Just That Kind Of Day
What started out as ordinary soon turned out to be a touch weird…
“Can you sing?”
“Yes,” said Nikki.
It was a lie, but Nikki was bored. And at eight, having a band practise in your dad’s barn was cool. No, it was beyond cool – it was awesome.
“What can you sing?” asked Gray, the band’s singer.
“Well, I…”
“She can’t sing!” her brother, Aidan, sneered. “Make yourself scarce, Nikkie. Go and play with your dolls or something.”
“I don’t play with dolls!”
“Scram! And take Annabelle with you.”
Nikki flounced out the barn and Annabelle followed. Annabelle was her Shetland pony. Nikki was getting too big to ride Annabelle now but they still went everywhere together.
“It’s not as if it’s a real band!” she shouted, getting in the last word.
Aidan didn’t even have a set of drums, just an old oil drum, and Gray, when he sang, sounded like a frog during mating season. Being a farm girl, Nikki knew these things.
“They’re rubbish, anyway.”
Annabelle snorted her disgust. Nikki sighed. She’d done all her chores and the day stretched long and empty before her.
It was just her and Annabelle. She had no one else to hang out with.
From the barn, a loud beat started up. It would upset the hens and they probably wouldn’t lay for a week, but Aidan, at fourteen, was convinced they were going to be famous.
Nikki kind of believed it too. Aidan was the clever one while she was the dreamer.
Aidan achieved while she under-achieved.
Aidan had straight As in all his school exams while tries hard was the most positive thing her teacher could come up with.
On sports day Nikki had come in second to last in the egg and spoon race. Her classmates had sniggered.
I thought you lived on a farm? I bet your mum doesn’t send you out for the eggs.
The truth was, Nikki was wondering if the egg she was racing with had come from Matilda. She was wondering so much, she missed the start.
Matilda would squawk and ruffle her feathers when you took her eggs. Nikki, not wanting to hurt the hen’s feelings, would, if she could get away with it, leave well alone.
“Come on, Annabelle, let’s see what’s doing elsewhere.”
Annabelle flicked her tail and walked beside Nikki. Beneath their feet the earth was hard-baked and dusty.
Nikki pointed her fingers and “shot” some dandelion clocks.
“Missed!”
Startled, Nikki looked round.
It was Ciarán. He lived nearby and was weird – even weirder than her. He was the one who had come last in the egg and spoon race.
“He’s like me,” she’d said to her dad, recently. “We’re not good at anything.”
That remark had earned her a pep talk ending with the words that everyone has a talent. It had gone right over her head.
She watched Ciarán approach. It was not often that he was outside.
Normally he sat in his room pulling household equipment apart and not being able to put it together again.
“Hiya, Ciarán.”
“Hiya, Nikki. Hiya Annabelle. What you doing?”
Nikki shrugged. She wasn’t doing anything. It was just that kind of day. A bee droned round Annabelle’s ears and she twitched them.
“What you doing?”
Ciarán blinked mole-like through his glasses.
“Nothing much. Mum said I needed some fresh air.”
“What we going to do, then?”
Ciarán looked towards the barn. “What gives with the music?”
“Aidan and his friends have got a band going. They’re convinced they’re going to be famous.”
“Cool. Let’s go.”
“No, wait! We’re not allowed. Besides I don’t think Annabelle will like the drum. She may get skittish.”
Her friend frowned and then whispered in Annabelle’s ear. Annabelle huffed through her nose and took a small step backwards.
“See, told you,” said Nikki, not wanting to be ordered out of the barn a second time.
“Well, I can go and at least peep in.”
“Suit yourself.”
Nikki watched Ciarán walking towards the barn. She hoped he wouldn’t go right in the barn, but he did.
Nikki waited and waited. In a nearby field her dad was repairing his tractor. Then suddenly he dropped his tools and crept towards the hedgerow.
Nikki smiled. She knew what her dad was up to.
Shortly after, Ciarán stood outside the barn with a bewildered expression on his face.
Nikki felt for him. There wasn’t a mean bone in his body but he was constantly told by everyone to get lost.
The music had stopped but now started up again.
“Come on, Annabelle, let’s go and cheer him up,” Nikki said.
Standing well back from the barn in case Annabelle got spooked, Nikki made a goofy face at him.
No response.
She sang a nonsense tune out of sync with the music.
No response.
In desperation, she turned to her pony. “Come on, Annabelle, let’s dance!”
Nikki twirled with her arms in the air and Annabelle twirled while shaking her head.
Ciarán laughed and did some weird loose-limbed thing with his legs.
Nikki tried to imitate him. Annabelle kicked out her back legs and neighed.
After that it was no holds barred. Ciarán danced like a puppet without strings, Annabelle went crazy in the way horses do when first let out in the fields, and Nikki did the first thing that the beat suggested to her.
She swivelled her hips, shook her head and just let her body go with the flow. It was crazy, weird and sort of wonderful.
“Go for it, Nikki!” shouted Ciarán.
Ciarán whooped and hollered. Annabelle neighed and Nikki sang her delight off-key.
Round and round they went, kicking up dust and reaching for the blue of the sky.
Round and round the sky went, as if it was trying to join in the fun.
They danced, whooped, neighed and sang off-key until the music stopped. Then they both leaned into Annabelle, breathless and happy.
“That was awesome,” said Ciarán, pushing his glasses up his nose.
“Yeah, awesome,” agreed Nikki as Annabelle snickered.
“Having fun there, kids?” asked her dad, in passing.
He gave them the thumbs up and grinned. Nikki gave him the thumbs up back.
She never thought to mention to her friend about her dad’s hobby. Why should it? It didn’t occur to her that he would ever diversify from his usual subject matter.
So the long summer holidays continued.
Nikki had to sometimes outwit Matilda with the eggs, the band kept practising and improving, her brother continued to be clever, now and again Ciarán braved the outside world, and Annabelle became the confidante of all Nikki’s hopes and dreams.
“I just wish we could be good at something,” she said to her friend on a day he had emerged from his lair.
They were sitting in the empty barn. Ciarán looked at her, surprised.
“But you are good at something.
“You’re a good friend to me – in fact, you’re my only friend.”
Nikki was thinking about this comment when her brother sauntered in carrying a laptop.
“Hi kids, I’ve got something to show you. Dad put in it on the internet.”
“Is it one of Dad’s nature films?”
Aidan shook his head and smiled. When he was on his own, her brother was bearable – likeable even.
“I know, he filmed your band and you’re going to be famous!”
Nikki clapped her hands and grinned. Her brother was going to be famous… he was going to be famous!
“Nope,” he replied, as her dad sauntered in. “Dad put it on a while ago and he’s waited to see the reaction to it.”
“Come on then Aidan, don’t tease. Show them.”
Aidan showed them a YouTube video clip of them dancing.
Nikki couldn’t quite take it in and neither could Ciarán. They just watched without saying a word. Only Annabelle stamped a hoof before giving a snicker.
“You’re pretty neat dancers,” said Aidan, “including Annabelle.”
“And you three are a sensation on YouTube,” put in her dad. “You’ve got hundreds of thousands of likes. Look at all the positive comments.”
“You mean w-we’re famous?” asked Nikki, surprised.
It took a while but she got there. They could dance! They could really dance!
She high-fived Ciarán, hugged Annabelle and then danced her delight around the barn. Ciarán and Annabelle joined in.
“We’re good at something… we’re good at something,” she sang off-key.
However, it was her dad who got in the last word.
“I told you everyone has a talent…”
We’re sharing another lovely holiday-themed story from our archives every Monday and Thursday during June. Look out for the next one!
