Inside was his mum, sitting in her chair. She looked thinner somehow. And opposite her, where Marty used to sit on a pile of newspapers, was a man. Marty studied him. It wasn’t his dad. It was someone else, and more than that, they were laughing together. Marty listened. He hadn’t heard her laugh like that in years. They were drinking tea. He was sitting, relaxed and happy; they obviously knew each other pretty well. They looked like friends … Marty looked back at his mum, and thought that she looked different. It wasn’t just that her hair was clean and tied back or that she was laughing—there was a lightness about her. Marty pulled back. His heart sinking. He didn’t want to admit it to himself, but he thought that she might just be a LITTLE heartbroken that he wasn’t there anymore. Marty listened to them giggle once more before he made his way across the garden.

He walked back to the allotment, the rope around his shoulder and the sailcloth under his arm. By the time he arrived, it was getting dark. Grandad had brought some food from the apartment and set up a supper by the fire. Grandad noticed that a silence was hanging around Marty like a mist.

“You okay?” he asked.

Marty shrugged, unable to shift the sound of his mum’s giggling from his head.

“I’m fine,” he said, but Grandad still looked unconvinced.

After supper, they sat in silence, Grandad hooking a pair of old reading glasses onto his nose and handing Marty some thread. Marty would have to thread the needle as that was too much for Grandad’s eyes and then sit on the floor under the thick cloth, pushing the needle back through the sail toward Grandad. He watched the needle appear and disappear and thought about what was about to happen.

TWENTY-FIVE

“MARTY!… COME ON, boy … wake up!”

Marty groaned, rubbed his eyes, and squinted. Grandad was crouched beside him, shaking him, the stethoscope around his neck.

“There’s no sound. The pumpkin, it’s ready! It’s absolutely chockablock! Full to the brim with wishes.”

“What?!”

“It’s time to open up that beauty!”

You could feel the excitement radiating off Grandad. Marty shuffled to sit upright, his hair doing inexplicable things.

“Well”—Grandad looked at him irritably—“come on, then! Don’t you know how much work we’ve got to do?”