As I looked down at the ground and saw the deflated balloon, I said out loud, “I wonder where this came from.”
It lay there with an air of having given up, collapsed into itself as though embarrassed by its own presence. I had the strangest notion that the balloon had been waiting for me to notice it.
The texture was wrong for a balloon. That was the first thing I noticed. It wasn’t rubbery; it wasn’t translucent; it didn’t have that faint shimmer that balloons usually make when they collapse after having been expanded. This one was matte and thick, the surface faintly creased like a water-skin that had seen desert weather. When I nudged it with my toes, it didn’t bounce or slide away. It resisted, soft but stubborn, more like leather than anything else. It was warm, too, which startled me enough that I jumped back.
I remember thinking, very clearly, this doesn’t belong here.
The garden was ordinary in every other way. A sagging fence, the apple tree that never bore fruit, the compost heap my father promised would one day become soil and never did. Mulch that had dried out. The balloon sat in the middle of it all like a mistake that had decided not to correct itself.
Shall I pick it up? The thought arrived fully formed, immediately followed by another, less reasonable one. Maybe it’s poisoned. I had recently learned the word ricin from a documentary I wasn’t supposed to be watching, and it floated up now, important and dangerous. Maybe touching it with my toes was already enough to kill me. Maybe it was one of those things you only read about later, after the damage is done.
Or maybe it would explode. I imagined mines buried just beneath the skin of the earth, waiting patiently for the wrong foot, the wrong hand. The balloon could be a trick, a soft invitation masking something violent and precise. I stood there for a long time, arguing silently with myself, the way children do when they don’t yet know how to trust either their instincts or their bravery.
In the end, I compromised. I always did. I still do.
I found a stick. It was dry and snapped easily from the hedge, light enough to drop if something went wrong. I poked the balloon once, gently. Nothing happened. I poked it again, harder this time, and the surface gave way with a sound like a sigh finally released.
The balloon burst open.
Not popped; opened. The side-seam split neatly, as if it had been waiting for permission. From inside, something unfolded itself with great care, stretching arms and legs as though waking from a cramped sleep. An elf climbed out, brushing bits of golden lining from his hair, which stuck up in earnest, unhelpful directions.
He looked at me and smiled, entirely unafraid.
“I am,” he said, with the seriousness of someone announcing a very small but very firm truth, “the modern version of the genie of Aladdin.” I waited. Even then, I understood there was meant to be more. “But,” he continued, raising one finger, “I don’t grant wishes.” This seemed important. I felt an unreasonable disappointment anyway. “I help with maths homework,” he said. “Specifically yours. Since you are in great need of such a thing.”
I opened my mouth to argue, then closed it again. He wasn’t wrong. “I will also give you private lessons,” he added, “so that you will get at least a B in the next test. Not a D.”
The way he said D made it sound terminal.
And sure enough, he did.
Henry, because that was his name, though I don’t remember asking, came to live quietly in my room. We made him clothes from old socks and scraps of fabric I got from buying clothes from the charity shop [Janet assumed they were for my dolls, and I didn’t gainsay her], and he insisted on buttons, which I made from dried tangerine pips, and sewed on badly, and often crooked. He ate little, mostly bread and fruit, and claimed cracker crumbs were his favourite food because they were already humble.
Each afternoon, he sat with me at my desk, legs swinging, explaining fractions in ways that made sense, drawing tiny diagrams in the margins of my notebooks. He was patient without being kind about it, which turned out to be exactly what I needed. When I sulked, he waited. When I tried, he nodded once, as if ticking something off an invisible list.
I kept him a secret. Not because he asked me to, but because he felt like the sort of magic that would vanish if spoken aloud. Secrets, I learned, can be a form of shelter.
Years passed. Tests came and went. I grew. I got a Doctorate in Applied Mathematics. Henry stayed the same, ageless in the way small, necessary things often are. He mended his own clothes, hummed unfamiliar tunes at night, and sometimes stood at the window, looking up, as if listening for something very far away.
Twenty years ago, though it feels like both yesterday and another lifetime, I woke in the middle of the night to a soft creaking sound. In the garden below, illuminated by moonlight, a big golden leather balloon rested on the grass. This one was whole, its seams shining, a bag attached to its side, like a promise.
Henry stood beside my bed, dressed neatly in his best clothes.
“It’s time,” he said, not sadly.
We didn’t hug. We never did. He waved once, jumped out of the window, climbed into the basket, and the balloon lifted itself with quiet confidence, floating up and away, clearing the apple tree with ease.
I watched until it disappeared.
Now that I am grown, I remember these things fondly. Not with disbelief, but with the calm certainty that some help arrives exactly when it is needed, takes an unexpected form, and leaves without applause.
Sometimes, when I struggle with something that feels too large, I look down at the ground, half-expecting to see another deflated balloon, waiting patiently to be noticed.
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