This is the English Version of my short story "Die Gartenzaunfreundin"!
The title was a bit wonky to translate. ^^"

I just really wanted other people that don't understand German to also read these stories.

Without further ado, the story:

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The damp grass rustled under his feet and wet his fine black leather shoes when he stepped out into the garden late in the evening. The young man strode over to the fence and the old gate between their property and that of the neighbors. He breathed in deeply, collecting the fresh air in his lungs until they were so full, that he began to shiver softly and was forced to exhale again.
He felt the tension in his muscles when he breathed in and how his whole body loosened up the more air he let out again. The wind brushed his red cheeks and almost brought tears to his eyes. The few strands that had come loose from his pulled back hair danced on his forehead.
His warm breath sent clouds into the starry sky and he couldn't suppress a blissful smile.
"Mei Mei ..." he whispered tenderly.

***

The sun sent its warm rays down onto the lush green of the deciduous trees in the small suburb where Jack lived.
Jack wasn't a particularly pretty kid, but he wasn't ugly either. He had black hair that shimmered reddish brown in the sun and a cheeky grin that showed two gaps between his teeth. His nose was small and rose slightly at the tip, adorned with patchy, orange freckles.
He was a little shorter than the other boys his age and didn't own a bike or anything like the ones his classmates were showing off.
He couldn't even ride a bike.

His mother was a lovely young woman who worked in tailoring in the town. His father, on the other hand, was an unkempt man who knew the night more than the day. Even these nights he mostly spent in the betting spots and gambling places in the local underworld.

That day Jack sniffed and opened the front door of their small one-family house.
He put down his blue backpack with the dog patch his mother had sewn onto one side and went into the kitchen. Small red drops adorned the dark planks of the floor behind him and he wiped his bleeding nose. In the kitchen he stood on tiptoes, climbed up on the counter with wobbly legs and rummaged in the cupboard hanging there.
Equipped with a first aid kit and a rag, he then put a colored plaster on his open knee and stuffed a handkerchief into his nose, before he wiped the red trail he had left and cleaned everything up.
His mother was at work and his father usually slept around this time. Like every day, he then did his homework, ate what was in the refrigerator and then sat at the window of his room and looked out into the wilderness they called a garden.

The sun was shining brightly.
Usually he didn't mind, but today it was different. An unknown, snow-white something bounced around in their neighbors' garden and blinded him.
That was strange. And he was curious.
That day he went out for the first time and through the long and dry prickly grass to the high fence.
That was also the first time that he noticed the color of the fence and how much it was already peeling off.
"Hello?" He called out and looked through the keyhole of the old gate ... straight into a bright green eye.
"Woaaaah! Cool! Your eyes are black!", It sounded from the side where the eye was. He winced and ran back into the house.
That was the first time he met Meira.

For the days that followed, he went outside every day and watched the girl through the keyhole and the cracks in the fence.
She always played games he didn't understand. She rode into battle with her knights on a fictional horse, saved small animals from evil and had picnics and parties with people Jack couldn't see. And she always wore a snow-white summer dress. She was a little more tanned than him and shorter and had light brown hair.
"Almost like caramel ... I like caramel.", He thought to himself and at some point he called another "Hello" across the fence.
"Hi!", her answer came back immediately and she ran up to him at the gate, "My name is Meira! And you are the boy with the black eyes!"
"My name is Jack. And my eyes are not black, but brown!"
"But they look so dark! Hm ... I've got it! From today on you are my knight, understood? The knight with the black eyes who can see and remove every injustice!" Her voice was bright, yet not as squeaky as the girls in his class.
Jack just nodded, unable to argue.

This is how their friendship began.

He remembered it well.

Him and Meira.

Little Mei Mei ...

He smiled and used his big hand to grab the handle of the gate, which was now much smaller than back then.
Then he let go and frowned.
There was something in the grass down below.