He stared down at the one before him now. A majestic tree soared into the sky, as though keening for the sun. The artist had photographed it and had somehow captured a sense of movement without making it disorienting. Instead it was graceful and calming and, above all, powerful. The tips of the branches seemed to melt or become fuzzy as though even in its confidence and yearning there was a tiny doubt. It was brilliant.

All thoughts of CC were forgotten. He’d climbed into the tree, almost feeling tickled by its rough bark, as if he had been sitting on his grandfather’s lap and snuggling into his unshaven face. How had the artist managed that?

He couldn’t make out the signature. He flipped through the other pages and slowly felt a smile come to his frozen face and move to his hardened heart.

Maybe, one day, if he ever got clear of CC he could go back to his work and do pieces like this.

He exhaled all the darkness he’d stored up.

‘So, do you like it?’ CC held her book up and waved it at him.

TWO

Crie carefully got into her costume, trying not to rip the white chiffon. The Christmas pageant had already started. She could hear the lower forms singing ‘Away in a manger,’ though it sounded suspiciously like ‘A whale in a manger’. She wondered, briefly, whether that was a comment on her. Were they all laughing at her? She swallowed that thought and continued dressing, humming a bit as she went.

‘Who’s doing that?’ The voice of Madame Latour, the music teacher, could be heard in the crowded, excited room. ‘Who’s humming?’

Madame’s face, birdlike and bright, peeked round the corner where Crie had crept to change alone. Instinctively Crie grabbed her costume and tried to cover her near-naked fourteen-year-old body. It was impossible, of course. Too much body and too little chiffon.

‘Was it you?’

Crie stared, too frightened to speak. Her mother had warned her about this. Had warned her never to sing in public.

But now, betrayed by a buoyant heart, she’d actually let some humming escape.

Madame Latour stared at the huge girl and felt a bit of her lunch in her throat. Those rolls of fat, those dreadful dimples, the underwear disappearing into the flesh. The face so frozen and staring. The science teacher, Monsieur Drapeau, had commented that Crie was top in his class, though another teacher had pointed out that one topic that semester had been vitamins and minerals and Crie had probably eaten the textbook.

Still, here she was at the pageant so maybe she was coming out of herself, though that would take a lot of doing.

‘Better hurry. You’re on soon.’ She left without waiting for a reply.