The Thing Called a Holiday

I like Jenny’s house. She lives on the second floor. My feet echo when I climb up the stairs to her house. I take off my shoes. I always take off my shoes at Jenny’s house. I like to feel my feet on the furry carpet. The best thing about Jenny’s house is the bathroom. It has no windows and the floorboards creak. I like the sound of the creaky floors, especially when I turn out the light.

I like the dark. In the dark I see shapes and touch noises. There are shapes in Jenny’s bathroom, and there are taps that I drink hot water from. There is a tube in Jenny’s bathroom, just like the one where I live. I open the tube at the top, and squeeze it and paste comes out. Where I live, I squeeze the paste on to a thing called a brush. I wash my teeth with it. There’s a tub in Jenny’s bathroom. It has white stuff in it and when I turn the lid at the top of the tub, holes appear, just like magic. I shake it and sprinkles come out. The sprinkles are white and smell like flowers. The smell reminds me of something and someone I can’t remember?

Jenny has a tin in her bathroom and if you press the button at the top, stuff scooshes out – it’s wet and funny and it makes me giggle. Jenny scooshes it into her hair. I scoosh it in the dark. My favourite shape in the bathroom is a round pot. I take the lid off it. Sometimes I stick my fingers into it and get creamy stuff out. It looks like ice cream, but it doesn’t taste like it!

Jenny has curtains with colours and shapes. White, green, gold, yellow and brown. They move like leaves. I like leaves. Leaves rustle when I run through them and sometimes they crunch under my feet. I like to run through leaves and touch the wind. I like the wind touching my face

… it tickles and laughs. The wind is like shapes. Just like the shapes on Jenny’s curtains. Sometimes when the wind touches my face it rains. Rain is wet. Wet like tears when it touches my face.

I don’t get tears. I did get them once last summer at the end of a thing called a holiday. I don’t know why, but it was as if my face was raining, but it didn’t taste like rain. I tasted the rain on my face. The rain on my face at the end of a thing called a holiday tasted like crisps! I’m not allowed crisps, but one night I got out of my bed in the place that I live and found some in the cupboard – next to the big cupboard that’s locked and has my medicine in it. The crisps tasted like rain. Not the rain that you get sometimes with the wind, but the rain called tears that I had on my face at the end of the thing called a holiday.

I like the thing called a holiday. When I was at the thing called a holiday I had my rabbit with long ears and my ball. My ball is see-through. It has beads in it and when I shake it there’s a rattling noise. I don’t like loud noise, but I like the noise of the beads in the ball – the ball I took along with my rabbit to the thing called a holiday.

The thing called a holiday was fun. It was beside the sea. I like the noise of the sea. The sea has a sparkling noise, just like the chimes at the front door in the place where I live. The sea makes me dance.

I danced on the thing called a holiday. I twirled so fast, round and round and touched the sky and kissed the sun!

I picked up some shells, some of them have holes in them and if you lick them they taste like crisps and the rain that comes out of your face at the end of the thing called a holiday!

Daddy had rain on his face once. It was the day he gave me a balloon – the day that his face rained. The balloon was silver and shiny and had ribbons on it. The ribbons tickled my face – I was giggling when the ribbons touched my face. Daddy wasn’t giggling. He looked

… funny? I got cake. I like cake, but I couldn’t eat it at first. So I played with my balloon and Daddy made a fire for me on top of the cake. When he finished making a fire on top of the cake, he told me to take a wish, so I let my balloon go and it floated up into the air. I couldn’t find a wish, so I didn’t take one and Daddy told me to blow on the fire on top of the cake.

I like blowing, it’s like the wind. I blew like the wind and it was hot at the top of the cake. Daddy kissed me, and I could taste the rain on his face. It tasted like crisps and seashells, not like the rain that comes out with the wind. After Daddy wiped all the rain from his face, he shouted HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHRISTOPHER, YOU ARE TWENTY-ONE NOW! I giggled and ran after my balloon.

That was the same day he gave me a spinning top. I like spinning, that’s what I do when I’m not touching the wind and tasting the rain and the shapes in Jenny’s bathroom and going on the thing called a holiday.

© Catherine McDonald