Friends and Fairy Houses

The lawn and the cool shade under the large leaves of the breadfruit tree invited me to take a book and lie on my stomach and read. Inside it was too hot. 

I took a book, lay in the grass and started reading. When I had a good book, I forgot time and space and lost myself in the story. 

Mom called me to eat. I had to leave my beautiful world and go in. Mom first saw them. Several leeches had attached themselves to me. Some had fallen off. Mom took some salt and sprinkled it on the few that still were feeding in me. They fell off. 

Never again would I lie down in the grass to read. 

Across from our house was a semi-detached house behind a hibiscus fence. 

The two who girls lived there who became my friends. 

Vinitha was a Sinhalese and Annette was a Burgher. 

Vinitha lived with her mother and stepfather, her big brother and two younger siblings. Annette lived with her grandmother and grandfather. 

Her parents and sisters lived in Colombo.

Sometimes they came for a visit, as in the picture below.

I wanted to play with Vinitha and Annette as often as I could. 

I had lost all my previous friends because we moved often. 

Vinitha was eleven, I ten and Annette nine years. 

After the rain, we realized that it was possible to use the wet sand and mud to build fairy houses. We created beautiful little houses with moss as lawns, with tiny flower beds, and a fish pond. Sometimes we took leaves and flowers from Grandpa Gray’s garden. 

He did not like it if we picked the flowers and leaves from his garden too often.

My mum had found nasturtium seeds on a trip to Nuwara Eliya. She sowed them in our garden. The leaves resembled waterlily leaves. We could use them for our artificial fish pond which was made of a small hand mirror.

Our friendship grew strong along with our creativity. The magic moments we spent together during the two short years we lived as neighbors still echoes through the years.

Today I'm glad to say, we are still friends, even though we live far apart.