After Iris: the Diaries of Bluebell Gadsby Read Online Free

it never completely stops. Grandma calls London THAT STINKHOLE and says she can’t understand how we can survive here for even a minute. She says that leaving London after Grandpa retired was the best thing she did in her entire life, but every morning last spring we saw a fox sunbathing on the roof of the Batemans’ shed. In the summer, you can lie on your back on the lawn and watch the swifts, and at weekends you can smell barbecues going all the way down the street.
    I just saw something move. 

The Film Diaries Of Bluebell Gadsby
    Scene Five (Transcript)
    The Spy In Our Midst
    NIGHT. THE GADSBY GARDEN, SEEN FROM THE FLAT ROOF OUTSIDE BLUE’S ROOM.
     
    The lawn is black and still, the lavender, lilac and ceanothus which border it are dark twisted masses. The plane tree at the bottom of the garden sways in the wind, and the rhododendrons tremble. Beyond the garden, more darkness stretches to the row of terraced houses in the next street, identical to this one – four storeys high, brown brick at the back and white stucco at the front. An occasional square of light where curtains are not drawn, occupants not sleeping. Walls of the same brown brick surround the garden, topped with solid square trellis. A crouched figure is running along the right-hand wall.
    He wears dark clothes and a beanie on his head. The camera follows him to the end of the wall, where he hurdles overlapping branches. He slips off the wall into the rhododendrons and darkness. There is no sound but CAMERAMAN breathing, no image but the garden.
    The rhododendrons shake, and the figure is back, bent double as he (definitely a he) runs towards the camera. There is a gap in the trellis a few feet from the house, just wide enough to get a hold on the wall, or to launch off it. The figure stops, turns, prepares to jump then stops again. He turns back towards the garden and looks straight up at the camera. Removes his beanie and gives a little bow. Stands up straight again. Replaces the beanie.
    Waves.
    Then jumps, and disappears.

Friday 2 September
Friday 2 September
    ‘But why didn’t you come and get us?’ wailed Jas. ‘We could have caught him!’
    ‘Don’t be absurd,’ said Flora. ‘You can see for yourself, he’d already gone.’
    ‘I did come and find you,’ I said. ‘You were asleep.’
    They all piled into my bed at dawn this morning, the Babes dragging Flora, demanding to know what happened to their watch.
    ‘Not necessary,’ I told them. ‘I got him.’
    ‘Show us,’ ordered Twig.
    And there was that face again – I’d looked at it several times already before going to sleep. Messy hair, wicked grin, with a look of owning the world.
    ‘He looks nice,’ said Jas.
    ‘He looks weird,’ said Twig.
    ‘He’s quite good-looking,’ admitted Flora.
    ‘Blue?’ asked Jas.
    ‘He looks interesting,’ I said.
    ‘What was he doing this time, anyway?’ said Flora.
    ‘The rats!’ Twig froze. Literally. His face went white and his body went stiff, then he threw himself off the bed and pounded down the stairs.
    ‘Oh, God,’ sighed Flora. ‘More rodent drama.’
    ‘I thought you cared ,’ said Jas.
    ‘I don’t like being spied on,’ said Flora. ‘I couldn’t give a toss about the rats.’
    This time there were ribbons tied round the rats who aren’t the daddy – two pink ones for Betsy and Petal, the two fat adults who aren’t Jaws, three blue and one pink for the babies. Which is no mean feat, considering how tiny they are.
    ‘It is a mystery,’ said Zoran, ‘who would do such a thing.’
    ‘We know!’ chirped Twig, and then Zoran made us tell him everything and yelled at us for staying up and not following orders .
    ‘Ignore him,’ said Flora. ‘He can’t hit us, he’s not our father.’
    ‘He couldn’t hit us even if he was our father,’ said Jas. ‘It’s actually illegal.’
    ‘I am trying to protect you.’ Zoran sank into the kitchen sofa and put his head in his hands.
    ‘Pathetic,’ muttered