Aislyn straightened the square of white paper, smoothing its creases by pressing it hard against the wooden table top with the palm of her hand. No, it was no good, not even this one... And now the paper was ruined, the wrinkles and fold lines would remain on its surface forever.

She sighed and pushed the used square to the side, towards a messy pile of similar squares, and took a new, smooth piece from another stack. Yet again she looked inside the book lying on the table in front of her-- it contained instructions to make a whole lot of origami things. Boats, flowers and animals... And a whole lot of birds-- cranes, swallows, parrots and doves... She had tried them all. But the kind she was attempting to make, those small white birds she could not name which she kept seeing in her dreams, were not there...

"Aislyn, hey, are you listening?  Where shall I take you aujourd'hui? To the park again? Or for a walk by the... the... le fleuve?" Suzette, suddenly standing behind her, asked impatiently.

Aislyn closed her origami book and looked at the other girl. It was time to go out, the paper birds would have to wait.

This is not how you imagined your stay in London, I know. She pitied the nineteen-years-old student from Paris, coming to spend her summer in London as an au-pair, to improve her English. Suzette definitely needed that, Aislyn admitted, what she did not need was to look after a fourteen-years-old girl with a dislocated ankle, bound to spend the holidays in a wheelchair. A girl so quiet and introvert that she not only hardly ever spoke, but neither listened to Suzette's endless rattling most of the time. Not much help with her English there...

"River, Suzette, le fleuve is the river Thames. And bring me my notebook, please." Aislyn said, smiling to herself.

She was sorry for Suzette, but, secretly, she didn't mind her injured ankle. Now, finally, she could spend her days reading, drawing and scribbling into her notebook, a thing she was not encouraged to do normally. Her parents expected her to study, go to her ballet and violin lessons daily, and if she had some time left, hang out with her 'friends'-- a group of posh, spoiled girls from good families whom they picked for her. 

Not that they ever noticed if she did any of those things, that was Suzette's job, and before her Dolores', and before that... She could not even remember that girl's name anymore. Aislyn's parents were too busy with their own lives to follow her too closely personally. 

Anyway, suddenly avoiding all this, and even the boring swimming pool, the only place where Suzette actually liked to take her-- because there, unlike in the park or by the river, she always found a group of boys her age to chat with, while Aislyn was forced to swim for hours on end under the strict glare of her swimming teacher-- was a real holiday.

Aislyn opened her notebook the moment Suzette passed it to her, even before the girl pushed her out of the flat, locked the door and called the lift. 

At least there was a lift in their house-- most of the houses similar to their, built high above the Richmond Park a century or so ago, did not have one. If that would be the case, Aislyn was sure, Suzette would be back in Paris already, sunbathing somewhere on the green under la Tour Eiffel, winking at the English speaking tourists. Maybe she would learn her English faster that way...

Aislyn masked the fit of giggles caused by the image which the idea painted promptly in her mind-- a picture of a very cheerful Suzette wearing a short, flowery, summer dress, lying on a picnic blanket with a couple of friends, listening to loud pop music while blowing huge, pink bubbles with her enormous chewing gum and waving at the young tourists queuing up to buy tickets to the Eiffel Tower-- behind her hand, while the lift wheezed and rattled to a stop.

"Mon dieu c'est lourde..." Suzette muttered, pushing the wheelchair out of the lift a few minutes later, even as they were greeted by the doorman.

"Miss Aislyn, Suzette," Mr. Cumberbatch greeted them, scrambling to his feet and hurrying from behind his desk to open the door for the girls.

"Good morning," Aislyn said politely, smiling at the old man. 

She always thought that poor Mr. Cumberbatch looked... like an alien, with his wrinkled face and the big, bald, shiny head, large almond shaped eyes and the greyish complexion... She wondered if his wife looked quite the same, or if she belonged to a different alien race... and what did their children look like?

"What's gone into you, girl?" Suzette asked, pushing the wheelchair into the bright summer sunshine, as Aislyn giggled again. "Tu es vraiment bizarre aujourd'hui... really strange..."

The oversize, thin wheels bounced on the cobblestones of the ancient pavement for a while, until they reached the closest traffic lights and crossed the smooth, newly asphalted road, then headed for one of the paths meandering across the park, all the way down to the river.

Several plump, cheeky, grey squirrels ran towards them the moment they reached the first trees, making Suzette squeal with disgust.

"Va-t'en, go away you... you overgrown mouse!" She called at one of the always hungry creatures.

Hmm... They probably don't have these in Paris, Aislyn mused, imagining the fluffy squirrels with long, smooth, pink tails like those of mice... dressed in cloaks, boots and plumed hats, like the musketeers. Not bad, Suzette, thank you, she thought, trying to sketch one in her notebook.

Suzette, not happy about the small army of musketeer squirrel-mice watching them from the lowest branches of the ancient trees, their dark, beady eyes quite unsettling as they stared at the girls from the moving shadows of the leaves shivering in the breeze, pushed the wheelchair down the hill fast, and soon they reached the river bank.

There they walked as far as the first ice cream stand and then Suzette parked the wheelchair under one of the trees growing along the bank, near a bench. She sat down and took her phone and earbuds from her handbag, and in no time she was absorbed in texting and humming to a song Aislyn could not hear, the occasional words she exclaimed sounding ridiculous without music to match.

Smiling to herself again, Aislyn finished her ice cream, then reopened her notebook. She completed her picture, depicting two squirrel musketeers, swords at the ready, plumed hats in their paws, as they bowed to each other before their duel.

She planned to write a story about them, but first she wanted to finish the one she had started this morning, about a girl she often saw in her dreams.

She must be a princess, Aislyn thought, as she looked at the wide river running smoothly nearby, its swift, opaque waters transporting boats and water birds.

Whenever Aislyn saw her, the young girl wore a beautiful long dress. She was always inside, in a huge, fairytale-like castle with an endless number of richly decorated rooms, full of maids and servants. The girl usually danced, under the supervision of her old, grumpy dance teacher. Sometimes she painted, or sat perfectly still, looking bored, while someone painted her. Or she embroidered, sitting by a tall window surrounded by many girls, or better young ladies her age. But whatever she was doing, Aislyn had never seen her smile.

Surprisingly, in her last dream, the one she wanted to write down, the princess was outside, for the first time ever. She carried a cage full of birds to the edge of the tall precipice where her castle stood, alone. As usual, the girl did not say a word, and by now Aislyn was sure she could not see her. 

She observed the princess walking across the lawn even as the sky started to brighten, soon the sun would rise. Aislyn admired her dress, as pink as the blushing sky, wishing she had a gown like that. It would suit her, the girl was quite similar to Aislyn, and their hair were exactly the same...

The moment the girl reached the precipice the sun rose and the birds woke up-- suddenly they were lively and noisy, chirping and trashing their wings against the bars of the golden cage. But... they were all strangely white, and angular, and when Aislyn, unable to resist her curiosity, approached the girl, she realised that they were pieces of paper, folded into shapes of birds. And, somehow, they were alive...

The princess opened the cage and let the birds out. They flew out all together, waving their wings and filling the morning silence with a loud, whooshing whisper, like sheets of paper carried away by a gust of wind. 

Both girls watched them soar freely above the infinite black forests and the green valleys criss-crossed by glistening blue ribbons of rivers, stretching as far as the sea shimmering on the horizon.

"They are my thoughts, my words, my poems and stories," the princess said, looking at Aislyn unexpectedly, startling her. "Letting them out, releasing them, will... will make me feel free, and happy... And so it will you, if you'll keep writing them down..."

"Aislyn, what are you writing? Mon dieu, how much time this kid wastes scribbling in that... that livre! Time to go," Suzette continued, stuffing her phone back in her bag and reaching for the handlebars of the wheelchair. " What shall I cook for you tonight?"

"Pasta is fine Suzette, don't worry..." Aislyn responded automatically, trying to hold on to the thread of her story, but, scattered by Suzette's stream of words it was dimming, vanishing, gone...

Silly Suzette, this could have been such a good tale... Aislyn thought grumpily, sighing as she closed her notebook. 

She smiled with satisfaction when she heard Suzette grunting with fatigue as she pushed the heavy wheelchair up the steep hill. It wasn't so fast and easy this way, there was more than enough time for the musketeer mice to attack them, to make Suzette pay for making Aislyn forget her story. Or maybe there would be a spaceship hovering above their house, and it would take Suzette for a sightseeing trip to Mars for a few hours, and then, maybe, Aislyn would remember what she meant to write... 

Hopefully they would keep her longer than that, a couple of days at least, Aislyn despaired, as Suzette, now short of breath, kept mumbling, "Where shall I... take you... demain? Tomorrow? You can't... spend another day... scribbling... C'est ridicule!"