If You Could See Me Now Read Free Page B

Town of Hearts. Which I think sounds nicer.
    Anyway, Fuchsia Lane had twelve houses, six on each side, and all were different. The cul-de-sac was really busy, with lots of people buzzing about. Well, it was a Friday morning, remember. It was June too, so it was really sunny and bright and everyone seemed to be in a good mood.
    There were lots of children on the road; cycling, chasing, enjoying hopscotch, tip-the-can, and loads of other stuff. You could hear the sounds of delighted screams and laughter coming from them. I suppose they were happy to be on their school holidays. As much as they seemed really nice and all, I just wasn’t drawn to any of them. You see, I can’t make friends with just anyone. That’s not what my job is about.
    A man was cutting the grass in one front yard and a woman tending to the flowerbed with big mucky gloves on her hands. There was a lovely smell of freshly cut grass and the sound of the lady snipping, clipping, cropping, and pruning was like music in the air. In the next garden a man whistled a tune I wasn’t familiar with while he pointed the garden hose toward his car and watched as the soapy suds slithered down the side, revealing a new sparkle. Every now and again he whipped ’round and sprayed water on two little girls who were dressed in yellow-and-black-striped swimsuits, like big bumblebees.
    In the next driveway, a boy and girl were playing hopscotch. I walked by children playing in every garden, yet none of them saw me or invited me to play. People on bicycles and skateboards, and remote-controlled cars were whizzing by, oblivious to me. I was beginning to think that coming to Fuchsia Lane was a bit of a mistake, which was rather confusing because usually I was so good at choosing places and there were so many children here. I sat down on the garden wall of the last house and began to think about where I could have taken a wrong turn.
    After a few minutes, I came to the conclusion that I was in the right area after all. I very rarely take wrong turns. I spun on my backside to face the house behind the garden wall. There was no action in this garden so I sat and studied the house. It had two stories and a garage with an expensive car parked outside that glistened in the sun. A plaque on the garden wall beneath me said “fuchsia house” and the house had blooming fuchsia climbing up the wall, clinging to the brown bricks over the front door, and reaching all the way up to the roof. It looked pretty. Fractions of the house had brown bricks and other sections had been painted a honey color. Some of the windows were square and others were circles. It was really unusual. It had a fuchsia-colored front door with two long windows with frosted glass in the top two panels, a huge brass knocker, and a letter box beneath; it looked like two eyes, a nose, and a mouth smiling at me. I waved and smiled back just in case. Well, you can never be too sure these days.
    Just as I was studying the face of the front door, it opened and was slammed shut rather loudly and angrily by a boy who came running outside. He had a big red fire engine in his right hand and a police car in his left hand. I love red fire engines; they’re my favorite. The boy jumped off the front step of the porch and ran to the grass, where he skidded to his knees. He got grass stains all down his black tracksuit bottoms, which made me laugh. Grass stains are so much fun because they never come out. My old friend Barry and I used to slide all of the time. Anyway the little boy started crashing his fire engine against his police car and making all these noises with his mouth. He was good at the noises. Barry and I always used to do that too. It’s fun pretending to do things that don’t usually happen in real life.
    The boy rammed the police car into the red fire engine and the head fireman that was clinging to the ladder at the side of the truck slid off. I laughed out loud and the boy looked up.
    He actually looked at me.