Maeve of Ireland — The Girl Who Never Gives the Short Answer
Maeve of Ireland — The Girl Who Never Gives the Short Answer
Maeve of Ireland — The Girl Who Never Gives the Short Answer
Age: 11 Region: Europe
Maeve has never answered a simple question simply in her life.
Her mother knows this.
Her father knows this.
Her teacher learned it in September.
“Maeve, why are you late?”
There are several possible answers.
The correct one is:
I missed the bus.
Maeve begins:
“Well, it started with the crow.”
Her teacher closes her eyes.
Of course it did.
Apparently there had been a crow sitting on the garden wall.
The crow had something shiny in its beak.
Maeve needed to know what it was.
This led to an investigation involving the hedge, one muddy shoe, and a button that may or may not have belonged to a sailor.
“Why a sailor?” her teacher asks.
“It had an anchor on it.”
“It could have come from a coat.”
“A sailor's coat.”
By the time Maeve finishes, nobody remembers the original question...
This happens frequently.
Maeve doesn't exactly make things up.
She prefers to say she notices possibilities.
An abandoned cottage isn't empty.
Someone lived there.
Someone looked through those windows.
Someone stood at that door waiting for somebody to come home.
Who?
Maeve wants to know.
An old photograph tucked inside a book isn't just an old photograph.
Who put it there?
Why?
Did they forget it?
Or did they leave it deliberately for someone else to find?
Her older brother says Maeve could invent a mystery around a teaspoon.
Maeve considers this a challenge.
Two days later, she places a teaspoon on his pillow.
Attached is a note:
YOU KNOW WHAT YOU DID.
Her brother finds her downstairs.
“What is this?”
Maeve looks at the spoon.
Then at him.
“You tell me.”
He stares at her.
Maeve holds out for almost thirty seconds before collapsing into laughter.
Her grandmother is the only person who never tells Maeve to get to the point.
In fact, her grandmother is worse.
Maeve will begin:
“Once there was a woman who lived near the sea—”
And her grandmother interrupts.
“What sort of house?”
Maeve thinks.
“Stone.”
“Old or new?”
“Old.”
“Chimney?”
“Two.”
“Good. Carry on.”
This can continue for hours.
One rainy afternoon, Maeve finds her grandmother sitting beside the window.
“Tell me a story,” Gran says.
“Which one?”
“One I don't know.”
Maeve stops.
That's different.
Usually Maeve takes something real and wonders what might have happened.
Now she has nothing.
No crow.
No button.
No mysterious photograph.
Just a blank page.
“I don't know one.”
Gran looks surprised.
“You know hundreds.”
“I know pieces.”
“That's how stories begin.”
Maeve sits down.
Outside, rain taps against the window.
She thinks about the old cottage near the hill.
The one with no roof.
“What if,” Maeve begins slowly, “there was once a girl who lived in a house where the roof disappeared every night?”
Gran says nothing.
Maeve continues.
“The house wasn't broken. The roof disappeared because the girl needed to see the stars.”
Gran smiles..,
Her Dream: Maeve dreams of becoming an author and filling shelves with stories of her own.
Her Wonder: “How many stories are hiding inside ordinary things, waiting for someone to notice them?”
Discover Maeve’s complete story in Girls Wear Crowns: Dreams Without Limits.
*****
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