Flying

Wendy's life was all crisp lines and sharp edges. Polished floors. Practiced smiles. Poised postures. Her family lived just across the road from the orphanage, but her life couldn't have been more different from the large rundown building with the straggly children filtering in and out of it.

And yet, despite their tearing clothes and dirty bare feet, she was always in awe of them. Every time she watched them from her large bedroom window, she was overcome with a peculiar kind of envy. They would play hopscotch on the pavement, sometimes jump-rope, often a game of tag. Their activities would change as rapidly as their faces did, while Wendy's life stayed mundanely and painfully the same. The same perfectly pressed uniform, the same weekly meals served, the same sparkling cutlery held expertly in dainty hands.

The orphanage kids would yell and laugh, and Wendy had the distinct, nonsensical impression that they were always flying. Their feet never seemed to touch the ground. Their smiles always seemed like that of somebody floating in cloud cover. But most of all, they seemed free.

She couldn't understand it. They had no parents. Their clothes were not presentable, certainly not in the eyes of her parents at least. Their friends changed with the seasons, what with kids always coming and going as they were. From what she'd heard, they didn't even have their own bedrooms. And yet...

Their faces, often marred with dirt, were always lit up by a smile, a dimple, a shimmer in their eyes. Once, Wendy had heard one of her teacher's say, Those with less belongings are often better at holding onto the joy they do have. She hadn't believed it until she'd begun to sit at her window every day, watching the world across the road play out like a play she was watching from her own private theatre.

Caught up in their own world, seemingly oblivious to the towering buildings just across from them, nobody ever saw her there. Or at least, not until Peter.

❀❀❀❀❀

Peter had lived at the orphanage for eight long years now. That was the longest of any of the current kids. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t noticed the girl in the window sooner. He thought she looked angelic there, sunlight falling through the window like a spotlight. Its rays wove through her hair, making the dark strands have an almost reddish tinge to them. For a moment, he thought maybe he was staring at a painting.

But then she moved. He watched as she delicately wiped something from her cheek.

So, acting on instinct, he lifted his hand and waved.

She seemed to notice instantly. Her head tilted slightly. Instead of waving back though, she pulled away from the window and drew the curtains closed.

Peter frowned. Before he could figure out what to make of it, Curly was bumping into him, saying, “It’s your turn Peter.” So, he turned to the pavement, looked at the partly faded chalk marks, and began hopping in the squares.

❀❀❀❀❀

The school day dragged on like any other. Wendy’s whole world felt grey to her – just different shades of boring. The orphanage – despite the plain brick exterior and neutral-coloured clothes – was the only splash of colour she could find. It was the pastel sunset after a stormy afternoon.

She waited by her window, eyes searching for the boy who had waved. But there were too many blonde boys and she hadn’t stuck around long enough to notice any other defining features.

Luckily, he waved again. From here, the only other difference she could tell, was his posture and mannerisms. He stood with more ease than the others, wearing a laidback calmness where the others were dressed in excitement and an electrical kind of energy.

The only other difference was that his smile, right in this moment was directed at her. And, right in that moment, the grey of her world seemed to seep away – a newspaper dipped in dye.

And so, Wendy waved back at Peter, not knowing he held the power to banish that grey forever.

❀❀❀❀❀

Climbing the tree was fun, but not as exhilarating as seeing the look on her face when she saw him. “Hi, I’m Peter,” he said with a grin, clambering along the branches so he was close enough to her window to offer a handshake.

She stared at him as if he might be a ghost… or a burglar, which he supposed might not be so unlikely. “What… who…” her dark eyebrows furrowed, confusion splashing across her porcelain-like features.

“I’m Peter,” he said again. “And you looked bored, so I thought you might like to come play.”

She took a deep breath then, straightening her shoulders and pushing her hair away from her face. “You climbed a tree,” she said matter-of-factly.

He grinned at that. Of course he had climbed a tree. Did she always state the obvious? Her name might’ve been more helpful.

“Yes, and now you’re about to.”

Her eyes widened, drawing his attention to the colour of them. They were bluer than the sky on a clear day, and they made him think of falling and flying.

“Oh no… no I couldn’t.”

“Sure you can… unless you’d rather skip through the front door and tell your parents you’re gonna play with the orphanage kids.” His position was growing quite uncomfortable, balancing on the thick tree branch and gripping the one above with one hand. He thought it would be nice if they could hurry the conversation along.

Her light skin turned even paler at that. Wordlessly but adamantly, she shook her head.

Peter held out his hand again, this time in invitation rather than introduction. “Come on, what’s it gonna be… boredom or adventure?”

He was confident he could convince her to come play eventually but considering it had taken a whole day before she returned his wave, he wasn’t too sure that day would be today.

She surprised him. Peter loved surprises, and this particular one pulled a delighted, beaming smile from him as she took his hand and begun clambering over the windowsill.

Her puffy, frilly, lacy dress made it rather difficult. It wasn’t exactly something he had taken into consideration. But, once the girl had made the decision to come, she was unexpectedly determined, hiking up her dress and climbing down the tree after him.

Once they reached the ground, he turned to her, taking in her flushed cheeks and messy hair, deciding she already looked prettier than she had in that window.

“So, I’m Peter,” he said for the third time. “Who are you?”

She met his gaze with a mixture of bashfulness and excitement in her azure eyes. “Wendy,” she murmured, her lips turning up in a mesmerising smile.

❀❀❀❀❀

It started out with hopscotch and jump rope and turned into a small group of kids roaming the streets, visiting the creek and climbing the trees along the bank.

“Are you allowed to do this?” Wendy asked, curiosity ever present in her voice.

“What, roam free?” Curly asked, pulling his shirt over his head and bomb diving into the creek, creating a mega splash that drew cheers from the others.

“We’re meant to stay right outside the orphanage,” Peter explained, “But they don’t watch too closely.”

Wendy nodded, satisfied with the answer. Then she hitched up her skirt and began climbing her new favourite tree. She would have to explain the rips and mud stains to her mother later, but later wasn’t now, and if there was one thing Peter and the boys had taught her, it was how to live in the moment.

“Jump in Wendy!” Curly called once she reached the sturdiest branch.

“Is it deep enough?”

“It is in this part.”

She tilted her head. Spontaneity and recklessness were new concepts to her too, but she had quickly grown to adore them, almost as much she cared for the boys surrounding her.

“We’ll do it together,” Peter offered, scrambling onto the branch she was balanced on.

She grinned at him. Together. She loved that word too. She didn’t hear it so much, back in her grey world with their money and cold tones.

So, she took his hand, and together they jumped. That split-second moment didn’t last as long as Wendy wanted it to. But while it did, it felt unmistakeably like flying and freedom.

The water was cold but exhilarating, and when she surfaced, Wendy took in the colours around her. Curly, she decided, was yellow, like sunlight and warmth. Nibs was red, like dares and adrenaline. Tootles was deep blue, like a calm lake.

And Peter… Peter was green, like rolling hills and swaying tree branches and the grass on the other side of the fence.

❀❀❀❀❀

“Why has nobody adopted you?” Wendy asked Peter one day, when their small group had gotten even smaller. Tootles had been adopted by a lovely couple with two boys.

Peter was happy for him, he was… even if there was a small stabbing feeling in his gut.

He forced himself to shrug. “Dunno.” The shrug was easy, the lie was hard. “But I’m glad. I don’t want a family.”

Wendy gave him a quizzical look, but he ignored it, grabbing her hand and tugging her towards the creek, the other boys in tow. Soon, Tootles would forget him, and it would be for the best, he reminded himself.

❀❀❀❀❀

As always, Peter waited at the bottom of the tree as Wendy made her way out the window and descended, branch by branch, towards him. He still thought she looked better, with snapped twigs in her hair and sunburnt skin, than all pretty perfection. She looked best when she was wearing adventure like a halo.

“Is the orphanage fun? As fun as it looks from outside?” she asked him as they wandered along behind Curly and Nibs.

Peter considered it. He knew what most of the other kids would say. That it was awful, and they couldn’t wait to get out. He thought of the plain, rationed meals, the narrow beds and cluttered rooms. He thought of the bigger kids, towering over the smaller kids and, more often than not, using size to their advantage.

But then he remembered the laughter and the friendship, and the way love grew strongest in unexpected places.

“Each day is good because I decide it will be,” he answered. Wendy shot him a sideways glance that seemed to say she didn’t think that strategy was possible for anyone. Maybe it wasn’t. But what other choice did he have?

He looked at Wendy again and found her studying a group of ladies clustered around a table in a restaurant. Their clothes were as stiff as their postures, faces completely devoid of emotion. They looked more like robots than humans.

Wendy let out a long sigh. “I don’t ever want to grow up.”

Peter managed a forced smirk, “I don’t plan to.”

Laughing, Wendy replied, “You can’t choose not to grow up. Everyone has to.”

“Not me,” Peter replied, relishing Wendy’s smile and the way she didn’t notice the hesitation in his own.

❀❀❀❀❀

“Where were you yesterday?” Wendy asked. They were lying side by side on the grassy bank by the creek and the sky looked a little bit like Heaven to Peter’s ever-optimistic eyes.

“Uhh… I was meeting a family, they were thinkin’ about adopting me,” he said, avoiding looking at her. It was always easier to lie about the doctor’s visits. Even most of the other kids didn’t know about them.

But Wendy sat up. Without looking, Peter knew the skin between her eyebrows was creasing.

“That’s great Peter!” she said, but he could hear a hidden melancholy in her voice too.

“Probably won’t come to anything,” he said, schooling his tone into one of carelessness. What was the point in mixing optimism into a lie anyway?

“I’d miss you if you left,” Wendy murmured, and because Peter knew just how hard it was to confess that small vulnerability, he reached out and squeezed her hands. He wanted to say, I’ll miss you too, but, after hearing the small sadness in her tone, he pretended instead that he wasn’t going anywhere.

❀❀❀❀❀

Peter didn’t come out to play for multiple days the week after that. Wendy could only assume he was meeting with a family, maybe the same one, perhaps a different one. She hoped they were nice. But she didn’t know whether to hope he’d leave with them or not.

He had said he didn’t want a family, but she didn’t believe that to be true. She wanted him to be happy. But she also knew she wouldn’t be happy if he was gone.

With her feelings tangled and her wishes torn two ways, all she could do was wait to see him again.

❀❀❀❀❀

He was pale when he told her the news.

“I’m getting adopted.” He wouldn’t meet her eyes as he spoke the words.

She was almost glad, it meant he didn’t see the tears pooling in her own. “That’s so good Peter,” she said, only realising how skinny he was when she hugged him. Did the orphanage not feed their kids enough? Now wasn’t the time to ask, she supposed.

He nodded, body more rigid than usual.

“I’ll miss you,” they both said at the same time, causing each other to smile despite the sadness clinging to them.

“I’ll always look for you,” Peter said quietly, “anytime I go by your window.”

Wendy smiled, “I’ll look for you in every person who passes by.”

He finally looked at her then, with shadows under his brown eyes. “Don’t ever let your world turn grey again Wendy. Promise me.”

And so, she promised, intent on keeping it.

❀❀❀❀❀

Peter returned to the orphanage, fatigue weighing heavy on his shoulders. The doctor greeted him, asking how he was feeling, taking notes.

He didn’t say the awful and yet almost relieving words again, but Peter heard them clanging around in his head, Only a few days left.

He sagged onto the bed. It would’ve been nice to get adopted by a family, but of course, after hearing of his condition, none had really considered it. Goodbyes were hard, he of all people could understand that.

It would’ve been nice to spend more time getting lost with the boys and laughing with Wendy. But at least he’d made every one of his limited breaths count.

He closed his eyes and hoped, that wherever he went next, it would be filled with colour and that maybe, he’d be able to fly past Wendy’s window.