Seven days of bitesize tales

You counted to ten and I’m coming to find you. I promise I will make you laugh.

You always were the very best at hiding.

You hide your sorrow behind smirks and your anger behind smiles.

But all you’ve got to hide behind in this game of Hide & Seek, my child, is this utterly useless great big bale of hay.

They’re afraid of what’s to come. They hide away in obscure corners and shiver like coatless Whippets in autumn frost. Scuttle into the cracks like mice when the mouser wakes.

Not me. I’m here and I’m ready. Show me what you’ve got. I bet I’ve got some more.

Nobody is allowed in here. It’s meant to be perfectly intact, you know, for forensics. But I’ll be careful not to touch, not to tread, not to leave a trace. I just came to see what it’s like inside, so I could show you. How wrong we all were about her.

We’re going to Vienna. The sunshine will glisten over the majestic Danube and we will run and laugh and cheer through the streets. We’ll go to the opera and eat strudels every day. They like me more than their own parents anyway, and I love them more. They will never find us.

They won’t wait. Not for the lazy, the idle or the frail.⁣

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They will fly and we will have missed it.⁣

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She clasps on to me and I hurry her tired legs along, just like she did me when I was a little girl.⁣

When I found her, she looked a crestfallen mix of a wildling and a lady. She wasn’t surprised to see me. She said she was waiting for the bus to your house, Saturday afternoon, like she always did. Why did I even ask? I buttoned up her cardigan and took her home. She must have forgotten you’re not there any more.

Out of nowhere, riding sidesaddle is how he appeared in our lives. This small man who turned our house on its head with laughter and the shed inside out with tears. I remember him so fondly, smiling atop his trusty mule Elena, and can but imagine the furore he will cause on his next adventure.⁣