paperboy (short story

paperboy

short story HARRIET EASTMENT

The roads were baking hot when a paperboy began his rounds one early morning. He never looked bored, or particularly happy. No one would notice as he walked by each worn-down house, as he did his rounds every Wednesday morning around five AM; a lonely person walking by lonely roads. He passed papers which provided no exciting news or information. But he was saving up for a car. The morning air was cool, and a summer sky was warming up. It would be a boiling day, but now soft peachy hues faded into a silvery blue. The sound of waves lapping a cool shore broke the morning silence. Despite how much he disliked his job he always loved how peaceful the mornings were. He could hear voices down on the beach- early morning swimmers and surfers enjoying cooler sand.

He shifted his backpack onto his other shoulder, and launched a newspaper over Mrs Longer’s fence and flew another over Mr Sawmen’s camelias. Every house here was worn down and tired. When he was younger, he and a few other boys would ride along warm roads in the summer on their bicycles, making their way through the quiet roads. Most of those boys were gone now.

When he reached a road overlooking the beach he could see old minivans parked along the road next to a long line of scrub. There were worn tracks that sloped downwards onto the sand. A couple of boys carrying surfboards disappeared down the scrub track as he passed. Every house had a small shed, usually holding boats or racks of surfboards. No one had a carport. Not many people here had a car at all. Not when you could just walk everywhere. No one saw a reason to go anywhere else.

But he did.

Being a paperboy meant you learnt a lot more about a place than anyone else. He knew Mr Sando watered his garden at six every morning. He knew that Caro Wilson’s kelpie could unlatch her mailbox (he always left her papers on her high concrete wall). And Mrs Wilma, well, she didn’t check her mailbox...ever, which is why he always had to leave his papers on her doorstep.

The only interesting or extraordinary part of his day was on 23rd street in a house behind a hedge. He had met Tiny a year ago when he first began his route around town. She was from America and it never occurred to him that any of the outside world would leak in here. Tiny became his symbol of hope; his hope of seeing the world one day. If she had seen it, he could too.

So, every morning the paperboy turned onto 23rd street and opened the gate. “Tiny!” He called in a loud whisper. “I’m over here, round the back.” Tiny replied.

He smiled and dropped his paper bag on her lawn, walked around her verandah and found Tiny lying flat on her back on her trampoline, her eyes closed. This was how she spent every single morning, and she never got sick of it. Tiny was like that. She could be very silent one second, buzzing with energy a second later. This was one of those moments, and he could feel her energy bubbling up already. Just as he predicted her eyes opened and she suddenly hopped up, leaping down with surprising grace onto the ground, smiling at him. Her smile was sparkly and warm; her eyes bubbled with humour and her freckles danced across her nose, her curly hair falling around her shoulders like a mermaid. “Let’s go! I have something to show you.”

Every morning she had something new to show him. And each day his eyes were opened wider. And so, on this particularly uninteresting morning, he found himself following her to something new. And as he did, he decided that being a paper boy wasn’t all that bad. In fact, one day he might just see the world. But for now, being a paperboy was all he needed to be.