Once upon a time I fell in love with a boy who told me to stick my tongue on a battery. It tingles, he said, grinning a toothless grin and handed a battery to me. I pulled out my tongue and placed it on the tip of the battery and immediately withdrew it. I couldn’t taste for a few days afterwards, but I knew I loved him.
He told me that if you picked up a penny all the day you’d get good luck, but if you gave it to a friend then your luck would never end. Even to this day I stop and pick up any pennies I see on the floor. He said that instead of using your breaks on your bike, if you used to tips of your trainers, you’d stop quicker. And if you looked at the clock when it said 11:11, you could make a wish and it would come true.

  Once he told me that bellybuttons were only there because the angel who made you pressed your tummy to see if you were done yet. He told me if you had chickenpox, if you scratched them, they’d go quicker. And then he told me if you sat too close to the TV, then you’d get square eyes. Whether this was scientifically proven, I don’t know. But even now, I move my son so he is atleast 4 feet away from the television set.

 He told me his favourite colour was red, and for two weeks I only ate things that were smothered in tomato ketchup eventhough I couldn’t stand it. The smell of Heinz still reminds me of him. I scratched his name on the bottom of my pencil case. And I wrote yes and no on my rubber and asked it if I would spend my life with him. Somehow it always said I would. I picked petals of daisies and got grass stains on my knees. He loves me, he loves me not. He loved me.

He showed me how to make perfume out of the rose petals from the bush at the bottom of my garden. Just add hot water, leave for an hour. He held my hand under the table as we sold it to our neighbours.  He showed me how to make friendship bracelets and taught me how to tell whether someone likes butter or not, only using a buttercup.  And how to build a tree house. I brought a piece of carpet left over from my house to make it look homely.

He told me there were fairies in the garden. When I stung myself on a nettle, he handed me a dock leaf and promised me it would stop hurting. When I go for walks with my family, I always scan the landscape for a bush of dock leaves. You know. Just in case.

He showed me how to whistle with just a piece of grass. And how to drink from a carton without using a straw. Silence in the courtyard, silence in the street, the biggest mouth in England is just about to speak. Starting from.... He always pulled a face and made me laugh. Now.  He told me about the house on the corner of my street and told me that there were witches there.

 He told me that when the tips of a daisy were pink it meant they had been touched by someone who was in love. And that fox gloves were foxes gloves.  He told me that in the old days, people were in black and white, like the films. He showed me where you could pick the sweetest strawberries from. And that if you sat on a certain place on the side of the railway tracks you could feel the vibrations of the train ten minutes before it passed.  He was my partner on school trips, sat next to me on the coach on the way to the ancient ruins. He showed me how to finger paint and how to play the keyboard. He showed me that if you closed your eyes and span really fast, you could see loads of different colours.

He held my hand when we stood in their garden, daring each other to go further, then we ran away, giggling. I later found out that the house had been empty for twenty years. I went to watch it being demolished.