Season 1 · Episode 42
A Night of Her Own
Published 8th October 2026
Gary and Stirling keep missing their promised meeting, while Marlboro claims a quiet night and a life of her own across the boundary.
A Conversation That Has Not Happened
Rain stippled the Oak, where Mr Jack Daw’s family had taken up every available branch and several that were plainly too small. Gary arrived to discover they had spent the morning debating whether Stirling’s silence meant yes, no, or a particularly stern sort of perhaps.
“It means he has not answered,” Gary said.
The cousin looked disappointed. “We had reached a more interesting conclusion.”
“That is what worries me.”
A travelling party of long-tailed tits swept past, too quick to be questioned. Mortimer appeared above them and watched the Jacks reorganise themselves around Gary.
“Has anyone spoken to the squirrel?” the Raven asked.
“I spoke to Stirling this morning,” said Mr Jack Daw. “Gary has not.”
“Then you have been discussing a conversation that has not happened.”
The Jacks regarded this as a discouragingly narrow definition of discussion.
An Empty Place to Meet
Gary left, returned, and left again while showers crossed the Square. By mid-afternoon even Batman Smith had stopped offering to supervise matters from his wet hedge. The rain passed. One squirrel slipped across the grass while Gary was elsewhere; shortly afterwards Gary came through the Fruit Tree and found no one waiting beneath the Summerhouse.
“Perhaps he came alone,” the cousin suggested.
“Perhaps,” said Gary, studying the empty path.
“You could have missed him.”
“I have noticed.”
Passing One Another
A goldfinch paused at the bird table, where Batman was explaining which visitors were permitted to stand on which side of it. She helped herself to breakfast without waiting for the end of the explanation. Batman looked wounded. He had put considerable thought into a rule nobody had asked him to make.
Jay appeared with the air of a bird whose own business was more urgent than everybody else’s. Gary followed him with his eyes, then took the far side of the Oak. The cousin began to say something about pursuit. Mr Jack Daw informed him that two birds going in roughly the same direction was not yet a conspiracy.
Gary passed through again. Minutes later Stirling’s squad spread across the lawn and the Vegetable Garden. They were gone before Gary returned. By then the sun had found a gap in the cloud, making the wet paths shine as though the Square had laid out a trail for both of them and neither had thought to follow it.
“They are avoiding each other,” Batman announced from the fence.
“They might simply be busy,” said Mr Jack Daw.
“That is what people say when they are avoiding each other.”
Gary heard enough of this to leave without asking Batman for an explanation. He returned once more as evening gathered, but there was still no squirrel to meet him. The Smiths made a considerable business of the last light. Steve and Mrs Steve came out beneath the Fruit Tree after Gary had gone, and Batman gave them his theory.
Mrs Steve looked towards the Summerhouse. “Gary asked for one squirrel, not a parade. Stirling came with a parade.”
“Exactly,” said Batman.
“That does not mean either of them is running away.”
“It means,” Batman said, “that my theory remains available.”
Waiting at the Boundary
The Square quietened. Across the boundary, in the place she had made her own, Marlboro found herself with an unfamiliar luxury: a night that nobody had yet turned into a family argument.
The rain returned softly. She waited, half expecting her mother to arrive with another careful sentence, or her father to offer one on Marjorie’s behalf. Neither came. At last Marlboro addressed her own garden.
A Night of Her Own
She had spent so long defending the boundary that she had almost forgotten there was a whole garden on her side of it. Not a demonstration. Not a lesson for her parents. A place where she could have an opinion about the weather and keep it entirely to herself.
“Here is what is happening,” she said. “I live here. I am allowed to be angry. I am also allowed to like it.”
She considered the last admission.
“Especially the Oak from this side. Nobody tells me I am using it wrong.”
No one contradicted her. Not Marjorie. Not Harold. Not even Batman, who would certainly have found a procedural objection had he been invited. Marlboro was not inviting anyone.
She let the damp settle over her trees and said one last thing, for herself rather than for a listener.
“Tomorrow can be complicated.”
Tonight was not. It belonged to her.
No Conversation
The next morning came in cold and breezy. Batman and other Robins made an early inspection of the hedges. Brenda worked beneath them, unconcerned with their findings. Mr Jack Daw’s relatives reoccupied the Oak, but Gary and Stirling were both absent. A small party of long-tailed tits passed through without stopping to discover what had been decided.
Mortimer returned later, as imposing as he had been in the rain. Clive took the opportunity to cross the Square while the Jacks were looking up at him.
“Any progress?” Mortimer asked.
“No conversation,” said Mr Jack Daw.
“Then you have at least avoided misquoting one.”
The cousin opened his beak, thought better of it, and settled back against the trunk.
Rain began again before midday. The Jacks argued about whether the next meeting would happen at all; Batman insisted he knew where everybody ought to stand if it did. Over the hedge, Marlboro’s garden kept its own counsel. For once, nobody took its silence as an invitation.