Neighbourhood Watch 

 

 

Mum and Dad moved in when I was seven years old. I was just about to start junior school. I had to change school. I wasn’t happy.

And I never understood why they moved. I liked my old room, the neighbour who kept pigeons in the garden, and the older couple on the other side who didn’t mind if I ran naked in their garden.

But they moved and like the cat, I sulked in a corner for a week.

The place was filthy and there was four layers of carpets to remove before you could see the even dirtier floorboards. And in the kitchen, there was a spinny thing that still had the dead woman’s tins of beans on the shelf. Maybe that was the only funny thing about that place. I was convinced that place was haunted.

“Can I have this room?”.

Luckily, I got it. You get everything you want when you are an only child. The room overlooking the park. The big, green park.

After school, I’d sit in my room and stare out of the window. I’d watch our cat chasing the birds and squirrels and the two starlings that nested under our roof, swooping in and under to feed their young. But sometimes my eyes diverted, there was another creature to watch. I’d peer over and into the garden of the house opposite.

He was a boy. Tall with long dark shaggy hair. I could hardly see his eyes.

Mum told me he was South African, his parents had moved because of repeated burglaries.

And I saw he wore blue school uniform. A sign he was older than me and went to the posher school in town.  

“Stop spying on him!”.

Mum caught me once when she came home from work earlier than expected. I was embarrassed but not as embarrassed as I was when he caught me.

He was outside on the street playing football with his friends. He glanced up. I quickly ducked beneath my bedroom window.

“Shit!”.

Heart racing, I crawled out of my room and into the bathroom, the only room of the house that he wouldn’t be able to see me.

And breathe...

But it wasn't long before the hiding days were over.

He was my first and we are still close friends.