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Last Day
 “We won’t be here tomorrow,” she remarked, hanging over
the rail of her treehouse and looking down.
“No,” I agreed. I looked down too. I didn’t want to
look at her. I knew that if I did, my face would show my
feelings. And that wouldn’t do at all. Girls were allowed to
show their feelings, but boys weren’t. It just wasn’t
allowed for some reason.
“It seems strange that we’re both going home,” she
said. “Me to my parents, and you are going home with your
parents. And we won’t see each other again until next summer.”
I wanted to ask her if that thought made her sad - as it did
me - but those were the sort of questions boys just didn’t
ask. I couldn’t understand how time could be so cruel. We’d
had a lovely couple of weeks at her aunt’s place, we’d run
free, we’d done just about what we liked, my parents had been
out most days so I’d scarcely seen them but, from tomorrow, I
would have to behave nicely, say the right thing, do as I was
told, finish my school homework, and not have fun. Nor were
there any girls in my life. It all seemed so unfair. My thoughts
were in such a muddle I wished I could stop thinking altogether.
“It wouldn’t be so bad if next summer came round next
month,” she remarked, kicking a fallen leaf over the edge of
the floor timbers of the treehouse, “but we have to wait
twelve whole months. It seems a terribly long time.” And she
turned and looked at me, just as I was looking at her.
I wanted to look away, as I would have done, had it been
another boy looking at me like that, but I suddenly found that I
wanted to look back at her. I swallowed hard, wishing we could
go on being happy, as we had been over the past couple of weeks,
instead of being all sad and miserable like this.
“You will come back again next year, won’t you?” she
begged.
I shuffled my feet about a bit. “Provided my parents decide
to spend their summer holiday here again,” I replied
evasively. I hated it when people promised things and then broke
their promises. It always made me feel cold and empty inside.
“We’ll both be a year older,” she remarked carefully,
as though warning me of something.
I agreed that we would be. Simple arithmetic told you that.
“And you might have a girlfriend and not want to come.”
She looked away from me, but not before I noticed that her eyes
were wet with tears.
“It’s not likely,” I said gruffly. Other than her, I
didn’t think girls were much cop, though several of my friends
at school bragged about doing things with girls which left me
wondering a bit. The thought struck me that she might have a
boyfriend by then, for I’d heard that girls went into that
sort of thing earlier than boys did. The thought made me feel
real empty inside. She was the only girl I’d ever known. I
sort of didn’t want to lose her.
“That’s good,” she said, flicking her hair away from
her face. “Then I think we ought to do something really
special today, something to remember our last day by. What would
you like to do?”
I felt myself frown. The last time she’d asked that
question was when Richard had spent the day with us, and she’d
ended up being tied to the wooden post that supported the barn’s
hay loft. The memory did strange things to my tummy. We’d not
played kidnapping since. “Do we have to do something special?”
I asked irritably. “Couldn’t we just be ourselves?”
“All right.” She sat down facing me with her knees drawn
up and her ankles crossed. “Right. I’m being myself. Now you
be yourself.”
I wasn’t sure how to handle this, but I sat down in front
of her, carefully adopting the same position, though it wasn’t
one a boy would normally use.
“Now tell me about me,” she ordered, almost crossly.
I didn’t know what to say. She was just her. She was
wearing a scruffy shirt which was all pulled out of shape at the
hem where she kept on tugging at it and a really tight pair of
shorts which, when she sat like that, ended up as a mere scrap
of fabric between her legs. Her legs and feet were bare as
always. I was even less interesting. I had on an old gray school
shirt that was just about ready for the ragbag and my usual pair
of shorts. As I was sitting as she was, they rode up a little
way up above my knees. I wished for the hundredth time that they
were as short as hers. I found that thought really exciting.
“You haven’t said anything about me,” she prompted in a
voice that was crosser than I’d heard her use before. “Has
the cat got your tongue?”
I shook my head. “You shirt is dirty,” I blurted out,
desperate to say something before she became really cross with
me.
“It’s a blouse,” she retorted grumpily. “I’ve told
you that before.”
“Your blouse is dirty,” I said. I hoped that would make
her happy.
“And what else?”
“Your shorts are too short,” I said. Though I didn’t think
that at all.
“And yours are far too long,” she retorted. “They look
silly. They look like long trousers that haven’t been cut off
properly. Nor do they fit snugly like mine do.”
“But you’re a girl,” I protested. “Girls are supposed
to wear nice pretty things, whereas boys have to wear horrid old
prehistoric things.”
“Then we ought to change,” she suggested brightly.
“I can’t change into a girl, stupid!” I shouted. “Any
more than you can change into a boy. It’s just impossible.”
“I know that, you idiot!” she shouted back. “I’m not
a complete fool. I meant for us to change clothes.”
“We couldn’t do that!” I gasped.
She eyed me coldly, giving the impression that she was really
disgusted with me. “Why not? My clothes come off. Are you sewn
into yours, or something?”
“Of course, I’m not!”
“Then take them off.”
I looked round, searching for some way of hiding my sudden
embarrassment.
“No one’s looking,” she said.
I realized that.
“It’s just a bit of fun,” she urged.
But she said it in such a cross voice that instead of feeling
like fun, it felt more like warfare. “I think it’s a stupid
idea,” I heard myself say though, in reality, if we hadn’t
been so cross with each other it would have been a fun idea. I
was secretly yearning to wear snug-fitting clothes as she did,
instead of the horrid, baggy old clothes I had to wear.
“Then I must be stupid,” she said coldly. “For I’ve
just made a stupid remark.”
“That’s right!” I shouted at her, getting up in a hurry.
“You’re just a stupid, silly girl!” And I got up and
climbed down the ladder to the ground and ran through the
orchard to get as far away from her as possible. Even as I ran,
I knew I’d done the wrong thing. But, I reasoned, it was all
her fault. If she’d handled it in a more casual manner, it
would have been all right. But she’d got all cross - just like
a silly girl.
 I
quickly climbed up a tree where, I knew, she would never find
me. I chewed my lower lip. It was our last day together and it
had ended up in an argument. Tomorrow, I would go home with my
parents, and I knew I would wish for a long time it hadn’t
ended up like this. We wouldn’t play together again until next
summer. And who knew what we would be like then?
The sun went behind a cloud, making the orchard as dull and
disappointing as I felt. Tomorrow was just another day. But next
summer felt like a lifetime away.
- Warren Roff-Marsh
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