Goodbye, Malo

Juliet and Malo lived side by side, with only a hedge between their two gardens. In the hedge there was a gap just the size of a child, which nobody had ever blocked up. Since they were four, Juliet had gone through it every morning, still in her pyjamas.

That Saturday, she went through the gap and stopped dead. In front of Malo's house, a big white van had its back door open. Boxes, boxes, boxes. She knew, of course. Malo had told her weeks ago. But knowing and seeing aren't the same thing.

Malo was sitting on the front step with his backpack on his knees. "We're leaving in an hour," he said. "It's far. Dad says it's five hours in the car." "Five hours is long," said Juliet. They sat side by side without saying anything. Juliet had a big stone in her throat, and she didn't know how to make it go down.

When the van was full, Malo took out the biscuit tin they had hidden under the hedge for two years. Inside there was a shell, a pigeon feather and a blue marble. "I'll just take the marble," he said. "You keep the rest. That way we each have a piece." Juliet hugged the tin to her chest. She wanted to say something and couldn't find anything. So she nodded.

The car doors slammed. Malo waved through the back window, for a long time, until the car turned at the end of the street. Then there was only the street, and the quiet. Mum came and sat beside Juliet on the step. She didn't say it would be all right. She just put her arm around Juliet's shoulders. "I'm going to miss him," said Juliet. "So am I," said Mum.

The rest of the day was long and a little grey. Juliet went through the gap in the hedge twice, just to look. The garden next door was empty, with only the flattened grass where the van had been parked. She went back through the gap and came home.

That evening, in bed, she put the biscuit tin on her bedside table. Mum had left an envelope beside it with the address of the new house, written out by Malo's mum. "For when you feel like writing," she had said. Juliet looked at it for a while without touching it.

Through the window, the moon was rising above the hedge, round and bright. Juliet thought that somewhere five hours down the road, Malo might be seeing it too, through the window of a room full of boxes. She took the pigeon feather out of the tin and held it tight in her hand.

The stone in her throat was still there, but smaller. She thought about the first line of her letter. "Dear Malo, the hedge is still here, with its gap." She said it softly twice, and her breathing slowed. The moon climbed a little higher behind the glass, and Juliet fell asleep.