Picasso and the Greatest Show on Earth - Softcover

Fienberg, Anna

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1760296988 ISBN 13: 9781760296988

Publisher: A & U Children, 2024

Synopsis

A sweetly moving story about friendship and finding happiness, for readers who loved Wonder.

Frances is in a new house in a new neighborhood and going to a new school, but no amount of new can make her forget the old, sad secret dragging at her heart. Not the pictures of bacteria that she draws with painstaking precision, not even Picasso, the puppy with the long soft ears and the cute black circle like a target on his bottom. Then Frances meets Kit, the tall, quiet boy with the two-colored eyes. Kit is a real artist. His colored pencils fill page after page of exercise books. He sees wonder in the rocks and ferns and sky. Though Kit has worries of his own.

But when secrets are spilled, Frances's life turns grey and drab. Not even Picasso's wet nose can brighten her up. Frances and Kit will need to face the truth of their pasts to find color in their world again. After all, don't the most brilliant sunsets need a cloudy sky?

A beautiful novel about finding the remarkable in the ordinary and celebrating the wonder of every day, from the award-winning author of Borrowed Light.




'Marvellous, mind-opening, and deeply moving. The best book yet from this irresistible author.' Morris Gleitzman



'A beautifully written novel that encompasses such big things ... Frances, Kit and Picasso will stay with me for quite a while.' Karen Foxlee



'I loved this book with my whole heart. It's truly beautiful. And a gift to readers, young and old.' Maryam Master

'Push this into the hands of anyone who loved Storm Boy or Lenny's Book of Everything.' Books+Publishing





 

About this title

About the Author

Anna Fienberg has written more than forty well-loved books for children and young adults. Her career began when she worked as an editor for School Magazine, a NSW literary journal for children, which published her first story. She went on to win many awards for her novels and picture books, including Borrowed Light being chosen as an ALA Best Book for Young Adults.

Anna writes for all ages, and has been published all over the world. Her ever-popular Tashi books, illustrated by Kim Gamble, have inspired an animated series for television. The latest is Tashi and the Stolen Forest.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter One

‘If we turn right here, we’ll be almost home,’ I told Picasso. I tried to sound more confident than I felt. If I acted how I felt, I’d be lying on the couch all day like a soggy tissue.
  Picasso didn’t even look up. He was obsessed by the wonderful thing that smelled so vomity under the bushes.
  ‘Please drop it,’ I said cautiously. I didn’t know how you were supposed to talk to dogs. Mum and I had been to only one puppy class so far, and we’d arrived late.
  I just hoped he wouldn’t eat the vomity thing. For sure that stink meant rotting rat. Last night I’d heard rats arguing in the roof. This new suburb was riddled with them. At twilight I’d spotted one, fat as a football, scooting along the porch trellis. If you had a microscope you’d have seen the terrible trail of bacteria it left.
  Bacteria can kill you, you know. I wish you could explain that to dogs.
  My shadow shivered beside me. It seeped like watercolour into other ghosts shading the footpath − gum leaves, germ-shaped clouds, a power pole − and from the corner of my eye I caught the last glint of sun dying behind a house. The roof was lit up by a blood-red smear. That glow would be good to paint. If I scrunched up my eyes, the roof could be on fire.
  ‘Come on,’ I said, more firmly now, and gave the lead a tug. ‘Let’s go home and have dinner!’
  I tried to sound all hearty like Mum when she comes in to wake me in the morning. As if everything’s as fine and cheery and hopeful as it’s always been. As if our little family hasn’t been cut down by tragedy like a tree struck by lightning.
  We turned right at the corner. But the yellow house with the hanging flowerpots wasn’t there. I felt a ping of alarm. We moved here five weeks ago, but still when I go walking I forget my way back. I’ve tried to remember stand-out houses or peculiar hedges, but somehow these things vanish when I look for them again.
  It was happening now, right at the corner of Woolgoolga Street, which should have been Baringa. A wave of sickness washed into my throat, and my head hurt. On the horizon, clouds flared dangerously into crimson flames.
  Soon it would be dark.
  Picasso was hardly there in the gloom, although I could feel his stocky little body dragging at the leash. Head down, sniffing like a train, he was doing his hound-dog thing under the bottlebrush. If he knew how lost we were, he’d be worried. But at only six months old, he still had such heartbreaking trust; he believed us humans knew what we were doing.
  ‘Maybe we should sit down on this kerb now and try to retrace our steps,’ I told him. ‘That’s what Mum always says when we can’t find the keys.’ I was planning to break it to him gently that we were lost. That night drops like a curtain in winter. That it might be quite a while, if ever, before we had dinner.
  An icy wind blew up, worrying the leaves. I took a deep breath. My throat burned. I couldn’t act cheerful anymore. I felt dreadful about what I was preparing to say, but he had to be warned.
  ‘You might think I’d be happy to have a new puppy,’ I began. ‘Mum thinks so. Most people would be. But I’m not.’
  Picasso had found an empty Red Bull can. It made a screeching sound as his sharp little teeth bit into it.
  ‘Drop,’ I said feebly.
  What would shredded aluminium do to his gums? I pictured carrying him home, his poor head lolling in my arms, his dog lips or whatever you call them pouring blood.
  ‘You deserve to have an owner who’s excited about you,’ I went on. ‘You’re only a young dog and you’re so cute with that black circle like a target on your bottom, and your long silky grey ears. I’m really sorry about the way I am. It’s really bad luck for you, I know.’
  While Picasso chewed, I tried to explain. If he’d turned to look at me, I couldn’t have gone on. I’d never seen eyes so deep and black and trusting.
  Picasso became mine because Mum thought I needed something else to think about. She said I had to stop worrying about human health, and busy myself with practical pet care. She was sick and tired, she said, of hearing about imaginary dangers and what steps we should take to avoid them. She didn’t want to see me mooning about in bed for one more sunny morning drawing a swarm of bacteria attacking a healthy cell. I should be out in the fresh air, playing with a dog.
  ‘Bacteria aren’t imaginary,’ I told her. ‘You just can’t see them with the human eye. Same goes with viruses. That’s why drawings of these evil-doers are necessary. To remind us.’
  I recounted all this to Picasso, but he didn’t comment. Even when I told him I’d do a painting of him and that we could put it up on the laundry wall where he sleeps. It would be like having another puppy for company, I said.
  But he wasn’t interested. He probably wasn’t too interested in art. Not many people are. Mum used to like
my drawings, and my quiet hours indoors with my sketchpad, lying on the rug on my stomach. It was cosy, she said, just our little family, the only sound the scratch of my coloured pencils, the hiss and pop of the fire. One rainy weekend I heard her say to her friend on the phone, ‘Oh, I don’t have to bother about entertaining Frances; she’s always drawing. There’s nothing she’d rather do.’ And she sounded proud.
  Picasso spotted a tissue lying scrunched on the grass near my foot. As he lunged at it I grabbed the can, watching him wolf down the germy thing dripping with snot instead.
  Before I could say, ‘Drop,’ it had disappeared.
  So this is how it’s going to be, I thought. Going walkies means having to watch this dog leap from one major health hazard to another.
  Oh, why hadn’t Mum thought this through? If she had, she’d have realised Picasso would be just another awful burden for me. When her friend Luisa complained that she’d been stuck with a spaniel on account of a family ‘mistake’, Mum immediately said, ‘Don’t worry, we’ll take him. A dog will be just the thing for Frances!’
  The poor puppy couldn’t even be warned about bacteria. The more bacteria, the better he liked it. Look at him now, licking his lips, twisting round to sniff that bird poo . . . rolling in it, errrrk, eating it! No, if Mum had stopped to think about the consequences of her decision, she’d have realised that pets are even worse than humans to look out for, because they spend most of their time seeking out the enemy.
  She hadn’t been convinced, either, by my daily excuses for not taking Picasso for walkies: I had a headache, I had a sore throat, I’d been bitten by a rat, I had no feeling in my left foot, I had no feeling in my right foot, I was allergic to dog fur.
  ‘But you always wanted a dog,’ was all she said.
  ‘That was before,’ I muttered, under my breath.
  These excuses took care of the first week of our dog ownership. But today Mum had bounced into my bedroom with Picasso under her arm like a handbag, and announced in her cheery tone that she was off to work.
  ‘It’s four-thirty pm,’ I protested. ‘You never go to work in the afternoon!’
  ‘I know, but I’ve been asked to cover the Drive program. The sound tech called in sick. I’ll only be away an hour and a half, just till the substitute can get there.’ She plonked the dog on the bed next to my knees. ‘It’s an awkward time, though, right before dinner, what with Dad away.’
  ‘Dad’s always away,’ I said.
  ‘No, just lately,’ she corrected me. ‘He can’t help it if his stories are overseas − that’s where the big ones are for him now.’ She had her brave face on. But I’d seen the other one when Dad told us, only a week after we’d moved into Oatfield, that a great opportunity had come through and he had to fly off.
  Mum patted Picasso’s head. He turned to lick her hand, leaving drool and mashed beetle on her fingers. She wiped them carelessly on his back.
  I shuddered. ‘Aren’t you going to wash that?’
  She gave a little sigh.
  ‘I just want you to stay healthy,’ I told her. ‘Is that so terrible? What’s wrong with the sound tech? Is a germ going round the studio? Please try not to get stressed − it’s bad for your immunity. You’ll need it when Dad comes home. He’s always picking up some bug from the plane—’
  ‘So spare me one less stress, dear child of my loins. Take the hound, and sally forth into the fresh air.’
  Mum often sounded as if she was in a play from the olden days, which wasn’t odd, really, on account of her being an actor. Or at least that’s what she used to be, before she got too sad and went to work at the radio. I told her maybe she could keep being an actor if she just played the tragic parts, but she said the acting world didn’t work like that. You can’t just pick and choose. I understood because it’s like that with germs. Germs are random and can attack at any time, but there are things you can do to protect yourself and others from them. You just have to be prepared.
  Picasso wouldn’t ever be. He wasn’t even interested. Which was not his fault, but it made him a burden and a worry and just about impossible to look after for someone like me.
  Now lemony lights were coming on in the houses of Oatfield, and the blue flicker of television blared through the front windows. A mouth-watering smell of frying sausages drifted past on the breeze. Even Picasso looked up, his black nose held high to catch every note as if his favourite song were playing. He stood absolutely still, a paw in the air.
  I suppose I was so surprised by his stillness that I forgot to hold on to him. The leash hung slack in my hand, both of us caught in a trance of smell and memories. Well, he wouldn’t have had many yet, but I made up for both of us. I was watching him − Picasso the dog statue, who only seconds before was Picasso the wriggler, racer, Usain Bolter. But there wasn’t any excuse for the dreadful thing I did next . . . or rather, didn’t do.
  I stopped watching.
  My mind drifted back to another time . . . A sunny afternoon, a little boy asleep, the shush of my pencil, the stillness like a magic spell. Splash.
  That was my mistake. Not paying attention. Again.
  A movement, quick as a blink, ruffled the long grass bordering the bush. Almost like an afterthought I realised there’d been a rabbit − its white tail pricked a hole in the dark. So quick, it vanished as it appeared.
  But Picasso had seen it. The leash jerked from my hand, flying free, as he shot off towards the bush.
  I couldn’t believe it. The grassy hedge closed behind him like a secret passage. He might never have been there. Beyond was a mile of forest, sloping down to a dam. I ran along the footpath that edged the bush, calling, my heart hammering. Should I wade through those long grasses? Should I stay here where he’d last seen me? That’s what they always told you if you got lost . . . But he was so little, and just like me he didn’t know the neighbourhood. What if he reached the water, what if he fell in . . . splash.
  Just then, down the hill, a small grey flash tore out of the bush and back onto the footpath. His tail was a blur, it was wagging so hard.
  ‘Picasso, Picasso!’ I screamed. ‘Come!’
  I took off after him, and then I heard the car. It roared in like thunder, rounding the corner, heading fast up the hill.
  ‘Picasso!’
  But he didn’t even know his own name. He’d only been a famous artist for seven days.
  ‘COME! COME!’ I tore down the path, yelling, crying, my feet slapping the ground, knees pumping like pistons. I’d never run so fast, I could see stars like firecrackers bursting in the air.
  For a split second, he stopped and turned to look at me. His tail gave an extra friendly wag.
  ‘Stay!’ I cried, holding up my hand like the trainer had showed us. But my legs kept moving towards him. Is that what I did wrong? Should I have stayed, too?
  His tail said, ‘Oh hey, nice to see you but I’m really busy right now,’ then he leaped the kerb and flung onto the road.
  Didn’t he see the car? Didn’t he hear it?
  I came to a stop, as if I’d run into a wall. I wanted to look away. I wanted to shoot back up the hill, into the bush with the long grass closing behind me like curtains.
  But I ran into the road flying my arms about like a helicopter.
  ‘DOG ON ROAD!’ I shouted, jumping up and down like a maniac.
  The car’s brakes screeched. A shout rang out, then a squeal, a puppy yelp.
  Everything slowed. The dusky light went grainy, like brushstrokes. The sky and birds and wind in the trees stilled until the world was a painting, a photograph. Not real life.
  I made my legs drift across the surface, towards the car and the quietness that lay beneath it. It was like walking across something under glass. My feet were loud on the road. Everything had died, as if it had never existed. I expected my breath to make shapes in the air, as if on glass.
  ‘You stupid girl!’ a man’s voice exploded. His voice was so loud in the quiet. He was leaning out the window, staring at me. Nose flaring, narrow eyes, long whiskery cheeks. He glanced down to ferret in his leather jacket pocket, bringing out a pack of cigarettes. His hand shook as he struck a match. ‘You don’t know how to look after a dog!’
  I nodded, to show him I agreed. My knees had locked. Picasso was nowhere. I pictured him underneath the back wheel. The man thrust his jaw out, showing his bottom teeth. I felt nothing, not even my heart. Then he glanced in the rear-vision mirror. ‘Well, go pick him up. I don’t think I touched him. He’s probably just shocked. But it could have been nasty. Very nasty.’ His mouth wobbled.
  I got the meaning of his words seconds later. He’s all right, just shock.
  I forced myself to walk around to the back of the car.
  Picasso was sitting a few centimetres from the wheel in the middle of the road. His front paws were pointing neatly together like a puppy on a calendar. Could it be true?
  I bent down to touch his woolly black feet, ridiculously big compared with the rest of him, as if he’d been born with Uggs on. His grey fur, like a little old grandpa. A whiff of burnt rubber from the back tyre. Was he really all right, as calm as he looked? As I went to pick him up, shudders rippled through his body like tidal waves from an earthquake.
  ‘Errm, errm, errm,’ he whimpered. His nose thrust in under my arm. I felt him all over. He didn’t wince at any of the places I touched, just nestled like a burr into my chest. He kept burying himself deeper, as if trying to find a way inside my skin. My underarm was wet and warm. I held him close, but the shivering never stopped.
  I took him around to the front window. I made myself stop there and look at the driver. He was taking big drags on his cigarette and pulling on his ear. It was a nervous habit, I could tell. The class captain at my old school did that every time she had to speak at assembly.
  I wanted to tell the man I was sorry. He’d probably got a terrible fright too. Now he might have a heart attack and there’d be another person I’d harmed. He’d hear the screech of tyres forever in his dreams. He’d have to
stop driving and sell his car, even though Mum said cars lose their value really quickly. Perhaps I should tell him that. But then he might do it anyway because this silver death trap of his with the rug on the back seat and brown leather seats would always remind him of today. He’d take any price, even give it away, and that would be the beginning of the end of his having a
good life. He’d have to live under a bridge, his dreams in ruins.
  ‘Please don’t sell your car,’ I said.
  ‘What?’
  ‘I’m really sorry.’
  I felt dizzy then, as if there wasn’t enough oxygen in the world for me.
  ‘You might want to get out of the middle of the road, too,’ I told him, in case he was in so much shock he didn’t realise where he was. But then I felt Picasso trembling into my armpit. I made myself turn away, hoping the man would come to his senses and move, hoping this poor dog who had the terrible misfortune to be mine might stop shuddering and shivering uncontrollably against my chest, and go back to looking like a perfect puppy on a calendar.

Edition details

• Publisher: A & U Children
• Publication date: 2024
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1760296988
• ISBN 13: 9781760296988
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 384