“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 her ask 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.

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