She leaned against the brick at the back of the house while counting to one hundred. It wasn’t easy. A housefly kept buzzing around her head and the back of her checkered dress was sticky with sweat, she’d been standing so long in the noonday sun. “Ready or not, here I come!” Colleen opened her eyes and had to squint. The very large garden at the back of their house in Westmount was perfect for hiding in. The hedges and large flowering shrubs were so thick you couldn’t see behind them. There was also a rock garden and massive oak trees along the edge of the property. Colleen had names for all of them, but she didn’t tell Frankie in case she thought it was silly. When she and her sister played here it didn’t feel like they lived in the city. The beautiful old trees that grew on Mount Royal kept the noise of the city below at a minimum. The neighbourhood consisted of winding streets filled with old stone mansions and large homes, well back from the sidewalks, with the front gardens filled with flowers, bushes, and cedars among the common wrought-iron fencing and gates.
