Under The Fence

The car arrived at half past nine on a dreary grey Tuesday morning, which Dafydd thought was terribly unfair because Tuesdays were supposed to be his day. Not in a selfish way - his Mam said that word a lot, usually while looking at him - but Tuesdays were when Mrs. Goodall brought her sheepdog pup to the farm, and Dafydd got to hold the lead and pretend it was his. But Mrs Goodall had rung that morning to say the pup had an upset stomach, and Dafydd had been kicked out of the kitchen for moping but his Mam did mention that their was new people moving in next door, which was weird as Mr and Mrs Edgar didn't look like they were moving out. No big van. No horde of movers like when the Smiths moved in on the other side. And that's how he was now here, cheek pressed to his bedroom window, watching, watching a strange little car - ill-suited to the mud tracks - pull up to the house outside.

The house had been empty of fun for months. The older boy had left with someone the Edgar's had scornfully ranted about regularly as his 'room mate'. Dafydd didn't understand why that would be a bad thing? He missed the way Dom had yelled "Taffy!" over the fence and throw squishy apples for him to hit with his rounders bat when they were way too bruised to sell or bake. The new woman didn't look like an apple thrower.

"Dafydd John Davies, get your nose off that glass!"

He didn't move away, if anything his nose pressed harder into the glass. "There's a boy, Mam."

His Mam appeared in the doorway, wiping her hands on her apron. How did she always seem to know what he was doing when not in the room? Mam was a ninja. A ninja that always had an apron, even when she wasn't cooking. Like a second skin. "What boy?"

"In the garden. Sitting on the steps."

She came to stand behind him and he felt her hands settle on his shoulders. Through the glass they watched the boy. So much smaller, younger, than the last. Dark hair that looked like it had been shaped by Mam's bowl. Knees drawn up to his chest like he was trying to take up less space.

"Poor lamb," his Mam murmured and Dafydd filed that away. Lamb was what she'd call him when he was sad. Poor lamb was worse.

"What's his name?"

"I don't know, 'pet. I'm going over now with teacakes. Be polite, say hello and for heaven's sake don't ask about his parents."

"Why not?"

"Because I'm asking you not to. That's reason enough."

She kissed the top of his head and disappeared. Dafydd watched her moments later cross the front garden's, Tupperware in hand, and knocked on the door next door. A woman answered - not the boy's Mam, the old lady - she didn't look back into the house for the boy or call him in or over or even seem to notice he existed. She just took the cakes and talked and talked while Dafydd's Mam nodded and made the face she made when she was storing things away for later.

He darted his eyes back to the back porch. The boy didn't move.

The women kept talking, soon joined by the new Mam, but she was crying. Why would the new Mam be crying? His Mam gently touched her arm before the new Mammy walked slowly back to the car and drove away.

Dafydd looked at the fence.

Specifically, he looked at the bottom of the fence, where years of boys and footballs had worn a gap big enough for a determined five-year-old. He's crawled through it a hundred times to retrieve balls from the Edgar's garden. Dom never minded. He said a garden without kids was a garden without life, said it was what his grandad always said, was why so many kids stayed with them even when his parents looked like they hated it.

The women were still talking. The new boy was still sitting. Dafydd made a decision.

He was halfway across his bedroom floor when his Mam's voice floated up from next door: "-and that's Dafydd up there, the one with his face permanently pressed to glass, God love him-"

"We are acquainted."

"uh-"

Uh oh. He made a break down the stairs and out the back before she could notice he was missing, he caught enough speed to slip into the flowers which he

used for cover to crawl under the fence.

The hole was damp from morning dew and the mud soaked through his jumper but he wiggled and pushed and popped out the other side like a cork from a bottle. He stood up, brushed himself off as much as he could and announced:

"I'm Dafydd. They call me Taffy. What's your real name?"

The boy on the steps was big but not as big as Dom or even Dafydd's big brother Sean. Maybe he was Rhiannon's age. He was scrunched up like he was trying to be small, like Dafydd small but his knees were still too high to be his size. His face was all tight, like when Nanny Davies told him not to touch the biscuits. The boy on the steps blinked.

"David." The boy grit out brusquely like it was a bad word that tasted yucky on his tongue. Older boys said his name like that at school too but their faces didn't match.

"Dafydd. Like Daffy Duck minus the uck. At school they call me Taffy. What's your real name?" He said it slower this time to help, sometimes when his Nanny spoke too quickly he got lost too.

For a long moment, nothing happened. Dafydd's smile started to wobble, he had time to worry that he'd done it wrong, that maybe the boy didn't speak English or maybe Dafydd had spoken English wrong, that he was about to be sent back through the hole in disgrace. But then the boy's face did something. A flicker. A crack in whatever wall he'd built around himself. Less like Dafydd was a puzzle that was making him confused.

"Gù Xīnyí," he said quietly. "My name is Xīnyí…um…like shin with a tiny n and and yee like…yipee?" The boy's face was doing so many things at once. It was a bit pink and his eyes looked scared but hopeful. He was trying to help, like Dafydd had tried to help.

"Shin-yipee." Dafydd sounded out carefully, tasting the sounds. "Shiny-pee," he tried again, then giggled. Pee was a funny word. The older boy's face wasn't sad anymore, it was wibbly… like he was trying not to smile. Dafydd decided he liked the older boy. His name was fun and his face did lots of interesting things. Dafydd grinned, wide and gap-toothed. "That's brilliant!" He repeated the name to himself over and over. "Can I say it?"

He couldn't. Not yet. It came out Shin-yee and then Zin-yee and then something that wasn't even close. All hard N's that got harder and more elongated the more he stumbled. But the boy - Xīnyí - watched him try and the crack in his face got a little wider with each failed determined attempt.

"Your knee," Xīnyí said.

Dafydd looked down. Blood was welling up through the mud, a fresh scrape from something under the fence. He hadn't even felt it.

"Oh," he said. Then, because his Mam had raised him right: "It doesn't hurt."

Xīnyí looked at him for a long moment. Then, slowly, he shifted over on the step.

Dafydd sat down.

From the other side of the door, the women's voices drifted through. "- triplets, can you imagine? Police came knocking at hers at midnight-"

"- can't keep 'im no matter how much she may wish, needs the space poor luv-"

"- only till they find somewhere more permanent-"

Xīnyí's shoulders went tight. Dafydd noticed but didn't understand. He was five. He understood knees and mud and the shape of a new name in his mouth.

"I have a pig," he offered. "Well, a piglet, Da lets me keep the runt. He's called Spenser. They sleeps in the kitchen when they are little. You can come see him if you want?"

Xīnyí turned to look at him. Really look, this time. Like Dafydd was a puzzle he was trying to solve.

"You'd let me?"

"'Course. He likes people. He's very small. He fits in my jumper." Dafydd demonstrated with his own jumper, gathering the fabric to show the approximate size of a piglet. "See?" Xīnyí looked down at the bunched fabric and something in the older boy's face shifted again. Not quite a smile. But close.

"Okay," he said. "Maybe."

From inside the house, a voice called: "Goo! Come in now. Let's get you settled."

Xīnyí cringed and then stood. For a moment, he looked down at Dafydd - still sitting on the step, still muddy, still bleeding - and said, very quietly "Thank you for asking."

"'S alright," Dafydd said. "I'll be here tomorrow. By the fence."

Xīnyí nodded once. Then he was gone, swallowed by the dark of the house, and Dafydd was alone in the garden with a bloody knee and a name he couldn't say and the feeling that something important had just happened.

He crawled back under the fence.

His Mam found him in the kitchen ten minutes later, holding a paper towel to his knee while Spenser the piglet snuffled at his ankles.

"Dafydd John Davies, what happened to you?"

"Owch, twice in a day, you hurt my wittle hear-" his mother raised an eyebrow, "fence. Mam?"

"Yes 'pet?"

"The new boy. His name is Sh-Shee-Zi… Shin but with a little n and yee like yipee. I'm going to be his friend."

His Mam paused, tea towel in hand. Then she smiled, soft and knowing.

"Just like your father, you are." She smiled down at him, "Alright, 'pet. You do that."

She didn't ask about the scrape. She didn't tell him to be careful. She just put the kettle on, passed him a new damp paper towel and let him sit with his piglet and his bloody knee; and the new name, turning it over and over in his mouth like a stone he was learning to polish.

Xīnyí

Gù Xīnyí

He'd get it right. He had time.