The sound of Wildgirl picking tunelessly on her ukulele fades as she walks away from me. I wait until I can’t see her sparkly jacket anymore, and then I turn onto Grey Street, only crossing over to the Panwood side once I’m well past the Diabetic.
There’s not much happening on Grey. The only other people I see are inside a bakery, loading loaves of bread onto wide metal trays. I stop for a moment and check the directions Paul messaged me. I turn when I see the right street name and glimpse the first signs of dawn over the zigzag roofs.
My legs feel weak and I regret not bringing Wildgirl with me. Maybe I can’t do this on my own. My fingers brush against paper when I put my hand in my pocket.
I sit against a fence and read her letter. Her writing is loopy and messy.
Dear Wolfie
If it wasn’t for you I don’t think I would have ever discovered my true calling as a ukulele player, or the unpleasant knowledge that pirates are not the world’s greatest kissers, or the pleasant knowledge that Wolfboys are.
This has been some night.
I’m hardly the right person to be dishing out advice, but if you were to ask me what I thought, I would say this: be friends with Ortolan. It would mean a lot to her and it wouldn’t be bad for you either.
Lecture over. Oh, STAY AWAY FROM KIDDS.
Lecture over.
This night was ours, just you and me.
The letter is signed NIA xx, and there’s a phone number scrawled at the bottom. I put it back safely in my pocket wrapped around my lighter. I feel ready now.
The sky grows lighter by the second. Streaks of nectarine-coloured cloud litter the horizon. I look behind me as I walk down the middle of the road, at Shyness, and all I see is bruised night. I wonder if Ortolan is the same as me, if she chose to live here so she could stay close to Gram.
I stop when I see the narrow two-storey shopfront. The name, Birds In Winter, is spelt out in fairy lights in the front window. A corrugated-iron porch curves over the ground floor, and there’s a window above, on the first floor. Ortolan and a little girl perch there with mugs and a blanket. Ortolan has already spotted me coming down the road. I realise I have no idea what I’m going to say to her.
I wave.
The little girl waves back impishly and then vanishes. Ortolan stands up as I cross to the footpath. The shop door is painted blood-red, with a sign in the shape of a dagger hanging above. There are excited footsteps behind the door. It clicks, and then swings inwards.
I look down at the little girl wearing sky-blue pyjamas dotted with fluffy white clouds. She has the same bobbed hairstyle as Ortolan, and a pair of very serious and very blue eyes. She smiles shyly, and opens the door wider.
‘Good morning,’ she says.