Zebra chateau.

Manatee mansion.

Wallaby warehouse.

Ungulate bungalow

Dugong duplex.

Pangolin pagoda.

Dormouse greenhouse.

Pelican igloo.

Crocodile hut.

Earwig wigwam.

Cat shed.

Dog box.

Capybara bus shelter.

A soft ginger glow from the back seat rendered visibility into the grey outside a strain. He drove slowly as road signs condensed out of the dark mist ahead of him. He thought about the light behind him, how his curious young son would fiddle and toy with the switches and buttons and knobs and sliders of the car. And how, now, he couldn’t bear to turn it off.

Rain snaked helicoid around the salt-blue columns. Sunlight evaporated from the reeds toward the moon. A tin soldier beckoned toward the shore, shimmering through gaps between monoliths. Son hesitated, looking back to the land he knew, crumbling into nonsense, and then forth, to the unknown, with its coat of suspicion. The soldier stopped his gesturing, and began to wander into the yellow sea. Son, with a deep, hungry breath, picked up his cat, and followed.

There was gum on the sole of her shoe. It made a sort of quick, tacky, squelch against the linoleum as she walked to the door. He wondered if she knew. He wondered who dropped the gum. He wondered what flavour it was. Cherry? Mint? Was it even gum? It could have been tar. Maybe she’s a roadworker, he thought. Even if he knew the answers to all these questions, he probably wouldn’t have been able to help her with her sticky shoe.

The next day, when she came in again, he listened to hear the characteristic tick-tack of a begummed heel. Hear it he could not. He decided not to ask her about it.

A dense frost nibbles at the toes of morning, invisible crystals dance in the pale wind and scratch your throat. At the foot of the walk is a stone bird bath, a simple roman column, atop, a rink, a drink kept secret by a cold crust. A blue tit encircles the rim, puzzling over the whereabouts of today’s breakfast tipple. You edge closer, not wishing to scare the thing — she sees you and flits to the ivy. You break the thick surface of the pool with a pebble.

Lady Lemon thumbed a chrome stool. She sniffed. The air was warm and charged, as it would have been before a storm. It hadn’t rained in seven months. She knelt down onto the seat and leant her satchel against the shortest leg. The chair wobbled. The bag, full of jelly, also wobbled. And Lady Lemon wobbled too.

You lay, pen in hand, painting light blue lines across my summer skin, one freckle to the other. Making constellations.

“You’re my night sky.”

A stranger knocks on the door.

A STRANGER: [knock knock]

There is a pause and a muffled bark from behind the wood. Bolts clunk and keys jangle. The door slips open without a creak. A girl stands before the open frame.

A GIRL: Hello?

A STRANGER: Good day. Who are you?

A GIRL: I— I live here!

A STRANGER: Good day Olivia. May I come in? Awfully wet out. [barges in]

A GIRL: I — no!

A STRANGER: Well, glad we’re agreed then!

Stranger takes off coat and throws it on the hearth. Stranger isn’t wearing any shoes.

For her seventh birthday Jane asked for a red giant. One of those big old stars who’ve learned the virtue of living life in the slow lane. “But where would you put a red giant?” asked Dad. “I would put it in the garden next to the birds, so that they would be kept warm on cold winter nights”. Dad couldn’t argue with that. So he went to the shop to see if they had any red giants. “Excuse me, do you sell red giants?” he asked the shopkeeper. “Not here, no. Give Fred’s down the road a go”. So he went to Fred’s. They didn’t have any red giants either. Time was short. “Any other stars or celestial bodies?” he asked.

The next morning Jane tumbled down the stairs with glee, and ripped the wrapping from her gifts. Her face fell. She was not one bit happy with her neutron star. So she threw it out the window in a rage. “A neutron star is far too warm for birds!” she cried. No fooling that one, thought Dad.

There are about forty steps remaining before she reaches the top. She’s counted before. Her body aches from the climb. The corner prevents her from seeing very far ahead; she perseveres under the sensible assumption that the route to the top is still stable underfoot. About twenty steps and seven-hundred-and-twenty degrees around the corner, her path is blocked by a large ragged canine, staring her in the face, tongue wagging, smiling broadly. “Hello dog, may I pass?” she asks. “No, sorry!” says the dog. “Okay then.” she says, a little glumly. She turns tail and counts backwards, downwards.