The Umbrella

I’ve never liked bikes. I inherited my sister’s as a child, and spent a long summer riding up and down our road until one of the other kids pointed out that it was a girl’s bicycle, which to a young boy was like hearing that the handlebars were laced with poison. I never rode it again, except for an experimental ride in the back garden, where I couldn’t be seen but kept tumbling into the pond.

The evening sun cast long shadows of rich amber across the park, and the heady, perfumed smell of late summer filled the air. But strewed across the well-kept grass were pieces of brown packaging, fluttering gently in the breeze. An empty envelope skittered into a flowerbed, and a scrap of white paper drifted along until it hit an upturned shoe. It strained for a moment against the polished black leather, then gave up and sank to the ground.

‘Did you want a drink, Charlie?’ The boy grabbed the bottle of cherryade from the middle of the table and poured, watching the bubbles build until a pink foam rose just above the the rim of the little plastic tumbler, then waiting for it to retreat before topping it off.

It was a pleasant spring morning when Mysto the Munificent arrived at the orphanage. The children had probably seen him coming; the top of his pointed hat always bobbed up and down above the garden wall long before he reached the gate. He walked up the path, his heavy blue robes brushing past thickets of unkempt grass. Reaching the grand old doors, he raised a bony finger and rang the doorbell. A great din arose within.