The sun was bright and stubborn, making the streets shimmer with heat. It was one of those lazy summer afternoons when the world felt slower—except for two kids wandering along the edge of a dusty lane, sandals slapping against the hot road, voices bubbling with excitement.
Maya held a half-filled bottle of Rooh Afza, the sticky red syrup already making her fingers tacky. Her cheeks were flushed from the heat, but her eyes sparkled like she was on a secret mission.
“You walk like a sleepy snail,” she teased, glancing back at him.
Kian, trailing behind, poked the ground with a stick he’d picked up earlier, aiming at small clumps of grass and wandering ants. “I’m walking with style,” he said proudly. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“Yeah yeah. ‘Style,’” she muttered with a grin. “More like slow-motion snail style.”
He didn’t respond. He was busy chasing a shadow that looked like a frog.
They had grown a little taller since their third-grade days, but their bond had only gotten sillier. Though they didn’t live in the same colony, their homes were just a ten-minute walk apart—close enough that Maya could sneak out with an excuse like “going to get bread,” and Kian could say he was “returning a tiffin.”
They had met in third grade, and now, two whole years later, they had their own inside jokes, hideouts, and a shared plan for the summer: to find a secret place.
“A real one,” Maya had said last week, pointing at the sky with a candy stick in her mouth. “With broken walls, grass taller than our knees, and maybe even a mango tree.”
“Also ghosts,” Kian had whispered dramatically. “Every real secret place has a ghost.”
“Then you can be it,” Maya replied.
—
That afternoon, their hunt had led them behind an old water tank near a temple. Beyond a broken fence and some wild weeds, they discovered a crumbling wall with faded yellow paint.
“This is it!” Maya whispered, eyes wide. “We found it!”
“It’s... perfect,” Kian breathed, stepping carefully through the gap. “Like a secret fort.”
Inside, the place was quiet, save for the distant chirping of birds and the whirr of cicadas. There were bricks scattered across the floor, moss climbing up the walls, and—true to Maya’s vision—a mango tree standing right in the middle of it all, half-leaning like it had grown tired over the years.
It wasn’t very big—just the remains of what might have been a small outhouse or an abandoned shed—but to them, it was a world.
Maya spun around like a ballerina, arms stretched. “It’s ours!”
Kian climbed onto a fallen log like it was a throne. “I declare myself King of MangoLand!”
“More like the frog prince,” Maya teased, tossing a leaf at him.
They laughed, loud and free, the kind of laugh only kids can have when they know they won’t be called inside anytime soon.
“Let’s bring snacks next time,” Kian said, now lying on the ground and looking up at the leaves. “And comics.”
“And a blanket,” Maya added. “It’ll be our secret world.”
The ground smelled of old dust and mango bark. Somewhere nearby, a bee hummed past. They found a broken bucket and turned it into a table. Maya balanced a flat brick on top. Kian placed his stick on it like a sword.
“We need rules,” Maya said, tapping the side of her bottle.
“Rule one,” Kian declared, “no grown-ups allowed.”
“Rule two: if one of us is sad, the other has to bring candy.”
“Rule three: we protect this place no matter what.”
They sealed their promise with a pinky swear.
—
Later, they lay side by side under the tree. Maya braided strands of dry grass while Kian tried to catch a ladybug crawling on his shirt.
“Do you think we’ll be best friends forever?” Kian asked suddenly, fingers laced behind his head.
Maya blinked at the sky, quiet for a moment. “Of course,” she said softly. “Why not?”
Kian turned his head to look at her. “I dunno. People always say kids forget stuff when they grow up.”
“I’m not people,” she said, sitting up. “I’m Maya. I don’t forget things that matter.”
He smiled, relieved. “Good.”
The sunlight filtered through the leaves, painting speckled patterns on their faces. For a moment, the world felt golden and still.
“I’ll write our names somewhere here,” Maya said. She pulled out a chalk bit from her pocket—stolen from school, naturally—and scribbled near the old wall:
M + K \= Secret Place
Kian watched in silence, then added a smiley face beside it.
—
They stayed there for what felt like hours, talking nonsense, making more rules, giving names to the ants—like ‘Mr. Sharma’ for the math teacher who always gave surprise tests, and ‘Miss Teekhi’ for the neighbor who always complained about their cricket ball hitting her wall.
As the sun started dipping low, the air cooled a little. Long shadows stretched across their feet.
“We should go,” Maya said, brushing dirt off her shorts. “Mum will ask why it took me so long to get bread.”
“And mine will say I’ve been ‘returning the tiffin’ for too long,” Kian replied, rolling his eyes.
They both stood, reluctant.
“You’ll come tomorrow?” Maya asked.
“Only if you bring candy,” he said with a smirk.
She kicked a pebble at him. “I’ll bring jalebi.”
“And I’ll bring comics. The spooky ones.”
As they walked home together, side by side, they passed the street dogs lounging under scooters, vegetable vendors closing for the day, and aunties on balconies calling their kids for dinner.
No one called them back, no one hurried them. It was one of those rare days that felt like it might stay in their pockets forever, like candy wrappers they didn’t want to throw away.
—---------------------------------------------
Poem: The Place Only We Knew
In the arms of summer, we found a gate,
A crumbling wall, a twist of fate.
With mango trees and silent stone,
We made a world to call our own.
No one else could hear the call,
Of leaves that danced or bricks that fall.
We whispered dreams the winds once blew,
In a place only we two knew.
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