Chapter 4
Amelia took the long walk to the tap. It was better not to waste money buying water. It was hard, walking in the hot sun she didn’t remember feeling this thirsty before. She was sure that her grandmother would not have sent her here to the beach to fend for herself. It must be that the people she had sent her to were looking for her. She got to the tap and waited in line, the line was long; nearby she saw a policeman. Maybe she should ask him if people were trying to find her.
‘Excuse me, my name is Amelia. I am just asking if anyone has been looking for me.’
The policeman looked at her and laughed and turned away
‘Please, maybe someone has come here asking for me,’ continued Amelia
‘Abandoned, don’t bother me,’ said the Policeman
‘Amelia Amelia, my name’s Amelia. If they are looking for me, I sell seashells near the café.’ Amelia suddenly worried remembering that the hat boy had said that the café owner called the police for selling so it must be wrong, but she wanted to boast about herself, he had made her feel unimportant. The policeman laughed and said,
‘Oh that Amelia!’ he said sarcastically.
‘What happened has someone asked for me?’
‘Go away you stupid abandoned girl. ’
‘Asking me if anyone has been looking for her, as if anyone cares what happens to a rat,’ the policeman said to another man at the tap and he laughed. Amelia went and stood back in the line angrily. When she got to the front of the line she drank and drank. She felt stupid not picking up a bottle to fill, she would have to find one and come back again. She walked back towards the area where the woman had swum, she needed to fill up her stock for tomorrow and dive for some more shells. She was still trying to remember things and in a flash she saw her mother’s hands making her a garland of flowers and putting it on her head in a garden. She didn’t see her mother’s face it seemed blurred out in her memory. She sat down on the beach and tried to draw the picture of her mother in the sand. She could see her clothes, a white flowing dress with a scarf of blue flowers tied around her waist. She closed her eyes, focusing on trying to see her mother’s face; she needed to see it so that she would know her mother when she came to look for her. She got distracted by someone calling her. She looked up and saw the boy selling friendship bracelets.
‘Why are you all alone?’ he asked, ‘don’t you have anyone?
‘I just had my grandmother, and she is dead,’ said Amelia. Probably it wasn’t even her mother in the memory. Probably she had no mother. If she had a mother, she would not be here by herself.
‘I can help you find nice people. I know all about people from my bracelets. See Blue and yellow that is for people that live on this beach, West Beach. See blue and purple that is what the fishermen wear, so people know they can help on the boats. See all those boys with orange? They work on the land picking Mangos. Let me see your bracelet’
Amelia showed him her wooden bracelet.
‘The Hummingbird that is the sign of people who ship coffee. I know because I made a bracelet for the son of a man to know that he is one of them, brown, black and white. His Father had on a silver hummingbird bracelet. He told me it was their sign. I know one of their kind, maybe he can help you, come with me.’
Amelia followed him. He was black skinned and had uptilted eyes. He was one of those people who just liked to talk when he wanted, not make conversation. He was kind of proud. He pointed to a boy sitting down.
‘Go and talk to him, he is like you. I must go to my mother. Bye Bye.’
Amelia saw another black boy in a clean blue shirt and shorts with his head in his hands.
‘What’s the matter?’ Amelia asked him, sitting down in front of him on the sand.
‘I lost all my money.’
‘How?’
‘I went in the tourist arcade. There’s a machine where you push in a ten coin and it can make all the coins fall so that you can win a thousand in coins.’
‘So what was wrong with that?’
‘I didn’t win, nothing fell and I spent all my ten, ten coins.’
‘Ten, ten coins, that is bad.’
‘I worked all yesterday for them.’
‘You work? You don’t have a mother?’
‘No I came here to find my grandfather.’
‘What is your name? I am Amelia,’ said Amelia. She was friendly towards the boy because he was very good looking. She noticed the brown white and black bracelet he had on.
‘Prince,’ said the boy and smiled a dazzling smile. Amelia laughed, maybe she had met royalty after all, but she noticed Prince’s plimsolls were ragged but he had great teeth.
‘What job do you do?’ asked Amelia
‘I collect rubbish and I get tips for it.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘If the police see you drop rubbish on the beach they fine you, even the tourists. It’s because of the Mayor. Once there was so much rubbish on the beach that the tourists stopped coming so he stopped the people coming to the beach, but they all went crazy, saying it was their country and they could come to their own beach, but he didn’t want so much rubbish so he made the police go round checking. So I collect rubbish for the people and the tourists. It is better for them because flies come around their picnic when they have finished eating it but they can’t be bothered to go the bins because it is far.’
‘So you have a good business. I have a business too. I sell seashells.’
‘Does that make money?’
‘Yes good money. Today I bought a burger. Here have a ten coin. Buy yourself a cheese roll.’
‘Sister you are good to me. A man can’t work on an empty stomach. So where are you from?’
‘I lived with my grandmother in the city but she died. Before that I lived with my parents but I don’t remember where.’
‘That bad?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Something bad must have happened to you for you to forget. Probably it was because of an Indigo man.’
‘What’s an Indigo man?’
‘He’s a man, he pretends to be nice but he is a kind of devil. My mother had a farm but their crops died and they couldn’t pay the rent. She owed everybody money and could have gone to prison but she dealt with an Indigo man, he pays your debts but you have to promise to work for him for the rest of your life, or at least twenty years. My mother went to a sewing factory; I wasn’t allowed to go with her. The Indigo man tied me up and put me in a truck that took me two hundred miles away to a farm where I was supposed to work. The man who owned the farm was mean and didn’t give me anything to eat and put me to sleep in a barn full of rats so I ran away, hid on the back of a truck, then I sneaked on the train to come here to tell my great grandfather. My father sometimes works here on the coast shipping coffee, but he has many wives and children and doesn’t care about me. My great grandfather is rich, but he is out of touch with us. I heard all about him in stories from my father. He has a boat yard but he is always away. He has money, he could help my mum. They think he is too old to help, but he is still sailing his boats trading all over, he is strong from all the fish he eats. I found a man who knew him and he took me to his boat yard, you see up there by the trees?’
‘But that is a rich people’s place.’
‘The blue hut. That is my grandfather’s hut. Do you have anywhere to sleep?’
‘No I slept with the children under the trees.’
‘Come and sleep in the hut with me. I am lonely.’
‘Are you sure?’
Prince nodded. Amelia felt better, she had not slept well and his name was Prince, which had to be a lucky sign.
‘Can you help me? Amelia asked
‘How?’ said Prince.
‘I need to swim for some more shells. Can you look after my money and my other shells for me?’
‘Sure,’ said Prince. Amelia stripped to her vest and pants and handed him her dress and bag to look after. She walked into the
sea and waved to Prince who smiled and waved back.
Amelia duck dived down near the rocks. She ran her hands on the ocean floor, hoping not to get bitten by a crab. She could just about make out shapes. Maybe she could make friends with a tourist and borrow their goggles for seeing underwater. After a while she pulled out two tall blue shells, they weren’t very pretty, but could maybe sell for a five coin. She put them on a rock. She could put them in her vest and walked back along the rocks when she had enough. She dived some more bringing up mother of pearl and purple shells, some as big as your hand. She was beginning to feel tired but tomorrow she was going to start selling earlier so needed a lot of stock. She looked back to the beach worried suddenly that Prince might go off with all her money, but he was there waiting. She forced herself to keep on diving until she had about thirty shells. She climbed up on the rock and stuffed them all inside her vest. She walked back to the beach being careful not to stub her toes on the rocks.
Amelia put back on her dress and showed Prince her shells. He said they were very beautiful. Amelia remembered that she had said that she was going to meet Raindrop but she didn’t want to lose Prince. She asked him to come with her because she wanted to get her hair combed; too many people were calling her ‘abandoned’
Raindrop smiled when she saw Amelia and Prince. Amelia introduced him and told her that Prince had said she could sleep in his grandfather’s hut. Raindrop questioned him. She told Amelia that she would have to be careful, if that hut belonged to a rich man and he found them, they could get in a lot of trouble. Prince told her that a fisherman that worked for his grandfather opened the hut for him every evening at six. He had told the fisherman his grandfather’s name and described a ring he wore and told him his father’s name. Luckily the fisherman knew who he was.
‘So Amelia, you met a prince after all!’ said Raindrop. Then she gave Prince two bottles and told him to go and fetch water while she combed Amelia’s hair. Amelia relaxed watching the people leave the beach and the abandoned children pick through their left-over picnics and possessions. She closed her eyes, soothed by Raindrop’s combing. She remembered her mother combing her hair and then, tears poured down her face as she remembered her mother’s face. She was sure her mother would come back and find her. She didn’t want Raindrop to see her cry. Raindrop was talking to her, telling her how she had no mother and father she was going to have to be a strong girl, do her best and sell her shells. She had made a lucky friend in Prince; try not to get in any silly children’s arguments for him to drive her away. She wiped her eyes and nodded. She did have a mother though.
Prince came back giving one bottle of water to Raindrop. He was eating a cheese roll that he had bought with Amelia’s coin. Amelia kissed Raindrop goodbye and they walked to the hut. Amelia told Prince that she would have to come back out and give the bread to the hungry children she slept with the night before. He told her she was a very nice person, but she couldn’t bring them with her as he might get in trouble with the fisherman.
The hut was beautiful, tall, made of strong wood painted blue. Inside was a hammock. The fisherman had let them in. He made up a bed for Amelia out of old blankets. When she spoke to him he didn’t answer but after a while he said,
‘I don’t want to know you or anything about you. If Prince says you are his friend that is all I need to know. I don’t want people asking me “who is this” and getting into a lot of confusion.’ He left after patting Prince’s head.
‘So what do you think?’
‘I love it here!’ said Amelia. It wasn’t a castle but it felt safe.