The June Story
It all began with a pair of children’s wellies, left to dry on the windowsill by my friend Lily—who had no balcony—tumbling down to the street below.
“I told you this would happen one day,” muttered Lily’s mum, who often popped round to mind her granddaughter. “How will you fetch them now? I’ve said a hundred times, there’s no sense splashing through puddles if there’s nowhere to dry the shoes afterward! No spare pair, either.”
“Mum, it was a June shower! There’s joy in stomping through puddles!”
“This year, June’s been uncommonly wet.”
Lily leaned out the window—sunlight spilled over the pavement, and sure enough, the boots had landed on the balcony below.
They’d only recently moved into the new flat and had never once seen the neighbour downstairs. Rumour had it an old bachelor lived there.
Lily and her mother often lamented the building’s design: “What’s the point of giving him a balcony? He never uses it! Ought to have put one on our floor—we’ve nowhere to dry anything!”
“Go on then, ring his bell. What’s little Margaret supposed to wear to nursery tomorrow?”
Margaret, a curly-haired three-year-old, entirely unbothered by tomorrow’s footwear dilemma, was attempting to toss her stuffed rabbit out the window—until Gran snapped it shut and wagged a warning finger.
Meanwhile, Lily had already knocked on the neighbour’s door.
“No answer. As usual.”
Lily’s mother sighed. “Mrs. Wilkins from number three said he drives a bus. Good luck guessing his shifts now!”
“I’ll try again later,” Lily grumbled.
Evening after evening, she went down, but the neighbour was never home. Kind-hearted Sophie, Lily’s friend, lent Margaret an outgrown pair of trainers—they’d do for nursery, just for a while.
Margaret was far from pleased with her “new” shoes. But with no other choice, Lily and her mother kept descending the stairs, never once catching the elusive neighbour.
“Perhaps he doesn’t even live here?”
“Oh, I saw his light on last night—past midnight,” piped up Mrs. Wilkins, dropping by to borrow sugar and gossip. “I was chasing my ruddy cat, the little terror, refusing to come indoors.”
“Midnight? We were long abed,” Lily said, perplexed.
“Why not leave him a note?” Mrs. Wilkins suggested. “Slip it under his door—‘Dear neighbour, our wellies are on your balcony, could you kindly return them? We never seem to catch you at home.’”
“Why didn’t we think of that? Brilliant! No wonder you’re the building’s chairwoman!”
And so they did. They wrote the note, Margaret contributing a scribbled bunny at the bottom—”A portrait of Mr. Flopsy!”—and solemnly delivered it downstairs.
The doorbell rang that very evening.
“The neighbour!” Lily and Margaret cried in unison (Gran had already left, and Mrs. Wilkins bid her goodbyes), dashing to answer.
On the doorstep stood a towering, blue-eyed man, younger than expected, still in his bus driver’s uniform. He held out the wellies and Margaret’s rabbit with a smile. “Found these on my balcony. Yours?” He addressed Margaret, who nodded rapidly, babbling, “Did you see Mr. Flopsy’s picture? Want to meet him properly?” The neighbour blinked at her enthusiasm but nodded.
While Lily thanked him, Margaret was already dragging him by the hand to her room, leaving Lily to catch snippets of chatter—”I don’t have a daddy, but Mummy makes the best hot chocolate!”
“Hot chocolate, eh? I’m rather fond of it myself,” the neighbour said, humouring her. Lily brightened.
“Fancy a cup? I’ve a secret recipe. Do you take cinnamon?”
“Awfully kind—I’ve a weakness for it. My nan used to make it just so, with cinnamon.”
One cup led to another, and before they knew it, Lily and George were still at the kitchen table past midnight. Margaret, tucked into bed, had sleepily declared, “Come again—we like you,” and they’d talked of grandmothers, of biscuits dipped in cocoa, of June rains, of how driving coaches cross-country had been his boyhood dream.
Then a sudden summer downpour drummed against the panes, bringing the scent of blooming lindens through the air, and George jolted upright. “Blimey—best be off!”
“Come again soon!” Lily called, nearly adding, like her daughter, that they’d taken a shine to him.
George did come again. And again. Until he never really left.
“She brews him cocoa before every shift—my recipe, mind! And they both adore walking in the rain,” Gran confided to Mrs. Wilkins a year later, pushing a pram with Margaret’s baby brother.
Mrs. Wilkins sighed dreamily. “Nothing like a proper hot chocolate…”
