Page 2 - Mouse Heart

I’ve waited an age for Valentina. Watched a shaft of sunlight sundial across the stage, seagulls battle overhead.
“She’s forgotten us, Dog,” I say, rubbing the grey ears of my old friend. He opens an eye and lets his head fall heavier on my leg. Outside, a church bell chimes twice and someone uses the pump at the back of the theatre. Pumping, washing. Pumping, washing. My teacher is not coming to my lesson.
I sigh, shrug Dog off my knee and unsheathe my little rapier. I stand by the line of sunlight and let the blade dance in the air, swooping and sliding, catching the sun beams and flicking the fractured light across the balconies that ring the stage. I lunge, I parry, I whirl – driving the point towards the unseen foe and twisting the blade home.
“Touché! Brava!” a scrawny figure calls from the shadows. It’s Mr Hawkin, the man who runs the theatre company. I bow and from nowhere a second sword appears and my blade flies from my hands. It spins and falls, arcing through the light, to land juddering in the wooden boards next to Mr Hawkin’s shoe.
“I say!” He moves his foot aside. Dog barks once and leaps from the stage to the sawdusty floor below.
“There! Kitten!” says Valentina, advancing across the stage. “Get out of that one!”
“How did you do that?” I look up at her. She’s between me and the sun so that her hair bubbles in a copper cloud around her head. Her clothes are all black. Many shades of black, but black all the same. A black stemmed flower.
“Come on, Mouse. Think. It’s not just play acting – one day, being able to fight might save your life.”
“But—”
“Anyway, so sorry I’m late,” she says, throwing aside her jacket. “Now – ready?”
She lowers the point of her sword so that it rests on the third button on my shirt.
“Come on sweetie,” she whispers. “Don’t let your heart rule your head.”
I step right then veer left but Valentina’s sword is there before me, swooping and flicking and driving me back.
“No!” I shout in frustration.
“Try again, little rabbit,” says Valentina, her eyes wide and shining as she watches me. “See if you can get it back!” She pushes damp cuffs up her arms and her pale hairs catch the light.
I watch her elbow – I know that it will flicker before she moves.
I dance right. She comes with me.
I plunge left, she comes too.
It’s as if we’re joined to each other. Mind and body.
Think, Mouse. Think.
See saw.
Swing.
I step back, she advances, and I drop to the ground hands first and flip myself under her blade to the other side of the stage.
“Brava! Brava!” Mr Hawkin claps as I grasp the hilt of my sword and yank it from the wood. “Allez!” shouts Valentina. “Go, Mouse, go!”
We circle each other. Valentina glides over the boards and dances closer and closer.
“Oh!” I drive forward, catching the point of my rapier in her trouser leg. She flicks me away and actually turns her back as she walks across the stage. She turns and skips past me, so fast I can’t catch her until I lunge again and she engages.
Mouse Heart
Uncorrected Sample
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