When I was twelve, I saw Tally die.

We both had an evening paper round. She did one side of Ditchling Road and I did the other. I had the odd numbers, she had the evens.

Ditchling Road is a steep hill road in a coastal town. It stretches upwards from the seafront to the farthest end of town. It’s about three miles long. We liked to start at the top of the hill and work our way down towards the sea..

We’d collect our bags of newspapers at about four, then cycle up Ditchling Road, sometimes racing each other, most often not. Then we’d sit on one of the golf course benches, eating chocolates and talking. We could see the sea from where we sat. Sometimes, if I’d brought my radio, we’d listen to music. At five we’d start our deliveries, Tally on the left, me on the right. The first one back at the shop bought the other one something, sweets, stickers, cards, bubble gum, whatever. It wasn’t so much what it was, more that it was. It was one of our deals.

Tally was pretty. Her full name was Natalia Brown, but she preferred Tally. She was tall and had long, dark hair she tied up in a ponytail. She was also very adventurous, more than anyone else I knew. She would do the most incredibly dangerous things, just so that she could say she had done them. Most of the time, Tally was the only person to have done a certain thing. She was a natural trailblazer. For example, when the pond in Hollingbury Park froze over, Tally was the only one who dared to walk across it at its widest point. I watched her breathlessly, hearing the pinging and cracking of ice beneath her as she fearlessly stepped from one bank to the other. Nothing fazed her.

So, when she mentioned climbing the pylon, I knew she meant it, and I knew she’d do it, no matter what I said.

It was a hot summer’s day. We were on the golf course bench, prior to delivering the papers. We’d eaten chocolate, talked, listened to some radio music and gazed at the sea, watching the tankers, ferries and yachts sail from one side of the horizon to the other. Our bikes were nearby, the newspaper bags slung over the handlebars.

Tally pointed to a nearby pylon.

“I’m going to climb that,” she said matter-of-factly.

“Aren’t pylons dangerous?” I asked, knowing my question was a futile way of trying to deter Tally’s course of action.

Tally nodded.

“Of course they are,” she said. There’d be no point in climbing them if they were perfectly safe. Where’s the thrill in that?”

This was the usual Tally counter-argument, the one she’d always use prior to doing exactly what she wanted.

She got up and strode towards the towering pylon. I followed her, exhorting her not to take risks. As I pleaded, I looked carefully at her chosen challenge.

It was imposing. A strut-crossed giant metal spider carrying death in its six web strands. No, not imposing, downright scary.

Tally clambered up the nearest steel leg, reaching out for the first diagonal strut. She grabbed it and hauled herself up. After that, her progress was fast and easy and I watched her ascend into the summer sky, silhouetted against a backdrop of beautiful pale blue air. She climbed to just below the brooding insulators and stopped. She looked down and called my name. I waved. She waved back.

A gigantic blue spark that looked like an eel leapt from one of the cables and disappeared into her chest.

Tally shrieked and jerked, then fell backwards from her precarious perch, turning slowly and gracefully in the air. She hit the ground with a muted thud.

Terrified, I ran to her crumpled form, calling her name over and over again. I slid to a stop on my knees and looked at her carefully. She was pale and still. The chain link bracelet I’d given her was fused into a solid band around her wrist, leaving burn marks where it had touched her skin.

“Tally!” I cried desperately. “Tally! Wake up!”

Nothing. No movement, no sound.

I touched her forehead. It was hot. I ran to my bike and grabbed a newspaper. I ran back and started fanning her with it.

She opened her eyes.

“Stop doing that,” she said sleepily.

I stopped and laughed hysterically. She closed her eyes again, resting on the green.

“I thought you were dead,” I said quietly.

Tally opened her eyes.

“I think I was,” she said, clambering slowly to her feet, using me as a support. As she brushed herself down, she noticed her bracelet. She held it out for me to see and looked at me in a strange way, her eyes full of an intense something.

“It’s welded on now,” she said. “Forever.”

I nodded, but stayed silent, my heart pounding loudly in my ribcage. I got the impression she was asking me something, even though I hadn’t heard a question.

I made her sit down on the bench and sat next to her. She slipped her hand into mine and squeezed it hard. After a while I asked her if she felt okay. She said she did. Then she told me what had happened.

“Something blue and bright and crackling hit me in the chest,” she said, “and then nothing. Everything went black for a while, then very bright. Suddenly I could see the golf course, the pylon, me, stretched out on the grass, you, kneeling over me, the bikes, the bench, everything, but not from nearby, more like from a few miles away, high up, like I was in a helicopter or an aeroplane. Then I couldn’t see anything for a while because my eyes had shut on their own and I couldn’t open them. It wasn’t scary though,” she said, as though to reassure me.

“Then I could open them and you were there, fanning me.” She paused for a moment. “I think I died when that blue thing hit me. I must have fallen but I don’t remember. Hitting the ground must have shocked me back to life again.”

I nodded. It sounded plausible enough.

Tally reached into her pocket and pulled something out.

“Look,” she said, holding it out in the palm of her hand.

I looked. Her loose change was fused into a solid metal lump. I thought about that blue eel-like spark disappearing into her chest and wondered what it had done to Tally. I suddenly found I had nothing at all to say.

A few minutes later we began delivering our newspapers. Tally finished first. She raced. I didn’t. When I got back to the shop, she’d gone home.

Things were never the same between us after that. A few weeks later, she gave up her paper round. We didn’t go to the same school, so I didn’t see her there.

Five years went by fast.

I was one of the few people who actually left my town to go to university. After five years, I went back. The place was different. Everything had changed. Everyone I knew, including myself, had grown a bit older.

I heard that Tally had married a local electrician and was the mother of two children.

I bumped into her in a supermarket one morning. She was pushing a buggy with a baby in it and shepherding another, slightly older child. She was still as tall as me and still had long, dark hair, although it wasn’t tied up in a ponytail. When she saw me she froze in mid-movement.

“Hello, Tally,” I said. “How are you?”

“Fine,” she answered. “You?”

Before I could reply, she said: “No one’s called me that for a long time.”

“Who are you now?” I asked casually.

“Usually Nat or mum,” she answered, before becoming unfocussed for a few moments. There was a short silence. After several seconds she remembered who and where she was and smiled wanly.

“I didn’t give you a chance to answer, did I? How are you?”

“I’m fine too,” I said.

“I heard you left.”

I nodded. “Yes, to become a student.”

“Are you back for good?”

“I don’t know,” I answered, shrugging. I looked at her wrist. No bracelet. Very pale scar tissue where the burns had been.

She followed my gaze. She blushed.

“I had it cut off, about a year after it happened.”

I nodded again. One or two more pleasantries were exchanged, then we went our separate ways.

A few more weeks, then I left again.

In the place I finally settled, I met someone who turned out to be that very special person that most people never get to meet. Right place, right time, right person. The chances are so slim. But that person exists. And I’m very happy now. She’s not tall, doesn’t have long dark hair tied up in a ponytail, but she is very beautiful, very lovely, very warm, very gifted.

In other words, she’s not Tally, but neither is Tally any more.