Playdate (Oakwood Primary #2)

CHAPter ONE

Freya

The boy who moves in across the cul-de-sac is going to break my heart, I just don’t know it yet.

The moving van is too big for our street. It’s bright yellow and loud and blocking Mrs Carter’s roses, which means she’s already at her front window with her arms folded, Everyone is watching. They always do when something changes in Oakwood.

I’m sitting on the curb outside our house, knees pulled into my chest, tracing cracks in the pavement with my finger.

The cul-de-sac curves neatly, red-brick houses facing each other.

I know every inch of it; which fences creak, which gardens hide lost footballs, which parents shout the loudest at tea time.

Nothing ever really changes here. Until now.

The van door slams open and a boy jumps down from the back, landing awkwardly before catching himself. He laughs it off, running a hand through dark hair that sticks up like he’s done that a hundred times already today.

I stop tracing the pavement and watch him instead.

There’s a feeling in my belly then. I’m not excited or scared. Something just feels different, like when the air changes when someone walks into a room behind you or when you can feel that someone is angry or sad.

“Freya,” Mum calls from the garden. “Go and say hello.”

I pretend not to hear her and she gives me the look. I hate it when she gives me that look. I stand up, brush the dust from my leggings, and walk towards him.

He notices me halfway across the cul-de-sac. “Oh. Hi.”

“I’m Freya,” I say.

“Rory,” he replies, nodding once.

We stand there in the kind of silence grown-ups have when they’re not sure what comes next.

“My mum says we live here now,” he adds, pointing behind him.

I follow his finger to the empty house opposite mine. Directly opposite. That feels important, even if I don’t understand why.

“You can play with us,” I say suddenly. “We’re always out here.”

“Okay.”

And just like that, Rory becomes one of us.

By the time the sun starts to set, everyone knows his name.

Tom shows him how to do wheelies. Ellie lends him a skipping rope.

Rowan challenges him to football immediately, even though Rory says he prefers Rugby.

I notice, without meaning to, that he doesn’t shove or shout, that he passes the ball even when he doesn’t have to.

When someone falls, he stops playing to check they’re okay.

At some point he sits beside me again and our shoulders are almost touching.

“Your street’s good,” he says.

“It’s not the street that make it good.” I say. “It’s the people.”

He nods like that makes perfect sense.

Parents start calling names as the sky turns bright orange. One by one, kids disappear into their houses until it’s just us left. Mum is talking to his mum by the van like they’ve known each other forever. His mum has kind eyes so I’m not surprised that my mum likes her.

“I have to go,” he says eventually.

“So do I.”

It takes a second for either of us to move. Just like the grown-ups, it feels like I’ve known Rory forever. It feels like I can be myself with him and he won’t laugh or think I’m weird.

That night I sit on my bed and look out of my window. The light flicks on in Rory’s bedroom across the cul-de-sac. I lift my hand without really thinking about it. After a moment, his curtain moves and he lifts his hand too.

That funny feeling is still there in my belly. I don’t know what it is yet. It’s like a beginning feeling. Like when you are excited to start a new book or use a brand-new pencil.

It feels like something important is about to happen and I don’t know it yet. Like this cul-de-sac isn’t just where I live. It’s where everything begins.