the shampoo bottle, and stamping with one foot.I don’t think the scorpion will be alive when she is done.Margot has her arms around me on the bench.I squeeze my eyes shut, it is black as night behind my eyes but with sparkles of colour and flashes of white.My foot is burning and I squeeze tighter and tighter.Margot is rocking me.Don’t worry, she says, it hurts, but you’ll be OK.I am trembling in the dark, trying to think about being cuddled, but only thinking about my foot hurting more and more.Then the arms lift me up and it is not Margot any more it is Maman, and she carries me outside into the light.I cling to her side, trying to sit on her hip but her belly getting in the way and me slipping further and further down as she stomps across the courtyard in Papa’s boots.She puts me on the table and looks at my foot.Hush, Pea, it’ll be OK, she says, I’ll fix it.It hurts! I cry.I know, she says, hang on.And she takes the big green syringe and puts it over the sting on my foot and when she pulls up the inside part my foot pulls up too, making a white bubble of my body inside the clear plastic end-part.Then I see drops of blood being sucked out of me and I think I am going to be sick.Wait here, says Maman.I sit curled on the table, looking out past the barn and wishing I could see the wing turbines.Then, The witches are coming! Margot shouts.Where? Where? I scream, looking around.Everything looks normal but the witches could come up out of the shadows at any moment, and I am sitting on the table, easy to spot.The witches are everywhere! They’re real, after all! Margot is laughing.Stop it! I scream.Stop it!Maybe you are going to die, says Margot.She has started peering at me curiously.Scorpions are very dangerous, she says.And she laughs some more.Go away, Margot, I say.I don’t want you any more.When Maman comes back I am curled in a ball, sobbing.Maman unpeels me like an orange.She has a towel full of ice cubes.She presses it against my foot and one kind of hurt pushes away the other.Am I going to die? I ask.Don’t say that, Pea, Maman says.I’m scared, Maman.Can you tell me a story?Maman sits down in a plastic chair, which creaks as she fits her bottom into it, and holds the ice against my foot.Once upon a time, says Maman.I don’t want a made-up story, I say.I want a ‘When I was a little girl’ story.Those ones are always the cuddliest.When I was a little girl, says Maman, there weren’t any scorpions.Were there spiders? I ask.Well, yes, spiders and bees and wasps, but no scorpions.What else did you have? Margot wants to know.Did you live near the mountains, like us?No, not really.Just a town.Not far from the countryside, though.What about the sea?We were quite far from the sea too.Were there meadows to play in?No meadows, Pea, but we had a garden, with a swing.Oh.What did you do in the summer? I ask.Maman is thinking, rolling the icy towel back and forth on my foot and rubbing her feet together.Her hair is a long wet snake down her back.I played in the garden, and at friends’ houses.Our houses were all next to each other in a long row, just streets full of houses.The front gardens were joined by pavements, but the back gardens were joined by snickets, like footpaths.We used to climb over the back fences into each other’s gardens.We had paddling pools – yours is yellow but mine was green – although in summer it did rain a lot.We would call on each other to go out and play.If one of us had money we would go to a shop and buy ice-lollies.Other days my mummy would pack me a picnic.Some days, if we were really, really lucky, we would get in the car and drive to the seaside.Maman’s face is empty, as though she is far away from here.Our seaside?No, a long way away.A different seaside.A different sea.There’s more than one sea?Maman smiles.Well, she says, kind of.Were there flamingos, I say, and moules-frites?There were donkeys to ride on, she says, and the sea was so cold.And there was rock to eat.You ate rocks? I say.Not rocks, rock, she says.It’s a kind of bonbon stick.And my granddad would sit in a deckchair and make us all sunhats out of hankies.You can’t make hats out of hankies!You could then.That was a long, long time ago, I say.Yes, says Maman, it really was.Her belly jumps and she curls over it.Pea, she says.Yes?Don’t do anything stupid like that again.I’ve got enough to worry about.I need you to be a big girl.I suddenly feel sad again, and a little bit sick in my throat.Sorry, I say.Maman gets up slowly.Are you thirsty? she says, and I nod.Does it hurt a lot? says Margot, when Maman is inside fetching drinks.I scowl at her.Yes, it really hurts a lot, I say.Do you think we have to go and play now or can we stay here today?I hope we can stay here, I say.I don’t feel like playing.Maybe we can do a colouring-in.What about Claude? He’ll wonder where we are.You could go and tell him? I look down at Margot, sitting cross-legged on the paving.Maman didn’t notice all our cleaning, I say.She was just busy with you because of the scorpion, says Margot.Margot, why were you so horrible to me when I was upset?Horrible? says Margot.I was not.You must have imagined it.Chapter 11The bedroom door creaks open and Maman fills the space with herself, soapy-smelling and with wet hair.Come on, she says, hurry up and get ready, we’re going out.Then she slides into the room and pushes the shutters back so the hot outside smells fly in to wake us, and the cockerel’s crow agrees that it’s time.Come on, don’t just sit there, get up! Up, up, up! says Maman, as she swings her belly out through the door.I stare after her.Where are we going? says Margot.I don’t know, I say, it’s not market day.Maybe to the shops, or to the doctor’s?It’s very early for shops, says Margot.Mami Lafont’s?I doubt it.Margot rolls her eyes round in her head.The cemetery to see Papa?Margot shakes her head.It doesn’t feel like that.No, I agree.But how do we know what to wear?We could just choose our favourites? says Margot.But my green dress is really dirty now, I had it on for two whole days.I have a better idea, I say.We will wear something yellow.For the challenge.Oh, yes, says Margot
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