‘A bit,’ admits Roo. ‘But you’ll get a free brunch out of it.’
I was looking forward to spending all of Saturday in my pyjamas after such a weird week, but how can I say no to Roo? She’s had to put up with me going on aboutNorthsideand Art for a week and a half.
‘I’ll do it.’ I pick up my bag. ‘But I’d better go and face my enemies now. I’ll see you later.’
‘Hang on a sec,’ says Roo. She trots off to her room and returns holding a narrow silver ring. There’s a shimmering flat stone in it that seems to contain all the colours of the rainbow. My breath catches.
‘Oh, Roo!’ I say. ‘Is it—?’
‘It’s a rainbow opal,’ says Roo.
I have a sudden memory of me and Roo sitting in her bedroom on my fourteenth birthday, the day she gave me my first deck of tarot cards. She was the only person outside my family who even knew or cared it was my birthday. She already had her own deck, passed down to her by an older Spanish cousin a year before. ‘I don’t really think they can tell the future,’ Roo said thoughtfully, the first time she did a reading for me. ‘But Carlota says they can help you deal with the present.’
And on the day I turned fourteen, she handed me a small box wrapped up in a blue silk scarf.
‘You’ll have to give me back the scarf,’ she said apologetically. ‘I borrowed it off my mam.’
I didn’t answer her. I was too busy gazing in awe at the gorgeous Morgan-Greer tarot deck, with its colourful 1970s artwork. As Itook it out of its silk wrappings, something sparkling fell onto the bed. I gasped as I picked it up. It was a small, smooth, colourful stone.
‘It’s a rainbow opal to cleanse the cards,’ said Roo. ‘They used to belong to a friend of Carlota’s.’ She nodded at me solemnly. ‘But they’re all yours now.’
I held the stone up to the light. ‘It’s beautiful!’
‘It’s a protective stone,’ said Roo. ‘You can carry it in your pocket and hold it whenever you feel worried. It can cheer you up.’
‘Do you have one?’ I said.
‘I don’t need one,’ said Roo. ‘I don’t worry all the time. But you do.’
I stared at the rainbow opal.
‘It’s the best present anyone’s ever given me,’ I said.
It’s still the best present anyone has ever given me. It was the first time in my increasingly anxious life that I felt fully understood. It was the first time in my life someone outside my family told me, albeit indirectly, that they loved me.
I treasured that opal for years. I kept it in my pocket during exams, on my way to dates, during job interviews, until it vanished during one of my many house moves. I remember frantically searching for it before I went for my first meeting atOur Toonand realising it had gone forever.
But now here’s Roo handing me another one.
‘For protection,’ she says. ‘But mostly,’ she adds, as I take the ring from her outstretched hand, ‘because it goes with all your many ridiculously colourful outfits.’
I slip it onto the ring finger of my right hand. It fits perfectly.
‘I love it.’ Tears sting my eyes. ‘I love it so much. Thanks, Roo.’
‘I mean, I’m not a hundred per cent sure you really do have enemies,’ says Roo. ‘And even if you do, well, we both know the ring might not do much. But it can’t hurt.’
‘I’ll take all the help I can get,’ I say.
As I walk into the IBC building, I twist the shimmering ring around my finger. I don’t think either Roo or I seriously believe in the ring’s protective powers these days, but looking at it reminds me, like the stone she gave me over twenty years ago, that I have a good friend who cares about me, and that genuinely does make me feel better, and braver.
Art’s already at his desk when I enter our office. He looks up and blinks in what looks like genuine surprise.
‘Wow,’ he says.
It does not sound like an impressed ‘wow’.
I look at him suspiciously. ‘Wow, what?’