Mollie Cinnamon Is Not a Cupcake (2 page)

Granny Ellen was Flora’s mum. Which makes her Nan’s daughter. She died two years ago. I wish Nan wouldn’t talk about Granny Ellen. I don’t like thinking about her − it makes me too sad. But I don’t say anything. Nan wouldn’t understand. Flora says they weren’t close.

“It’s quiet here, but you’ll get used to it,” Nan adds. “And the harbour and the village can get quite busy in the summer.”

“There are other shops, right?” I ask. “Places to buy clothes and stuff? A cinema? A Chinese?” I love Chinese noodles.

“Mollie, it’s a small island. The population’s tiny – less than two hundred. Everyone orders what they need from the Internet. We’re very lucky − the island has a broadband connection every Saturday. We all trek down to the library and queue up to use the one computer on Little Bird.”

“
What?
”

She smiles. “Ha! Got you. We have broadband in the house. Don’t look so horrified. We’re not all that backward. If you need clothes, we can order them online, and I have lots of movies on DVD.” She pushes open the door to the cafe. “Now let’s get you some food. Ellen used to get really ratty if she hadn’t eaten. Are you the same?”

“No!” I say, a little too loudly.

Nan laughs. “Of course not.”

The old-fashioned bell over the door tinkles as we walk into the cafe. I’m hit by the smell of baking, which reminds me of Granny Ellen again. My eyes start to sting with tears. Luckily Nan doesn’t seem to notice.

Granny Ellen never talked about Nan. Flora says they had some sort of mega argument a long time ago. I wasn’t allowed to ask Granny Ellen about it. That’s why I’ve never been to Little Bird before or met Nan. The last time Flora was on the island was for her grandpa’s funeral when she was fifteen, and she hasn’t been back since.

Granny Ellen used to look after me while Flora was working and I loved hanging out with her. She’d help me with my homework and we’d bake together – she loved making cakes. She died two years ago of a brain haemorrhage. One of the neighbours found her collapsed at her front door, but it was too late by then. I was so upset I went quiet for days and I couldn’t eat a thing. Flora was really worried about me because I was just so sad. How could someone be there one minute, perfectly healthy, and then gone the next? It didn’t make sense. I still miss her every day.

Some nights I dream about Granny Ellen. We’re doing ordinary things like watching old movies or baking together. Then I wake up and realize that she’s gone and I cry.

Suddenly a warm hand touches mine as a dark-haired girl presses a white paper napkin into my palm. I quickly dab my eyes and then shove the napkin into my pocket before Nan sees.

“Hiya, Nan,” the girl says, giving Nan a warm hug. She’s amazing looking – willowy, with an oval face and strong, cat-like cheekbones. She could be a supermodel if she wasn’t so small. She has the most incredible emerald-green eyes, with tiny flecks of gold dancing around the pupils. For a second I’m lost in them.

“Alanna, this is Mollie,” Nan says.

“You’re very welcome to the Songbird, Mollie,” Alanna says. “It’s great to have you on the island. Come in and say hi whenever you feel like it.” From the kind look in the girl’s eyes, I know Nan’s been telling her all about me. How I’m only staying here because my mum can’t find anyone else to mind me for so long. How I don’t have a dad to stay with.

Her pity makes me bristly and irritated. I don’t need anyone feeling sorry for me. I adjust my rucksack, which is heavy on my shoulder, and look at the squashy leather sofa by the window. “Can I have a hot chocolate with marshmallows and a croissant, please? Do I have to come up and collect it?”

Alanna looks taken aback. “No, I’ll bring it over to you.”

“Thanks.” As soon as I sit down I realize how rude I’ve been. Alanna was only trying to be friendly and welcoming. I’m such an idiot.

Nan continues talking to Alanna, and I catch snippets of their conversation. They don’t know I have super hearing.

“Sorry about that,” Nan is saying. “She’s tired and I think she’s a wee bit homesick.”

“That’s OK. I understand.”

“Any news from the bank, pet?”

Alanna sighs. “They’re going over your figures, but it doesn’t look good.”

“Can they not see how important this place is to Little Bird? The cafe can’t close − it’s the island’s heart. And it’s your home. They have no right to—” Nan stops suddenly.

“Are you OK, Nan?” Alanna asks.

“Just a touch of angina,” she says, wincing. “I’ve been getting it a lot lately. Nothing to worry about.” She notices me watching and I look away quickly.

I can’t make out anything else as they’ve lowered their voices, but, as Granny Ellen used to say, I can feel my ears burning. They’re obviously talking about me again. Great − just what I need. And from the sound of things, this cafe is closing down, which is a shame because it’s quite cosy and pretty. Not that it really matters to me. In two months I’m out of here!

Nan walks towards me. “I’m just popping outside to ring Flora. Let her know you’ve arrived. Would you like to speak to her?”

My eyes start to well up at the mention of Flora’s name and I blink the tears away. “Maybe later.”

“I understand. I won’t be long, pet.”

So here I am, alone again. My phone is out of battery, so I can’t text my best friend, Shannon, and I’ve left my book –
Hollywood Movie Stars of the 1950s
–in my other bag. It’s one of Granny Ellen’s old books. Flora says it’s too grown up for me, but it’s really interesting and full of cool black-and-white photos of people like Audrey Hepburn and Grace Kelly. Granny Ellen was mad about 1950s movie stars. She always said they don’t make actresses like they used to. She loved their glossy hair and glamorous clothes. “Real women with real curves,” she’d say. “Not like those modern movie stars who look like they’d fall down a drain. No, give me Marilyn Monroe or Maureen O’Hara any day.”

To stop myself getting sad about Granny Ellen again, I look around the cafe. Chains of funny-looking straw dolls, joined together by their little straw hands, are strung across the walls and the window, and there’s a doll on every table, resting against the salt and pepper holders. All the dolls are dressed in white cotton skirts and green cloaks. Weird.

The place is empty apart from a man and a woman on the far side of the room speaking another language – Italian, I think. It’s not like the cafe down the road from our apartment, which is always buzzing.

“So you’re a movie buff?” Alanna slides a hot chocolate and a croissant onto the coffee table in front of me. “Mind if I sit down for a second?”

I shake my head, unnerved by her first question. How on earth did she know…?

As if reading my mind, Alanna nods at the button badges pinned to my rucksack. “Audrey Hepburn, Judy Garland and the ruby slippers from
The Wizard of Oz
. Old school – a girl after my own heart. It’s from the 1930s, that film. I’m surprised you know it.”

“I used to watch it with my granny. It’s my favourite film.”

“I love it too. So what brings you to the island, Mollie?”

I hesitate. I’m sure Nan has already told her and she’s just being polite.

“Sorry, you probably want to eat your croissant in peace.” She starts to get up.

“No, it’s OK,” I say quickly. “Flora, that’s my mum, is away working, so I’m staying with Nan. Flora’s a television presenter. She’s working on a new travel show for RTÉ and she’s leaving for Sydney tomorrow and then Auckland.”

“Lucky her,” Alanna says. Often when I tell people about Flora’s job they’re very impressed, but Alanna doesn’t seem all that awed by it. “New Zealand is magic. I did the whole camper-van thing a few years ago. Whale watching, glaciers, smelly mud springs − the works. It was an amazing trip.”

I’m surprised. She doesn’t look all that grown up, but maybe that’s because she’s so small. She must be at least eighteen if she’s running her own cafe. “On your own?” I ask her. “Or with your parents?”

Before Alanna can answer, the Italian woman appears beside us. “May I order another Americano, please? Your coffee is very good.”

Alanna jumps to her feet. “Of course.”

“We have heard about your dolphin,” the woman continues. “Do you think he will be here today?”

Dolphin? Flora never said anything about a dolphin. I sit up a little.

“I think he just might,” Alanna says. “Let me pop outside and have a look for you.” She smiles at me. “Nice talking to you, Mollie.”

“You too.” I try to smile back at her, but I don’t think it reaches my eyes. I’m still feeling pretty homesick.

After eating my croissant, which is delicious, I cup my hands around the hot chocolate and look out of the window. A few small fishing boats are bobbing up and down in the harbour, and tubby yellow-beaked seagulls are either perched on stone bollards or swooping over the water. OK, it’s all very pretty and quaint and everything, but it’s so quiet. What do people around here do for fun?

I spot Alanna on the pier. Her hands are held up to her mouth and she seems to be calling to someone on one of the fishing boats. And then I see something in the water at the mouth of the harbour – a pale grey curve. I lean forwards and squint. It’s a dolphin!

It leaps out of the water and I almost squeal with excitement. I’ve never seen a dolphin before. Not in real life. There’s a pod of dolphins living in Killiney Bay and Flora’s always promising to take me to see them, but she never has. Animals aren’t really her thing. I smile a real smile, and for a moment I feel happy.

“That’s Click,” Nan says, coming up to me. “He lives in the bay. Beautiful, isn’t he?”

“Yes.”

He disappears under the waves. I watch for a moment, but he doesn’t come back up again.

“Your mum sent you lots of hugs and kisses. She wishes you were flying out with her.”

“Did Flora really say that?” Flora made it quite clear that I couldn’t go to Australia and New Zealand, full stop. And believe me, I spent days trying to change her mind.

Nan blushes. “She didn’t use those exact words, but I’m sure that’s what she meant. She’s a bit frantic with all the packing.”

I stay quiet. I know exactly what Flora is like when she’s obsessed with a new job or going away. And this time it’s both. The third thing that makes her all flustered and forgetful is a brand-new boyfriend. At least she doesn’t have one of those.

“Don’t be too hard on your mum, child,” Nan says. “She’s nervous about this new job and it’s making her a bit … caught up with herself. It doesn’t mean that she isn’t thinking about you. Ellen was just the same. It was all rush, rush, rush when she was excited about something.”

Eager to change the subject, I ask her, “What’s with all the dolls?”

“It’s St Brigid’s Day. Don’t you celebrate it at home?”

I wrinkle up my nose. “No! Who’s St Brigid?”

Nan tuts. “Do they teach you nothing in school these days? St Brigid is an Irish saint. There is also a Celtic goddess of fertility and nature called Brigid. We celebrate both the saint and the coming of spring today, the first of February. The little dolls are called Brideógs and you can make a wish on one. Try it.” Nan passes me a little doll. “Hold her tight and make a wish.”

I stare at the strange doll in my hands. Granny Ellen was very superstitious. She always saluted single magpies to ward off bad luck. She avoided walking under ladders and stepping on cracks in the pavement and picked up pins and “lucky pennies” all the time. She also made wishes on all kinds of things: shooting stars, rainbows, engagement rings. Granny Ellen would definitely make a wish.

I want to tell Nan that wishing is stupid. I’ve made dozens of wishes before – quite serious ones – and they’ve never come true. But thinking of Granny Ellen has softened me a little. Maybe just this once my wish will come true.

I close my eyes.
Take me home
.

Nan’s house is called Summer Cottage. It doesn’t take long to get there. We drive up a small road and then turn right onto a muddy track with grass growing down the middle and bushes and trees on either side. Set back from the lane is a white two-storey house. I’m not sure what I was expecting – a falling-down farmhouse with hens pecking around the yard and mud everywhere, maybe – but it wasn’t this.

“Here we are,” Nan says. “What do you think?”

I take in the pale blue door and window frames, the flower pots full of nodding white snowdrops, the weeping willow tree in the middle of the large garden and the small wooden pagoda at the far end, which looks perfect for hiding away in and reading. There’s even a gurgling stream running down the side of the garden, with a small humpback bridge over it. The whole place is like something out of a fairy tale.

I shrug. “It looks OK.”

Nan’s mouth twitches. “Glad you approve.”

Inside, the house is modern and bright and smells just like Granny Ellen’s house – a mixture of baking and fresh flowers. It’s warm too. Flora is always forgetting to pay the gas bill, so sometimes we don’t have heating for days and the apartment is so cold you can blow out puffs that hang in the air like dragon’s breath. Plus, the communal hallway smells of curry and bins. At least our apartment smells nice as Flora always has a scented candle on the go. She once blew a month’s grocery money on a posh Jo Malone one that smelled of orange blossom. Granny Ellen said Flora has champagne taste on a lemonade budget.

Nan closes the front door behind me. “Leave your bag at the end of the stairs,” she tells me. “I’ll show you the kitchen first.”

I follow her down the hall. The right-hand wall is full of framed photographs. They’re mainly pictures of the island, and of a stocky red-haired man. In one photo he’s wearing an old-fashioned black teacher’s cloak over a tweedy suit, like one of the professors in Harry Potter. He’s grinning, making his eyes go all crinkly.

“That’s PJ,” Nan says, following my gaze. “Your great-grandpa. He ran the island’s primary school. Have you never seen a photo of him?”

I shake my head. “Did Flora meet him?” I never met my own grandad, Granny Ellen’s husband. He was much older than she was and he died before I was born.