by Greg Fowler
Snap!
Another millisecond of eye contact and Eddy literally fell to the floor, half as a means to escape being caught all over again and half because nearly all the strength went out of his legs.
‘Hello?’
Eddy heard her alright but he had no idea what to do about it. His cheek pressed firmly against the prickly carpet as he worked hard on controlling his breathing, afraid that she’d hear his flustered panting even from her house.
‘Hello?’
‘Who is it Sweetie?’
‘It’s the boy next door. The one who waved to us before.’
Then nothing for an eternity. Not a sound. For Eddy it was like the whole world was waiting to see what happened next. Surely she couldn’t stand there forever.
‘I don’t bite.’
Okay, maybe she could.
‘I promise…and I always keep my promises.’
Eddy was trapped and he felt it acutely. She sounded so nice but so did the other kids in the neighbourhood when they were playing on the street. He was afraid. He wanted so much to be Smiley Girl’s friend but if she saw him, actually saw him properly, she’d see how stupid he was and end up calling him names like the others. But if he hid for a while longer, then at least he could still imagine them being best buddies. He was good at imagining and, as he was coming to understand, his imagination could be a great place sometimes. About the best place there was as a matter of fact. Eddy closed his eyes tight, as if the effort alone would make her voice go away.
Please. Please. Please.
‘I know you’re there.’
‘Leave him alone hon’. He’s just a little shy that’s all.’
No, Eddy’s not shy. Eddy’s stupid.
‘Well, he should still talk to me. It’s rude not to say hello back.’
It seemed to Eddy that just about everything was rude. It was rude to be nosy and it was rude not to be nosy. He’d never ever be able to understand all these rules.
‘Do you want to play with my house? I’ll let you.’
Oh yes, he so wanted to play with that wonderful house. Not that he figured he’d ever be able to. Grandma Daisy would never let that happen. But the very fact that she’d offered was better than all of those McDonald’s presents wrapped into one. No one had ever asked him to play before. That was what friends did. Real, true to life, honest to God, friends.
Wrestling against the knowledge that this could only ever end in pain, Eddy raised himself gingerly up to his knees and reached for the window ledge. In doing so his hand once again grasped hold of his precious tree branch.
It’s okay Eddy. She’s green remember.
Slowly but surely he lifted his head above the ledge and there she was, Smiley Girl, true to her name and about as bright as the sun on a late summer’s afternoon. He’d never really seen a girl up close and live like this before. He’d watched them from the street of course. From his lofty view they didn’t seem all that different but now, up close, he couldn’t have been more wrong. Smiley Girl was like no person he’d ever seen before. She looked so wonderfully delicate that Eddy felt certain that, if he could reach across the tree filled void between their rooms and touch her, she’d break. She’d shatter into a thousand pieces like the one and only time Grandma Daisy had let him use a real plate.
Her hair was long and dark and her eyes were ‘b’ for blue. Instantly Eddy decided one day he too would get blue eyes. How could anyone not but have a marvellous life with eyes like that.
‘Hello,’ she said again in her soft girl’s voice. ‘My name’s Reagan.’
Eddy knew the silence that followed was awkward but he felt compelled to let it happen. He just knew, absolutely knew, that he would ruin this whole dream as soon as he opened his mouth. She’d pop like a bubble as soon as he stuttered his stupid stutter. What was it that Grandma Daisy said…’if you don’t have anything good to say, don’t say it at all’. How could he ever say something so good as to make this amazing girl like him, to make her want to be his friend. He couldn’t. So instead he just stood there, not wanting to look her in the eye but, at the same time, unable to look away.
And you know what? Instead of doing exactly what he expected her to do (what everybody did), she took that mesmerising smile of hers and made it impossibly bigger. If she’d been like the sun before, she was the moon, the stars and all the planets rolled into one now.
‘What’s your name?’
‘Um. Um. M…m…my name is E…E….E…Eddy.’ Eddy tried to smile too but it wasn’t like hers. His felt too much on one side of his face to be like hers.
‘Hi Eddy.’ She didn’t budge. He’d stammered like he did when Grandma Daisy was having an angry day and still she hadn’t budged an inch. She didn’t even have that look in her eye, the one that said she’d rather be somewhere different all of a sudden.
Yep. She’s green alright.
‘Guess what?’ she continued in her bright and breezy (and definitely infectious) way. ‘I’m your new neighbour. And this,’ she added, gesturing behind her, ‘is my bedroom.’
‘C…c…cool. W..we both have windows.’
‘I know. I like the way the tree grows in your window like that. I wonder if it’ll grow in mine too.’
‘Yep. It’s a g..good tree. T is for tree. D..did you know that?’
‘Yep. T…R…E…E. That spells tree.’
‘Y..you’re smart.’ In fact ‘smart’ was at the bottom of a whole pile of words Eddy would have used to describe Reagan, if only he knew what they were.
‘Thanks Eddy.’ Reagan furrowed her brow a little, certainly not enough for Eddy to change the way he felt about her. ‘Why do you sort of look funny?’
‘M…my Grandma Daisy…well…sh…she says it’s cause I’m dumb.’
‘Well I don’t think you’re dumb at all.’
‘You don’t!’
‘Nope.’
Another silence, but this one nowhere near as awkward.
‘Why are you crying Eddy?’
‘Um…I’m just happy. That’s all.’
10. NO POINT IN ASKING AGAIN
The rest of Saturday and all day Sunday were the best days Eddy could ever remember. Reagan spent a lot of time in her bedroom as it unpacked around her and Eddy watched just about every moment of it. As each new toy unravelled itself from the brown packing paper she’d bring it over to her window ledge and show it to him. There were dolls with clothes, dolls with cars and even a doll with its own swimming pool. There were pink and white ponies with long hair for combing. She even had a thing called a ‘walkman’, where you could put things in your ear and listen to music. Eddy liked that one the most. Reagan had said that real soon she’d let him have a listen too. How cool was that!
Everything she did, everything she said, he breathed in like a breeze delivering the spice of an untouched wilderness. She was amazing.
By close to dinner time on Sunday, Reagan’s room finally took on the characteristics of a proper bedroom. Eddy couldn’t see all of it from his side of things but there was definitely a bed (with a flowery duvet on it), shelves on the wall instead of a bookcase, some posters on the wall of people that must be really important, but Eddy had no clue who they were, and a huge wooden box with carvings on it. On that box sat the toy house Eddy had spotted so keenly before and in it was the massive collection of other toys Reagan had displayed throughout the weekend.
‘Hey Eddy,’ called Reagan from across the way.
‘Yep.’
‘Do ya wanna come over and listen to some music?’
‘I can’t.’
‘Whaddaya mean you can’t?’
‘I’m n..not allowed.’
‘How do you know you’re not allowed. I only just asked you.’
‘Grandma Daisy says ‘no’.’
‘Why?’
‘She says it’s d…dangerous for s…someone like me to go out.’
‘Oh.’ Reagan gave this a bit of thought. ‘Does that mean forever?’
‘That’s weird. So where do you go when you go out?’
‘I don’t.’
‘You don’t go out?’ Reagan stopped fiddling with the doll in her hands and committed her entire sense of confusion across at Eddy. ‘Not at all?’
‘No. I just go to the sh…shower.’
‘The shower inside your house?’
‘Yep.’
‘So you don’t ever, ever, ever go outside?’
‘No.’
‘Is that allowed?’
‘It must be if Grandma Daisy says so.’ Eddy thought hard about what to let out of his mouth next. If he said too much he was inclined to dig himself a hole, one that Grandma Daisy wouldn’t yank him out of until she was all good and ready. That meant revoking his privileges at the side window. Yes, she would. She’d told him that much already.
Grandma Daisy had been up a few times in the last day and a half and had even spoken to Reagan once. She’d put on her ‘nice’ voice. Her visitor’s voice. Later on though, when Reagan had disappeared from her room, Grandma Daisy had come back up to have one of her ‘little chats’. He wasn’t to go wasting his whole day with that girl. He had some learning to do if he wanted to keep out of boarding school. The one where they beat you for no reason at all, especially the dumb kids. Almost always the dumb kids. And, even more importantly, he had better not go blabbing about how he and his Grandma Daisy choose to live. That was nobody’s business but theirs. When she’d asked if he understood that, he knew two things at once. One, it was an absolute waste of time to ask if he could go over and play at Reagan’s house and, two, this was not one of her pretend warnings. Her nice voice was well and truly boxed away and if he didn’t play by the rules…well, let’s leave it at that.
She’d take my Tree away and close my window for good.
‘Yep, that’s weird alright,’ continued Reagan.
‘I can st…still play from here though. Wh…what’s that doll?’
11. FIRST DAYS AND MOTHER’S SMILES
The first thing Eddy noticed when Reagan raised the blind from her window the next morning, was that she was dressed in a school uniform. The same one all the kids in the street wore.
‘Are y…you going to s…school today?’
‘Yep.’ Reagan sounded as proud as the bubble juice Grandma Daisy sometimes had at night time. The one she said was a grown up drink. ‘Do you like my uniform?’ She did a quick twirl for him, making her tartan skirt dance out in a full, wide circle. ‘It’s my first ever school uniform. My last school just let us wear anything.’
‘It’s very, very n…nice Reagan.’ Eddy gave it a big smile and although Reagan’s uniform did indeed look nice (anything on Reagan would look nice of course) it also carried a sense of misgiving.
‘Why thank you Mr Eddy.’ Reagan said this all funny and blinked her eyes at him. Eddy had noticed over the weekend how she did that sometimes. He’d even asked her about it once and she’d told him that was how the movie stars talked. And she was going to be a movie star one day, absolutely, no questions asked. Eddy didn’t exactly know what a movie star did but he figured Reagan could do pretty much anything she put her mind to.
‘So…um, that means you won’t be h..home today?’
‘I’ll be home just after three o’clock ‘cause the school’s just around the corner.’
If I listen really hard maybe I’ll hear her playing at lunch time. I’ll know her laugh if I hear it. I know I will.
‘Y…you’ll come straight home? You won’t stay and play with the others?’
‘No silly willy. It’s only my first day remember.’
‘Oh.’ Eddy did his very best to sound nonchalant and couldn’t tell if it worked. Three o’clock, he knew, was when the last bell echoed through the neighbourhood. The same one that was followed by a tidal wave of hustling, bustling, yelling and screaming kids. Up until today, that was both a good and a bad thing. Good because it broke the monotony of a quiet, boring back street on a weekday and bad because, since his horrible experience with Bert and Ernie, he’d become a bit of a celebrity. Even Grandma Daisy’s stern warnings from the front door hadn’t stemmed the barrage of name calling and taunting that paraded by between five past three and three thirty every day. It seemed that no matter what Eddy did, he was never going to be able to wash that stain away.
Now though, three o’clock would mean something different altogether. His one and only friend would be coming home.
Reagan was just about to say something else when her bedroom door opened wide and her Mum walked in. The very first thing that struck Eddy was the way she entered the room. There was no huff and puff. There was no accusing stare that made you feel like you had done something wrong even when you hadn’t. She simply walked in. No drama. No racing heart beats.
‘Come on Sweetie…..oh, hi Eddy. How are you today?’
‘I’m g…good Mrs Crowe.’
‘Good to hear. I like your t-shirt.’
‘Um, y…yes.’ Eddy looked down at his chest to make sure he knew what she was talking about. ‘It’s blue. B is for blue. Yep… just like R…Reagan’s eyes.’
That made Mrs Crowe laugh and that was brilliant. Eddy and Reagan laughed too, even though Eddy wasn’t a hundred percent certain what was so funny. What was so great was the fact that Reagan’s Mum was actually happy. Happy enough to laugh right out loud. Up until then Eddy hadn’t even known that grown ups could laugh.
‘Do you go to school Eddy?’ asked Mrs Crowe as she regained her composure.
‘N…n…no Mrs Crowe. My Grandma Daisy, sh…she learns me stuff in books.’ Eddy reached across to his desk and held his alpha-bet book nice and high for all to see. ‘T is for Tree.’
‘T…R…E…E, remember,’ added Reagan for good order.
‘Yep. T…R…E…E,’ mirrored Eddy, loud and proud.
Mrs Crowe gave him a smile. Not just with her mouth but with her eyes too. Mrs Crowe was such a nice lady. Eddy wondered what his real Mum was like. Could she, would she smile like that?
‘Well Eddy,’ continued this wonderful example of motherhood, ‘Reagan had better be on her way now or she’ll be late for her first day at her new school. And we can’t have that can we?’
‘N…no Mrs Crowe.’
‘Bye Eddy.’ Reagan gave him a little wave and a carbon copy of her mother’s smile. Mrs Crowe waved too and then they were both gone. Not before Eddy could match their wave and raise it by about four million though.
12. LONG, LONG, LONG, LONG, LONG DAYS.
Eddy had never cared much for time. It was just something that happened while you weren’t looking. But as he learned that day, Reagan’s first day at her new school, it had a way of knowing what you wanted most and then doing all it could to pull it away from you. It was sort of like Grandma Daisy on that front.
Take, for instance, the time between watching Reagan walk out of her front door and down the street and old Mrs Elsdon doing her daily round of the neighbourhood, with her fluffy little dog and gnarly walking stick. That particular track of time would usually fly by. There were some days when it felt like Mrs Elsdon literally followed the kids down the road. Today though, well, today it took an age. At first Eddy figured the old lady was calling it quits for the day and was giving it a rest. After all, he reasoned, she did walk awfully slow and one day she was likely to stop altogether. But sure enough, just when he’d given up on her, there she was, shuffling the sidewalk, her ball of fur dog doing its business on just about every second front yard along the way.
Yep, today was going to be a very long day.
At one stage Grandma Daisy blew on in with a clean set of sheets for his bed. Usually he didn’t care much for that because it meant she stayed a bit longer in his room than normal. But it did pull the day out of neutral for a few minutes so, while she chopped away at the sheets, he did his best to show her he was indeed reading his learning books. He even showed her the l
etters he understood and how they matched up with some of the pictures. If she was at all interested she didn’t show it, which didn’t make sense really. As far as Eddy could tell, she hadn’t wanted him to go to the mean school either, so she should be happy.
When she exited the room without so much as a word, Eddy placed his book down and considered his tired, boring options. More books and some tatty old jigsaw puzzles. Eddy sighed, resigning himself to the brick wall of time, and wandered over to the side window, where, in about a million years from now, he would revel in Reagan’s triumphant return from her brand new school.
The street was quiet, the house was quiet, even the birds seemed to be holding their collective breathes today. The whole world had been put on hold. Sitting down on the foot of his bed (and reminding himself to push out the creases when he got back up), he leaned forward and rested his elbows on the window ledge. In doing so he unconsciously fiddled with the burgeoning twig under his right armpit. He hadn’t forgotten that wonderful experience full of colours and other sensations. That had been shortly after his ugly scene with Bert and Ernie. That’s right. And it had made him feel better too. It had relaxed him and that had taken some doing after Grandma Daisy had finished with him that horrid day.
Taking a cue from his memory of that enchanting episode, Eddy took hold of the budding twig in his left hand, closed his eyes and simply let those tingling, soothing vibrations massage him into a deep and colourful sleep.
And that became the pattern from then on. He’d get up nice and early to be sure to catch Reagan before she left for the day. Most mornings that meant he had a good fifteen minutes with her. Then he’d watch her backpack clad back as she sauntered down the street away from him, keen and ready to wave if she so much as slightly turned around. After that he’d have a shot at his learning books and, once Mrs Elsdon and her motley mutt had finally done her rounds (he could tell how close she was by the click, click, click her walking stick made on the sidewalk) he’d shift over to his bed, take gentle hold of his magical, mystical tree branch and let the sensations envelope him.