The Butterfly Shell Read online

  Mam said they dressed Marie in the tiniest blue and white dress that had pleats at the bottom and a tiny pocket near the top. ‘Imagine. As if a baby needs a pocket,’ she said. ‘It was a very sad time for us but we had to accept that things don’t always go to plan. I wanted to give Marie the beautiful butterfly shell when she got older but that wasn’t meant to be, so I put it in the little pocket of the blue and white dress where it could be buried with her and near her heart forever.’

  Dad said, ‘And so the little pocket came in handy after all. Now I think we should all have some ice cream – to celebrate our family history.’

  I wasn’t really quite sure what we were celebrating but I guess it is a big deal to find out you have a sister even if she is dead. But to be honest I still felt like an only child.

  While Dad was getting the ice cream Mam said she wanted to show me something. She went over to the bookcase and reached behind a book and took down a beautiful little photo album with a pink satin cover. In it were pictures of Marie and my mam and dad. It was hard to see Marie’s face or what she looked like because she was so small and she was always wrapped in a blanket or a towel or something. Dad kind of looked the same but Mam looked so different. For one thing she was really thin in the picture. I wanted to ask her, ‘What happened? What made you change so much? Is this really you?’ But I didn’t say anything because she still seemed upset from talking about Marie. Then she put her arm around me and said it was exactly one year and two months after the funeral that something wonderful happened and they were over the moon again because she found out she was pregnant.

  Pregnant with me.

  And when I was born I got a dead baby’s name.

  Now I was Marie and she was the Other Marie.

  The Other Marie. I liked the sound of it until Rachel used it. Then I felt embarrassed and I worried that somehow, thanks to Rachel, everyone was going to know our family secret.

  3

  Our religion teacher Miss Murphy was originally from Vermont, though you’d be hard pressed to find anyone with a more Dublin accent than her. Hard pressed. I like the sound of that. As if something was ironed so flat it would be impossible for anything to hide under it.

  Miss Murphy was one of those teachers who tries a bit too hard. She was always smiling and saying everything was great. She wrote our first assignment on the board, ‘What Autumn Means to Me’, and we were all supposed to make or bring in something that has to do with autumn. Then she sounded all excited when she said, ‘And girls, there may even be some pumpkin pie when we talk about the pilgrims and Thanksgiving.’ Almost everyone was rolling their eyes when she gave us the assignment. I guess I should have realised that no one was going to make anything.

  Religion is a class you can’t really fail so I don’t know why I worked so hard. I guess it’s just that once I got started I kind of got into it. I decided to make a cape of leaves all different colours, like in the autumn. I had lots of coloured construction paper so my plan was to cut out leaves in red and yellow and orange and paste them on a cape that I cut out of a huge roll of paper we have. It’s actually wallpaper lining but Dad said I can use it whenever I want.

  I sat on the floor in my bedroom and cut and cut and I loved the clean sound of the scissors and soon I had a pile of leaves and I glued them on the paper and by the time I finished it was really late so I only had time to scribble about two lines in my diary and then I went to bed.

  Only a handful of people had bothered to do anything. There were a few drawings and a couple of people cut out stupid things from magazines but I was the only one who made something to wear. I looked like an idiot when I put on the cape in class.

  Jill had a rubber turkey mask. I don’t know where she got it but I have to admit it was fantastic. And Rachel couldn’t stop going on about it. I made a joke to Rachel about how we should try and get Miss Murphy to try it on but she just looked right through me and asked Jill to pass the pumpkin pie which by the way wasn’t as great as I thought it would be.

  The next week we were going to be studying Hindi traditions but you could be sure I wasn’t going to be doing anything stupid like making a costume again.

  That night I almost asked Mam about Other Marie. I needed to know if she thought about her all the time. Is that why she wrote her letters? I didn’t know how I was going to ask that without my perfume borrowing plan being revealed so I said nothing. Instead I read like I do every night.

  I know it’s a weird hobby to have but I like reading. I love that feeling of not being able to put a book down. I read until quarter to twelve with the torch under the covers – Mam would have killed me if she knew I was up that late.

  I was reading a mystery about a detective who was searching for a killer and ended up finding his ex-girlfriend’s bones in a wall and all along he thought she had just left him for someone else. Excellent. And it really helped me forget about school.

  4

  It was during our second Art class that Nicole knocked all the contents of my pencil case off my desk. It was so embarrassing. It happened as she went up to ask the teacher a question. She just swished by, swept them onto the floor and then looked all sympathetic as if was my fault. Bitch.

  She was one of them. The Super Six they called themselves although I also heard that in private they called themselves the Sexy Six. Rachel, Nicole, Marie, Jill, Jade and Claire. They were all skinny – well except for Jade but maybe they just let her hang around with them so they looked even skinnier. They were obsessed with taking pictures of themselves with their phones even though you get your phone taken away for a week if you are caught using it in class or taking pictures anywhere on school property. They always had lunch together and, except for Marie from Poland who seemed to work very hard, they hardly ever did their homework and yet they managed to never get in trouble.

  I was going to keep a file on everyone in the class but I didn’t have time for that so I decided just to keep one on the Stupid Six.

  *

  Every now and then I had one of those rare days when I thought my hair actually looked presentable. This particular day I blow dried it as straight as I could and then combed through some leave-in conditioner and it actually took away the frizz. Then I put on the brown hairband that’s just a shade lighter than my hair colour and I pulled a bit of hair out so I had some at the front and side. Mam said I looked gorgeous.

  I think she was pleased I was wearing the hairband. I know it doesn’t sound like a big deal but she bought it for me in Hickey’s and like I said she hardly ever goes out. But she did on the weekend and she also got me a bag of Haribo sweet and sours.

  At breakfast Dad showed me a cartoon from the newspaper that I didn’t really get. I almost never get them but I pretend I do. That’s always been our thing but I’m kind of tired of it and I don’t know how to tell him. He said he loves having a daughter who is up on things. ‘Half the people in work don’t even read the paper. And they’re supposed to be running the country.’

  Dad works with the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. He took me with him last year when he had to inspect some of the salmon fisheries in Galway. It was just the two of us and I got off school as well – not that missing school mattered in primary school. It was fun but things are different now and I told him I can’t actually afford to take time off next week to visit the wind generators in Wexford. He didn’t look a bit sad about it. He just said, ‘Glad to see somebody takes their responsibilities seriously’ which I think had something to do with the cartoon he had shown me but I can’t be sure.

  *

  Mr McGuire said poems are meant to be read out loud so that’s what we do in class. He always skips over Lucy Brennan so she doesn’t have to read. She gets so many words wrong that you just have to laugh even though you know you shouldn’t. Once we were reading an English short story and it was her turn to read out loud and she said booby instead of bobby.

  The Stupid Six (who I am very sure don’t know that a
bobby is an English policeman) couldn’t stop laughing even after everyone else stopped. The next day when we got in someone (not hard to guess who) had written on the whiteboard, ‘Loosie Brennan is a booby.’ When Lucy came in she turned really red and almost started crying before going up to erase it. I think she was more upset about someone making fun of her name than about her mistake in reading because all she erased was the Loosie Brennan part. I also think Rachel is mean to her core.

  Anyway that Tuesday – the day my hair actually looked presentable – we were doing a poem I really loved. It was about a man who nobody noticed except when he left down a bag and walked towards the harbour never to be seen again. And it all took place at an inquest investigating his death. And everyone says they didn’t notice him. It’s tragic and romantic at the same time.

  After we finished reading it out loud Mr McGuire asked Rachel what she thought it was about. She said, ‘Um Sir it’s about living by the sea?’

  Unfortunately he asked me next which I could tell really bugged Rachel. I said it was about the guilt people felt at not noticing someone and Mr McGuire smiled at me and said, ‘Now we’re getting somewhere.’

  I was really happy he said that but then my neck felt hot which meant it was turning red so even though I was enjoying the class I was pretty glad that just then the bell went and class was over.

  The next class was Religion and while Miss Murphy was showing us slides from her trip to India last summer with her husband, Stella started whispering something to me although I didn’t realise it was me she was talking to because she often talks to herself and she rarely starts conversations in school.

  Stella was quite unusual and even though no one really talked to her she didn’t seem to mind when we asked her to play the phone game. We discovered the game by accident – Stella put her hands behind her back and someone put their phone or iPod in her hands and then she said what the make was and who it belonged to – without looking!

  She acted like it wasn’t anything special but of course no one else could do it. She never made a mistake, so when Hannah put a phone in her hand and Stella said, ‘It’s a Nokia 215 and because of the scratch at the side I think it’s the one that was stolen from Jennifer’s bag in Room 1A,’ Hannah looked a bit sick. No one said anything but I did hear that Jennifer found her phone that very afternoon in the second floor bathroom.

  Anyway Stella kept whispering to me during the slideshow until Miss Murphy said, ‘Stella would you like to share your story with the class?’

  And she said, ‘I was just trying to tell Marie she has gum in her hair in her hair.’

  And of course then everyone looked at me. Rachel actually said, ‘Miss, maybe she slept with it in her mouth and it came out in the night. That happened to my cousin when she stayed with us last summer and she didn’t know it was there and I’m sure Marie didn’t know it was there.’

  Of course I didn’t know it was there and it didn’t take a genius to figure out who was responsible for it getting there. I definitely saw Rachel looking at Jill and trying not to laugh. Miss Murphy said, ‘Thank you Rachel for trying to make Marie feel better. You may be excused and come back when you’re sorted Marie.’

  Feel better?

  Sorted?

  I took my math set with me to the loo and I used the compass to cut the gum out of my hair. It took ages and I wished I had scissors but finally I got the gum out (and a chunk of my hair too) and folded it into a piece of paper with the date on it. Exhibit A.

  Yes I’ll have to get things sorted all right.

  5

  Right after the gum in the hair day it started.

  I heard a baby crying at night. At first I thought it was a kitten. Then I thought I was dreaming and then suddenly I was wide awake and I knew it was a baby. My heart started beating really hard and I just lay there not moving a muscle. I tried to hear if Mam or Dad were getting up to see what was happening but I guess they didn’t hear it. It sounded like the baby was in the house but I knew that wasn’t possible. I lay there listening for ages and I don’t know how I fell asleep but I guess I did because soon it was morning.

  The next night it woke me again, and again I couldn’t see anything – I could just hear a baby crying faintly like it was in my head or in a room somewhere and I felt too scared to get out of bed and look for it and soon my heart was beating so hard I couldn’t hear anything and eventually I fell back to sleep. I waited for Mam or Dad to say something at breakfast about hearing it but they didn’t say anything so neither did I.

  At school after the third night of waking up and hearing the baby, we were doing a poem in class called ‘Spirit Journey on a Hallow’s Eve’ and it hit me. Maybe it was Other Marie – trying to contact me. Maybe she had a message for me or maybe she just wanted me to make her feel better. I didn’t tell Mam or anyone. I knew I would just sound crazy. I didn’t believe in ghosts then. I wasn’t scared – just tired. ‘A broken sleep is worse than a short one,’ Mam said. Broken is right but I said nothing.

  The creepy thing is, that wasn’t the first time I heard something crying when nothing was there. When I was ten we went to Kerry and while we were walking on White Strand beach in Caherciveen I told my mam I could hear a baby crying. Mam stopped still and didn’t laugh just asked me what made me say that. And when I said, ‘Can’t you hear it?’ she just smiled and said, ‘You’re a very sensitive girl Marie.’

  My dad did an ‘oh come on’ sound with his breathing and just looked at my mam who said nothing. Then he tried to cheer her up by saying how well she was looking these days and it felt like they had forgotten I was there. But she didn’t look well at all – she was getting so fat. Was I the only one who saw that?

  On the way home in the car when Mam and Dad thought I was asleep Mam brought it up again. ‘Seriously Frank, why would she say such a thing at that exact spot. That must be exactly where that baby washed up on shore.’

  Then I was sorry I had pretended to be asleep because I wanted to say, ‘What? Do you think I heard a ghost? Am I psychic?’ But I didn’t say anything and Dad changed the subject and pretty soon I really was asleep so I don’t know if they said anything else about it.

  *

  I did some research on the Internet. There are millions of stories about hearing things in the night but none of them sounded like my experience and I don’t really know what I was expecting anyway.

  I went to the library like I did every Thursday and returned The Girls of Virginia High which I got out the week before. It was okay but the plot was really predictable – every single chapter ended with one of the girls crying about someone kissing her boyfriend.

  I never saw anyone I knew at the library except come to think of it sometimes Stella was there – at the back sitting on one of those plastic chairs for little kids. She was usually by herself and drawing. I didn’t know her very well then so I never said anything. I don’t think she ever noticed me because her face was always about two inches away from the paper.

  I got out Wait Till Helen Comes because it looked like it was about somebody coming back from the grave. The librarian smiled as if I was eight and said, ‘I hope this doesn’t keep you up at night.’ If only she knew what did keep me up.

  When I started reading it I kind of got the creeps so I had to put it down. The main girl Molly was twelve and wanted to be a writer and then her younger stepsister Heather who was seven found a tombstone of a girl who was seven when she died and had the same initials as her. Then when Heather started visiting the grave and talking to someone that no one else could see … that was when I had to put it down.

  They had moved in next door to a graveyard which seems like a ridiculous thing to do so it was quite different from my experience. And it was fiction. What was happening to me was real. Anyway I put it down and reread Watership Down instead.

  *

  Superstitions aren’t always something you can control. I don’t mean that stepping on a crack will break my mother’s back but somet
imes I have to do weird things or something awful will happen. Somewhere I know this is very childish, but what if it does work? ‘Better to be safe than sorry’ is another one of my dad’s sayings – though I’m very sure he doesn’t mean do stupid things to keep safe. One of the things I did when people like Rachel and Claire were talking about me even though I was right there and I could hear them was try and write my name with my big toe inside my shoe. It gave me something to concentrate on and by the time I finished they usually had stopped. If they hadn’t it was because I had forgotten to dot the i or something and so I started over.

  The other thing I sometimes did was hold my Connemara stone. It’s perfect and round and smooth and I found it on the beach near Lettermore. When I rub it three times and make three wishes one of those wishes should come true within three days. I use it a lot coming up to Christmas or my birthday.

  The toe thing was all I could do when I was in school and it helped me feel like I was holding my breath so that when I stopped and Rachel and the others were finished tormenting me I could breathe again.

  It was usually Rachel who would talk about me as if I was invisible. She’d say things like, ‘Wow Other Marie is really looking gorgeous today. Her neck and face were a lovely red when Mr McGuire got her to read out loud.’ And then the others would all laugh as if they were the funniest people they had ever met. I think the laughing was the worst part.

  *

  My mam is superstitious. She told me that a bird in the house means a death in the family. She also hates the colour green and once we got a gorgeous dark green couch delivered to the front room and Mam made the delivery men take it back. She told my dad, ‘I’m sorry but I swear it looked blue in the shop.’