The Last Week

Zara spent the rest of the summer exploring.

She met Mrs. Obi most mornings and they went out together. But she also went on her own in the afternoons, armed with the things Mrs. Obi had taught her. Look for gaps. Follow doors that look interesting. Take paths that nobody else is taking. If something looks like it might have been important once, stop and look at it properly.

She found a lot of things.

She found a street that was only half as wide as a normal street because the buildings on one side had been built further forward than they were supposed to be, and nobody had ever made them move back, so the street had just stayed narrow ever since. She found a pub that had a museum in its basement, full of objects from the neighbourhood going back three centuries, run entirely by volunteers who were delighted to see her. She found a bridge that was not on any map she could find, a very old footbridge over a canal, hidden behind a car park, its ironwork painted bright green.

She kept notes in a small notebook she bought from a shop near the flat. She drew maps and wrote descriptions and stuck in ticket stubs and leaflets when she got them. The notebook filled up quickly.

One afternoon near the end of the summer she was sitting on the steps of the narrow building eating her own sandwich, the way Mrs. Obi did, when a girl about her age stopped on the pavement and looked at her.

The girl had a bored expression and was clearly not going anywhere in particular. She reminded Zara of herself eleven days into the summer.

"Are you lost?" Zara asked.

"No," the girl said.

Zara raised one eyebrow.

The girl looked at her for a moment. "Well," she said. "Not lost exactly. I just do not really know where I am going."

Zara smiled. She stood up and tucked the rest of her sandwich into her pocket.

"I am going to show you something," she said. "Come on."

The girl looked uncertain for a moment. Then she looked up and down the unremarkable street.

"Alright," she said.

They walked off together in the direction of the fish door on the side street, which Zara always showed first because the fish handle always made people smile and smiling was a good way to start.

A few streets away, Mrs. Obi was sitting on a bench in the Benevolent Garden with her eyes closed and the sun on her face, listening to the birds and the wind in the old trees, entirely happy.

She did not know that Zara was already passing on what she had been given.

But she would not have been surprised.

***The End***