Cecelia Ahern - If You Could See Me Now

Baile na gCroíthe somewhere along the line ended up being known in English as Heartstown but as a direct translation from Irish it means the 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. Right into my eyes.

“Hi,” I said, nervously clearing my throat and shifting from one foot to the other. I was wearing my favorite blue Converse runners and they still had grass stains on the white rubber tips from when Barry and I went sliding. I started to run the rubber tip against the brick garden wall to try to scrape it off and thought about what to say next. As much as making friends is my favorite thing to do, I still get a bit nervous about it. There’s always that scary chance that people won’t like me and it gives me the collywobbles. I’ve been lucky so far, but it would be silly to presume that the same things will happen every time.

“Hi,” the boy replied, fixing the fireman back onto the ladder.

“What’s your name?” I asked, kicking my foot against the wall in front of me and scraping the rubber tip. The grass stains still wouldn’t come off.

The boy studied me for a while, looked me up and down as though trying to decide whether to tell me his name or not. This is the part of my job I absolutely loathe. It’s tough wanting to be friends with someone and them not wanting the same back. That happens sometimes, but in the end they always come around because whether they know it or not, they want me to be there.

The boy had white-blond hair and big blue eyes.

Finally he spoke. “My name’s Luke. What’s yours?”

I shoved my hands deep into my pockets and concentrated on kicking my right foot against the garden wall. I was making parts of the bricks crumble and fall to the ground. Without looking at him I said, “Ivan.”

“Hi, Ivan.” He smiled. He had no front teeth.

“Hi, Luke.” I smiled back.

I have all mine.

“I like your fire engine. My old best friend Barry used to have one just like it and we used to play with it all the time. It shouldn’t be called a fire engine though, because if you drive it through fire it melts,” I explained, still keeping my hands shoved into my pockets, causing my shoulders to hunch up over my ears. It made things a little quieter so I took my hands out of my pockets just so I could hear what Luke was saying.

Luke rolled on the grass laughing. “You put your fire engine through fire? ” he screeched.

“Well, it is called a fire engine, isn’t it?” I replied defensively.

Luke rolled onto his back, kicked his feet in the air, and hooted. “No, you dummy! Fire engines are for putting out fires!”

I thought about that one for a while. “Hmmm. Well, I’ll tell you what puts out fire engines, Luke,” I explained matter-of-factly. “Water does.”

Luke hit himself lightly on the side of the head, screamed “Doh!,” made his eyes go cock-eyed, and then fell over on the grass.

I started laughing. Luke was really funny. “But can I just add that you should never play with fire,” I added in a more serious tone.

Luke nodded emphatically. “Do you want to come and play?” He raised his eyebrows questioningly.

I grinned. “Of course, Luke. Playing is my favorite!” and I jumped over the garden wall and joined him on the grass.

“What age are you?” He looked at me suspiciously. “You look like you’re the same age as my aunt”—he frowned—“and my aunt doesn’t like to play with my fire engine.”

I shrugged. “Well, then your aunt is an old gnirob!”

“A gnirob !” Luke screamed with laughter, “What’s a gnirob?”

“Someone who’s boring, ” I said, scrunching my nose up and saying the word like it was a disease. I liked saying words backward, it was like inventing my own language.

“Boring,” Luke repeated after me and scrunched up his nose. “Uugh.”