Under the eggshell sky, he crosses the road, following his brothers. He has waited too long; they are already out of sight. He walks carefully on his way to the park. There are two ways to the park, the normal way and the long way. Any kid on this street could tell you: go the normal way – you get to the play equipment quicker.
He is excited to be out on his own. As far as Mum knows, all three boys are together. Reaching the distant curb, he feels nervous to be past the boundary of the brown fence. As he passes each driveway, he self-consciously stops and checks for cars. He’s been told a good many times how dangerous it is when you run across. He knows Mum will be angry if he is silly enough to get hit by a car.
The playground is just the normal size, but the park itself is large, shaped like an L, and seems much bigger still now that he is here by himself. On the left of the playground, there is a metal slide. To the right, one of those things that spins around and around. In the middle, concrete pipes are buried under mounds of dirt. There are no other kids, just the play equipment and the quiet.
He runs across the grass to the edge of the playground. Now that he is safely away from the cars, he feels relieved and breathes easily. He checks the best pipe to find his brothers, but they are not there. Standing up straight, he runs to the next one and sticks his head in to find them. Again, he straightens and runs to the last pipe. He wonders if they might have seen him coming and be hiding. Perhaps they are staying out of sight, moving from pipe to pipe, one step ahead. They’d need to be pretty quick to manage that.
He climbs to the top of the slide and sits there, looking around for his brothers in the big trees, against the tall back-fences of the houses. Again, he wonders if they are hiding from him and looks hard at the trees for movement, listens for any sound.
Perhaps, he thinks, he got here before them. They’ll be surprised when they arrive and he is already here.
Maybe, for once, they went the long way. Where else could they be? He thinks and decides that the best, safest thing to do is to go home now. But if he arrives home without them, Mum is sure to notice. There’ll be trouble when she works out that he was out in the street on his own.
He sits still and carefully tries to think this through. They just can’t be still coming to the park the short way; he would have passed them. And they can’t have gone home that way either. He squints off into the trees. They were certainly not in the park itself. They must be coming to the park the long way.
He decides to head off that way and find them. As he goes out the other end of the park, he is careful again for cars in the driveways. He knows the way. Straight then right at the first street, right again bringing him onto his street and home. He keeps his head up and looks for his brothers, but the street is free of kids, grown-ups, cars, everything. He gets to the bit where the creek passes under his street in a giant pipe. Only a few more houses and he’ll be home.
His eyes widen as he gets over the creek; he can’t see his house. There is no sign of the familiar brown fence or the dirty-white station wagon. He can’t see any of the houses that he knows. Not next door. Not the house over the road where Mum sometimes takes them to parties with too many adults, too much talking, and not enough for kids to do. It’s all gone and he doesn’t understand how.
He stands there, where his house should be. He hopes that a grown-up will come along and explain all of this, make it all make sense. Either his house is gone, which even at this age he knows isn’t possible, or he is quite lost. Perhaps, he thinks blinking back tears, he won’t be able to find his way home.
When he moves, he moves quickly, follows footpath back to the side-street and goes left. It is only about one-hundred metres to the next street. Once he turns that corner, he will be able to see the park. If the park is still there. If he has come the right way.
He stumbles to the corner, eyes hot with tears. Turing the corner, he skips – the park is there! He runs through the park now. The park is a good start, but it is not home. Things could still go wrong. He leaves the park the usual way.
As he runs around the bend in the street, long past checking for cars, he sees the familiar brown fence. He keeps his eyes fixed on it as he carefully crosses the road, his heart racing, and through the gates and home.