Peeky's Day

I was up before most of them, on the wall outside Shivvy's, for reasons of my own.

Shivvy had not slept — Shivvy never sleeps when it is dark — and had spent the night walking the path in his head, and came out with a list. The four places where the black is proper black. The hedge tunnel. The turn by the bridge. The long nothing past the orchard. The three steps by the gate that everybody trips on in daylight.

"That's four places nobody has thought of," I said, counting them on both paws.

"I've thought of them," said Shivvy. "Every night. For years."

I have known Shivvy a long while and I had never once heard it put like that: that the thing that keeps you awake is also a thing you happen to be the world expert in.

Buddy put me with Lonny on the orchard stretch. Forty hooks, the longest and dullest bit of the path, and nobody walks past it.

I found out much later — at the party, off Beamy's envelope — that Buddy did that on purpose and did it early, before the pairing got as far as the end of the line where the two of us were standing. Buddy never said. I do not think Buddy was ever going to say.

Lonny talked. I did not, for a while, and Lonny did not seem to mind, which is the only test that matters. Somewhere around hook four Lonny said "want to be friends?" and I said we already were, and I meant it, and it came out quite easily, which surprised both of us.

Then buns. The two of us and Buddy and Newby, outside the Bun Shop for an hour with our feet in the sun. I made a joke about the green bun that Newby had just bravely eaten one bite of, and three fluffs laughed, and I sat there afterwards feeling the way you feel when you have done something you are quietly extremely good at and hardly anybody knows.

And then the afternoon happened.

Neaty was over by the wall, counting. I watched from across the yard: once, and then again, and then a third time, going stiller each go. Tidy said something to her and went back to the board, and Neaty stood there afterwards looking slightly wild, and I found out later what had been said.

I counted too, from where I was. Fifty-four.

"Um," I said. "There's one missing."

The yard did not stop. The yard was very busy. Somebody said "mm" in my general direction and carried on with what they were doing.

That is the part I know best. You say the thing. You do say it. And it goes into the noise and comes out the other side as nothing at all, and everybody carries on, and afterwards you are not even sure you said it.

The old rule in my head is very clear about what happens next. You said it. That was your go. Now be quiet.

And I stood there and thought about the turn by the bridge where you cannot see your feet, and about Rainbow walking up a path with one dark gap in it.

So I walked into the middle of the yard, which took approximately everything I had, and said it again. Louder. One word more than the first time.

"There's one missing. I counted too. Fifty-four."

Buddy stopped. "Say that again?"

And then the whole yard stopped, all at once, the way it had entirely failed to do four minutes earlier.

Nobody was being unkind, either time. That is the confusing part, and I have decided it is also the useful part. It was just noise. And then it was not.

I do not like a full room and Winky's was extremely full, so I did what I do, which is find a job. I handed things. If you are carrying a plate, nobody asks you why you are not talking.

Twice I ended up somewhere I had not planned to be.

The first was Beamy's envelope, and my name coming off it, and the words said it twice — which was a strange thing to hear out loud, because the second time is the one everybody saw and the first time is the one that cost me something.

The second was Sparkly, up on the gatepost earlier and flat against the wall by eleven o'clock at night, having cheered for fifty-four fluffs all evening and not once for Sparkly.

"Say one for you, then," I said.

Sparkly did, eventually, and went red doing it.

And I started that cheer. Me. In a room of fifty-five, on purpose, out loud, and it was the easiest thing I did all day, because it was not about me at all.