bottle against mine. ‘Cheers, partner.’
‘Cheers.’ I sat down beside him and took a slug.
Zach sighed. ‘That might be the best beer I’ve ever had.’
‘It’s good,’ I agreed, wishing I could think of something else to say. This was an odd situation. We were sitting on red beanbags, surrounded by children’s books, a life-size cut-out of Wally in his red and white top, and Hallowe’en decorations, which Zach had put up ahead of the party. Fake cobwebs, pumpkin bunting, fake spiders.
‘So,’ I said, unable to bear the silence for another second. ‘Patagonia?’
He raised his eyebrows at me.
‘You want to go to Patagonia?’
‘Oh, yeah. Wanted to for ages.’
‘Why there?’
‘To photograph the mountains, mostly, but the animals too. You get orcas at the right time of year. And you ever heard of a commerson's dolphin?’
I shook my head.
‘It’s like a penguin shagged a dolphin. They’re black and white. I’d love to see them. And you get amazing eagles. The biggest eagle in the world was from there. Six-metre wings.’ He paused and stretched his arms out, the beer bottle dangling from his fingers. ‘Six metres. Can you imagine? It’s extinct now but, still, I want to go.’ Another slug of his bottle. ‘You travelled much?’
‘Nope, I’d like to. I’ve just… always been working.’ It was an easy excuse. I didn’t want to admit to him of all people that the furthest I’d travelled was to a small French village full of apricot trees, that I was too nervous about exploring anywhere else.
‘What’s your plan?’
‘Plan?’
‘Yeah. You know, what do you want to do, where do you want to go? Or will you stay here forever?’
‘What I really want to do…’ I started, before pausing, afraid of admitting it out loud.
He frowned at me. ‘What?’
‘I’d really like to get my children’s book published.’
‘You write kids’ stuff?’
I looked down and pushed my thumbnail under the label of the bottle. ‘I’m trying to. Why? Is that surprising?’
‘No, you’ve just never mentioned it. What’s it about?’
I raised my eyes and winced at him. ‘I’ll tell you but you can’t laugh.’
Zach smiled and swigged at his beer.
‘Look! You’re laughing already and I haven’t even told you!’
He shook his head and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand before replying. ‘I’m not laughing. It’s excitement at hearing about your magnum opus. Come on, tell me.’
I took a breath. ‘OK, it’s called The Caterpillar Who Couldn’t Stop Counting.’
He grinned again.
‘No laughing!’
‘I’m not. What’s the storyline? Hit me with it.’
‘It’s…’ Then I stopped.
‘What?’
‘OK, it’s about a caterpillar who has twenty feet, and he’s late to school every day because he has to count all his shoes. Every day he has to count all his shoes on and count them off again, and every day it takes him ages and it makes him late, which means he’s in trouble with his teacher. And once he’s at school he has to count everything else – his pencils, the number of chairs in the classroom, all the rucksacks. And everybody else in his class thinks he’s a weirdo so nobody plays with him. But Curtis, he’s the caterpillar, is too embarrassed to admit that he just has this… thing about counting. It just makes him feel better. And then one day, his teacher, who’s a butterfly called Mrs Flutterby, overhears him counting in the playground and asks him about it, and he tells her that he can’t help it, he just has to count everything he sees. And Mrs Flutterby asks if he wants to know a secret. And Curtis nods because obviously everyone wants to know a secret. So she tells him that he has obviously been born with a special superpower for counting, and it’s nothing to feel ashamed of or worry about. That he should be proud of it. And suddenly Curtis is the hero of his class for having this superpower and then once he tells everyone he…’ I paused. Zach hadn’t said a word during this speech.
‘Go on,’ he urged.
‘He realizes that once it’s out in the open he doesn’t feel like he needs to count so much. I mean, I’ve still got a few bits to work out, but that’s the gist,’ I said, flicking the label with my nail again, embarrassed at having spluttered it all out. The story sounded better in my head.
‘So it’s you.’
‘Huh?’ I said, looking up from the bottle as if this idea had never occurred to me.
‘Curtis is you.’
I wrinkled my nose. ‘Is it obvious?’
He nodded. ‘Yeah. I hear you sometimes,