Neighbourly

By Colleen Addison

He’ll never know we’re here, we thought as we crouched outside his window, forgetting about the snaps of bush twigs under budget sneakers, how rarely we suppressed our giggles.

We never wondered why he replaced his television with a bigger one angled towards the glass; why often subtitles marched along the screen’s bottom; why, oddly timed with school tests, he watched documentaries on apropos subjects.

Damn kids, he muttered when he caught us scrounging in his garbage for food scraps. But soon, a newly planted apple tree dangled its branches enticingly from his garden, and his raspberry bushes sprouted uncollected fruit.