Season 1 · Episode 28
The Other Side of the Hedge
Published 24th September 2026
Even gossip seemed to require a little air.
Oak Gossip
By lunchtime, the Oak was so full of Jacks that Gary had to choose a branch rather than simply assume one would be available.
He chose Mr Jack Daw’s.
“You have heard about Marlboro?” Gary asked.
“The neighbouring gardens have heard about Marlboro.”
“I mean what she said to her mother.”
Mr Jack Daw turned to him. “Which part?”
Gary opened his beak, considered the size of the answer, and shut it again. It was an unusually crowded, humid afternoon. Even gossip seemed to require a little air.
He told several versions of the story, each beginning with Marjorie and ending somewhere different. The Jacks offered corrections. When Gary left, none agreed on what Marlboro had collected.
Batman Smith arrived later and tried to settle a separate dispute in the hedge. A Chiffchaff passed through at precisely the wrong moment.
“Colin?” Batman demanded.
The little bird went on with its own business.
“That is not a denial,” Batman told the leaves.
The clouds broke. Light touched the Fruit Tree and vegetable beds. The Jacks debated whether Gary’s account had contained a fact.
Nigel Passes Over
Something broad and grey crossed above them.
It was Nigel.
He flew straight over the Square without landing, turning his head, or offering anyone a single word. Mr Jack Daw watched him pass beyond the garden roofs. By the time Batman looked up, there was nothing left to see.
“What was it?” Batman asked.
Mr Jack Daw took a moment. “Someone we know.”
“Who?”
“Someone who apparently has somewhere else to be.”
This did not satisfy Batman. It was also all the answer he was getting.
Careful Circuits
Later, Stirling’s squad appeared in the Vegetable Garden, moving between beds as though the cabbages had secrets.
Gary returned just as they began.
“Nigel came through,” Mr Jack Daw told him.
Gary looked up at the empty sky. “Through?”
“Over.”
“Did he stop?”
“No.”
“Did he say where he was going?”
“No.”
“That gives me very little to work with.”
“A difficulty you have overcome before.”
Across the lawn, Stirling changed the squad’s course, taking the long way round the Vegetable Garden. Gary examined a leaf while watching every squirrel pass.
The squad withdrew. Gary glanced at the lawn and vanished behind the Fruit Tree. Mr Jack Daw suspected he was improving his theory. The squirrels returned as the light fell.
Marjorie Waits
At dusk, the garden belonged to the smaller, busier voices. Robins moved through the hedge. Blackbirds crossed the grass, and Brenda objected from somewhere low and damp. The air grew still beneath a thickening sky.
Then Marjorie took the Oak.
She did not look towards her old family perch. She looked over the hedge.
“It is one thing to move next door,” she said into the dark. “It is another to behave as though I have moved away.”
No answer came.
Batman settled on the Fence Post, then thought better of the exposed position and moved lower. Marjorie remained. She waited, withdrew into the trees, and returned to the same view of the neighbouring garden. Later she tried again.
“I know you can hear me.”
For a long while, the night gave her nothing. Even Marjorie could not conduct an argument entirely by herself, though she came close.
Across the Hedge
The clouds opened enough for moonlight to touch her pearls. Marlboro finally answered from beyond the hedge.
“I can hear you,” she said. “Everyone can hear you.”
“Then everyone can hear that I am asking whether you are all right.”
“You did not make it sound like a question.”
Marjorie drew herself up. “Must every conversation begin with a complaint?”
“With us? Apparently.”
Their words crossed the boundary in a sharp little exchange. Then Marlboro fell quiet, leaving her mother to finish a sentence addressed to empty branches.
Marjorie did not leave. A little later, Marlboro answered her again from farther through the neighbouring darkness. For an instant Batman thought another owl might be about to intervene. Whoever—or whatever—he thought he heard gave him no help. Mother and daughter carried on without an audience they could see.
“You could come over,” Marjorie said.
“You could stop saying that.”
“I meant to visit.”
“I know what you meant.”
Marlboro’s silence arrived before any agreement did. Marjorie stayed, still offering remarks across the hedge after her daughter had stopped replying.
Rain and Fog
A light shower passed through. The darkness filled with fog. Once, the far garden answered Marjorie briefly; once, it did not. Something else moved or spoke beyond the mist, but Batman could not tell who it was, and wisely kept that conclusion to himself.
Harold eventually came to Marjorie’s side.
“You have been here all night,” he said.
“She is next door.”
“Yes.”
“Then why does it feel as though she is farther away?”
Harold looked across the hedge. “Because you cannot make her answer.”
Marjorie turned to him, ready with an objection. He did not offer advice to argue with.
“She knows where we are,” he said.
Rain returned before dawn. Marjorie remained a little longer, speaking once into the dark without receiving an answer. Then the Square disappeared into fog.
A Wet Morning
Morning brought Batman, Steve and Mrs Steve out among the wet leaves. Brenda emerged beneath the bird table with a fresh complaint. Percy slipped through the higher branches so quickly that Batman missed him altogether. The Jacks came back to the Oak as the fog thinned and the wind began to rise.
Gary arrived briefly and found Batman waiting.
“Mr Jack Daw says Nigel flew over,” Batman said.
“Mr Jack Daw has become surprisingly forthcoming.”
“He did not stop.”
Gary glanced towards the far roofs. “Then you have seen him, and you have not had him back.”
Batman disliked the distinction. He disliked it even more when Gary departed before explaining what he meant.
A Rook took a high branch and watched the Square without joining the conversation. Later, Stirling’s squad worked through the Vegetable Garden while a fresh shower scattered the smaller birds. Gary was nowhere to be seen.
By late morning the Jacks had reclaimed the Oak, the Rook had said nothing, and the rain was blowing sideways. Batman looked from the empty stretch of sky to the hedge beyond which Marlboro now lived.
“They are both close,” he said.
Mr Jack Daw followed his gaze. “Close is not the same as coming home.”
The wind took that sentence across the Square. From next door, there was no reply.