You will need: Ÿ Matches with red tips Ÿ A paper clip (colour doesn’t matter but red ones would be better) Ÿ The tin foil from 5 days of sandwiches Ÿ Some scissors
Step 1: Understand what your rocket needs to do.
If you want to build a space rocket, you’re going to need some matches. You could sneak them from beside the cake at Ishayu’s Annaprashana when the mums and dads aren’t looking. Your mummy and Séan’s mam are standing next to the cake with their arms folded, and if you stand very close and very still, they won’t notice you’re there.
Wind scatters pale pink snow from the tree by the fence. It blows your fringe over your glasses and flattens your shorts against your legs. Mummy’s gold sari billows and catches on the sleeve of Séan’s mam’s Dublin jersey. ‘Desperate,’ Séan’s mam is saying, ‘about that child killed on that trampoline’.
The two mums frown at your trampoline, which has been folded with its sharp metal legs wrapped in Tesco shopping bags. Sanjeev and Séan and the Polish girl from down the street are circling the trampoline, their eyes sad. Séan’s little sister Molly is bawling and snotty in her dad’s arms. ‘But – I – want… but – I – want…’
Mummy strikes the first match. ‘You know, Bimal wanted to leave it up. The trampoline. After what we’d seen on RTÉ last night. I felt sick.’
‘Shocking.’ Séan’s mam lights a match. ‘Men just don’t appreciate danger.’ 250
