Much to my relief, Mom never said a word about my morning with the neighbors. Truth be told, she didn't say much about anything; she was too far gone by that stage. As I said, Mom had turned a little weird after Dad left. She'd quit her job and taken up drinking as an occupation, parking herself in front of the TV most days. That was the main reason why I'd been sitting out on the porch the morning the Reinharts turned up. She tended to wake up with a mean hangover, and I had no wish to risk her razor-edged tongue that day.

Mom didn't have too many friends here in Fairmont; no one she could confide in or open up to, anyway. Worse still, her drinking was alienating her everyone who may have been able to help. Don't get me wrong, she wasn't abusive or neglectful - at least not at first. Dinners still got cooked and the shopping always got done (one way or another) but the woman sprawled on the living room sofa was slowly becoming a stranger to me. It was like standing on a shore watching a boat drifting out to sea and knowing that it would never, ever return.

In the meantime, Chrissie and I started living in one another's pockets. In the first month after she moved in, I gave her a whirlwind tour of our neighborhood. I took her first to Wentworth Park, where we spent most of our afternoons, then introduced her to all the local attractions. We followed the trails through the Wilderlands; tossed coins into Memorial Fountain; and checked out the concrete tunnels running beneath the old railway station (that was kinda scary – the place had been abandoned for decades, and everyone said it was haunted). We played and talked and read comics in each other's bedrooms, and somewhere along the way, we forgot we'd only known each other for a couple of weeks.

"Whatcha doing?" Chrissie called out from the tree-swing.

We were playing in my back yard that morning: Chrissie had commandeered the old rope-and-saddle and was currently trying to touch the sun with both feet. I was perfecting my gym routine over by the back porch, standing on my hands and turning the odd flip whenever my balance shifted the wrong way. I picked myself up off the grass, extravagantly tucking my T-shirt into my jeans.

"Gymnastics," I replied, making a rolling gesture with my right hand, "I'm going to join the circus."

"Gym-NAS-tics?" She arched her back for greater height, aiming her feet towards the heavens. Her skirt-tails streamed out behind her in a billowing scarlet mass.

"Yeah, gymnastics," I repeated, "you know: backflips, cartwheels, somersaults." I was vaguely surprised that she hadn't done any tumbling at school, but I was getting used to that now. It was sort of like the Whipper-Snapper: she'd never seen one until she came to Fairmont. I was getting the impression that she must've lived on a farm or something back in Longridge Bay.

Realizing she had no idea what I was talking about, I leaned over and demonstrated a better than average handstand, wavering on the brink for around five seconds. Chrissie's eyes snapped wide with understanding: I wasn't just horsing around (as she'd originally thought); this was something she could actually learn.

Launching herself off the swing, she hit the ground running and scrambled across the yard. I recognized her expression; I'd seen it at least a thousand times over the last month; every time I introduced her to anything new or unusual, something she hadn't experienced before. Her pretty, round face was radiating delight as she halted before me, eyes glittering like purple diamonds.

"Do it again, Billy!" she twittered impatiently, "show me how to do it!!" Her fingers spidered down her dress, kneeding and twisting the hemline. I was getting used to that, too.

"All right," I laughed, swept up in her childish exuberance, "it's easy, you just bend over like this..." I flopped onto my hands and waved my feet in the air. Chrissie watched in round-lipped delight, absorbing every detail of my performance. The curve of my spine, the spread of my palms, the tilt of my skull. The span of my fingertips, the shifting of my tendons. Every microscopic detail, in the space of a heartbeat.

"Let me try now, Billy!" she trilled excitedly, "tell me if I'm doing it right!"

"Want me to hold your legs?" I offered hastily, though it was only a precaution. I knew from prior experience that she'd be perfect from the very first try. She always was.

"Yeah," she answered, barely hearing the question.

Drawing in a calming breath, Chrissie raised her arms over her head and swept over into a perfectly controlled handstand. Tensing her thighs, she brought her heels together, pointing both feet toward the sky. It was a most impressive performance for an absolute beginner: balanced, graceful and confident. Her stance was tighter then an exclamation point.

"Billy!" she piped from under her dress, "how do I look? Am I doing it right?"

"Great," I told her, truthfully. As I said, perfect from the very first try.

"I wanna do it again!" she yelped, squiggling her hips excitedly from side to side.

"Okay," I agreed, releasing her ankles and backing up a few strides. She dropped lightly onto her feet, grinning from ear to ear. Her face was flushed with exhilaration; wild cherries bloomed on both cheeks. She reached out to grab my hand.

"What else can we do, Billy? Show me something else!"

I stared up at the swing for a few seconds, mentally cataloging all the stunts I'd learned at the youth center last year. There weren't many -- mainly rolls and basic mat-work. What could I teach her next? It couldn't be anything too easy, or she'd lose all interest in a second; I knew that much at least. No, it had to be something complicated, like a handspring, or a cartwheel or a –

"Step-over!" I exclaimed in sudden inspiration, "you know how to do a step-over?"

"No, I don't."

"Well, it's sort of like a handstand, except you go over and land on your feet."

"Show me," she said, gesturing towards the grass.

"No, I'm not very good at it…but you could do it easy. Just start by standing on your hands."

"Okay," she nodded, and flipped onto her palms in a swirl of red cotton, "what do I do now?!"

"Uh ... bend your leg backwards," I instructed, already picturing the move in my mind's eye, "yeah, that one ... now let yourself – "

And over she went, executing a perfect two-point dismount that would have impressed a gold medalist. I couldn't help giggling a little; she honestly had no idea how cute and pretty and funny she really was. I covered my mouth with both hands, laughing through splayed fingers.

"This is FUN, Billy!" she giggled, eyes twinkling with innocent joy.

Before I had time to reply, she twirled round on the spot and launched into another step-over. Pausing at the height of her arc, she whirled to the ground, voicing a shriek of pleasure – and then she was shaking me by the shoulder with both hands.

"C'mon Billy! Let's do it together!"

"I can't," I laughed, "I'm not as good as you."

"Yes you are!" she insisted, dragging me forward. And incredibly, she was right. A moment later, we were both careening across the yard, bounding and plunging and flying head-over-heels with pure summer madness. Chrissie dipped and swirled almost faster than the eye could follow, skirts and pigtails flailing in her wake. We were utterly possessed. It was like a force of nature, sweeping us along like a gale through the trees. I have no idea how long it lasted. Could've been two minutes, could've been twenty.

We finally found ourselves stretched full-length on the lawn, gasping and exhausted under the slowly revolving sky. It was like the first day we met, that morning when I saw her spinning around her yard like a human top. It had been pretty funny, watching her collapse in a boneless heap over by the fence, but now I understood the simple, child-like joy she'd experienced. Understood ... and envied.

I looked across at my little friend, enjoying the high, tinkling chime of her laughter. Chrissie lay giggling beside me panting with helpless mirth. Catching her breath by slow degrees, she sat up and started smoothing back her pigtails. It couldn't have been more than 11.30 in the morning, and we still the whole day looming over us.

"Whatcha want to do now?" I asked, still catching my breath in quick shallow gasps.

"You wanna walk up to the Crest?" she suggested, absently smoothing the wrinkles out of her sunfrock.

"Yeah, okay," I nodded. The Crest was the highest point in Fairmont, a grassy summit with lots of trees and picnic tables. We often went up there lie on our backs and watch the cloud-animals drift by. On a good day, you could see clear across to the Pacific Ocean (or so we imagined). It was one of Chrissie's favorite places. We rose at precisely the same moment – juvenile telepathy again – and walked around the side of the house, brushing the grass from each other's clothes without exchanging so much as a glance. It never crossed my mind how strange that might have seemed to an outsider.

We ambled up to the footpath, our feet avoiding the cracks our eyes picked out in unison. As we reached the corner, I felt her fingers slipping into mine. I suppose any other boy on the planet might have pulled away, but over the few short weeks since our first meeting, we'd somehow grown closer than friends.

Closer, perhaps than siblings.

And for some unknown reason, that never crossed my mind, either.

Visit the Transfiction Wiki