After some more time had passed, Percy finished fifth class and came to his Percy's eleventh December. He was 10 ½ years old.

Percy had broken up from school, and his parents were on holiday overseas, which was to last the entire duration of the Christmas holidays, which came to two months. Percy felt like a man who had found a ten million dollar lottery ticket in the street. He was going to spend the entire two months staying at his grandparents' house in 66 Burnseid Street Wahroonga.

On the Monday morning of his first week at Burnseid Street, Percy opted to go shopping with his grandmother. As usual, they went down into the cellar and collected the old soft drink bottles, to take to the Turramurra milk bar for a deposit. They found six bottles, which would provide enough money for Percy to buy a comic book. They walked down Burnseid Street, turned right and followed Eastern Road as far as the North Turramurra shopping centre. There Percy effectively traded a set of six empty bottles for a Superman comic book, which was not much to carry. So Percy carried half of the shopping purchases for his grandmother, and they went back to the old house. Percy read the comic, and then wandered out into the garden to amuse himself.

At the northern end of the old property there was a large lawn, with a small reserve of trees and bushes at the end of it, bordering with the side fence of the next door neighbours' tennis court. The bushy area was large enough to hide in and small enough not to get lost in. Percy found a small tree in the bush, and began to climb to the top.

The author of this piece has read, heard and seen various stories, wherein a character climbs to the top of something, and finds a fantastic scene at the top. It could be a giant, a secret hideout, a castle, or various other interesting items to catch the attention of the keen climber. However, with no intent to disappoint his readers, the author wishes to assert that Percy had climbed a tall tree only to see a certain scene which would require any fascinated climber to climb back down to the bottom of the tree.

From the branches of the tree, Percy saw a girl walking onto a tennis court with a large dolls house in her hand, held by a handle which protruded from its roof. Percy had not been to Burnseid Street since the August school holidays, and there had been no children living next door then. The girl put the dolls house down on the surface of the hard court, and stared into the bushes of 66 Burnseid Street, but not in the direction of Percy Dale. Her house was addressed in Burns Road, parallel to Burnseid Street. Burnseid Street was between Burns Road and Braeside Street, and had been given a composite name of the two in the 1890s, when the large acreages had been divided, in order to make an extra road through Wahroonga and build more houses on the land.

The girl was definitely a lot taller than Percy, although she did not look more than a few years older. She stared into the bushes, probably trying to see the old house, and then sat down, removed a latch; and then the dolls house opened out for the girl to use as a toy for the morning.

Percy climbed silently down from the tree, and walked through the bush to the fence. The girl was too absorbed in her dolls house to notice him. Percy looked at her blond hair and a pair of green eyes that had so far failed to detect the presence of the boy.

"Hello. I'm Percy."

With a four inch brunette in her hand, the girl looked up at Percy, and smiled.

"My name is Jenny. Do you want to come over here, Percy?"

"Yes please. The quickest way is to climb over the tennis court fence. Will your mother mind?"

(In the future, a door would be built into the fence, by the time Percy inherited the house as an adult).

"She won't see you. The house is too far back and around the garden from the tennis court."

Percy had never liked large crowds of people. At school he had always preferred to have one best friend with whom he spent most of his time. For the past year, he had been a close friend of a ten year old lad called James Hamilton. James had more knowledge of electronics than any first year university science student and had taught most of his rare skills to Percy. Percy and James had involved themselves in numerous exploits, which were excellent preparation for his Sneaky Spy activity. The only major troubles that the two had encountered were at school, where their juvenile fellow students often made them the victims of insults, bullying, and other inexcusable behaviour.

Percy had once had a dream:

            James Hamilton and himself were catching a bus home from school (which was      curious, because in real life, James was driven home by his mother and never caught         the bus with Percy). In the course of this alternate reality (provided by the activity of       Percy's subconscious mind, at the time when his body was acquiring its usual rest and relaxation), James opened his schoolbag, and took out a small robot, and sat it on the         seat of the bus between Percy and himself. James had given the robot a certain name   which was coincidentally interesting. Percy had three years earlier (in real life)             watched a television advertisement for a special green brand of Scandinavian soap.

            James had chosen this name - but not from the advertisement, in this dream - for the          robot, and they sat in the bus discussing their plans to use the robot, to protect them      from the lads who constantly harassed and bullied them at school. Then the scene (of        the dream) shifted to the school sportsground, a few days later. There was a large      crowd of people present, not all of them from the school, and James was about to             demonstrate the robot's capabilities to a captive audience. Percy could only look on,      frustrated, as James proceeded to show off his invention to everyone. It was supposed        to be their own private little solution to their problems, and now it had been used for

            other purposes, and a famous James Hamilton did not seem to know Percy anymore.

Percy had then awoken, frustrated because the dream had not concluded with a happy ending. He had never told the events of the dream to James or anybody else; and on the last day of school, James' mother had announced to Percy that James was to leave the school, and go to another one, at the end of that year. Percy was devastated. They could still see each other on weekends, but now Percy would have to face a school of sadistic students and callous teachers alone, a school that had driven his best friend out. Consequently, Percy had made up his mind to derive as much enjoyment as possible from the Christmas vacation at 66 Burnseid Street.

The only thing that he missed was being able to see James. His grandmother had managed all of her life without a driver's license, and his grandfather no longer held his. This meant that Percy could not go to visit James until the end of the holidays, when his parents returned from overseas.

So Percy welcomed the chance to meet a new friend next door. 66 Burnseid Street had a long driveway, with neighbouring properties on each side of it. The enormous block of land at the end of the driveway, with neighbouring properties around it. Percy felt enclosed and comfortable, and safe.

68 Burnseid Street was owned by the Stammers family, which consisted of mother (retired) and eighteen-year-old son, who had an extremely aggressive dog locked up on his premises.

64 Burnseid Street and most of the other surrounding houses were owned by elderly couples, and there was little view of any of them beyond the bushes and high fences on Percy's grandparents' boarders anyway.

All of that considered, it was rather pleasant to meet Jenny Winters. She was not a boy, but Percy was soon to learn that this would not be a problem. In an all-boys school, Percy had grown up to believe that girls were a species remotely akin to boys, except for the fact that they were given to sitting together at the back of school buses and giggling for no apparent reason.

Percy loved to giggle, but he enjoyed being let in on the reason for doing so. Percy saw ladies as "big, old girls, grown up, the ones that look pretty on television," and he could not begin to comprehend, or even be aware of the transition process that altered giggly girls into "pretty ladies on television screens."

"It would be nice to sit and giggle with Jenny occasionally," thought Percy, as he reached the top of the fence.

"You're good at climbing," said Jenny, "So am I, but my mother doesn't think I should go climbing. She says it is dangerous."

Percy jumped the remaining two metres to the tennis court, and waited for the effect of doing so to leave his feet.

"My grandmother's house has got lots of trees. If you can sneak out at night, we can do all the climbing you like."

"Easy. I'm the only one with a room downstairs, and I always leave a window open in summer, because it's so hot. But how will we get to your grandmother's house?"

"By climbing over the tennis court fence. That is my grandmother's house," said Percy pointing, "I'm living here for the holidays. Do you want to sneak out tonight?"

"I cannot tonight. I'll be staying tonight and tomorrow night at my cousin's house, but we can do it on Wednesday night. My cousin's coming to stay with us for two nights then. Can she sneak out with us too?"

"She sure can. When are you leaving?"

"After lunch, which isn't for a while. Would you like to play with my dolls?"

Percy had never played with dolls before. He had once had some teddy bears, and enjoyed playing with figurines of television cartoon characters. However, he saw no reason why he should not start playing with dolls now.

"Alright."

Percy wanted to secure the arrangements for wednesday night first, and then enjoy the fun.

"How about if I meet you and your cousin at this fence at one o'clock on Wednesday night, which is really Thursday morning?"

"We'll come then. Her name is Laura, and these are my friends Sally, Mary and Anna."

Jenny pointed to her dolls.

It was more than a change from his miserable life at school.

It was real fun.

Jenny wasn't like the boys, and Percy did not think that she was like the other girls either. During the next two hours, Sally's hair was combed, Anna went to sleep in the middle of the day, Mary tried on five new dresses, and then they all got together to have lunch, after

which - with a little less than an hour remaining, before Jenny had to go inside for lunch - Percy thought of an idea.

"Do you think that they would like to climb up that giant tree in my place just there?" he asked.

"Anna and Mary would, but Sally says she wants to stay here and keep me company. You go back over, and they can climb through the fence."

Percy was soon waiting to receive Anna and Mary, after which Jenny watched in admiration, as Percy helped the tiny pair to a branch where they could sit without falling off.

"They're having fun, Jenny."

"No they're not. Mary says you were too rough when she was climbing up."

"Well I tried to be ."
"You didn't try hard enough. They want to come back. Hurry up and help them back through the fence."

Percy did so.

He wondered whether he had upset Jenny, and whether it would cause her to change her mind about their midnight rendezvous.

For some reason this seemed to matter in a way that it had never mattered before.

"Sorry about that," he said, as Jenny reclaimed her dolls. She saw him try not to blink his eyes, and smiled.

"I was only teasing you. I still like you, and so do the friends."

"Oh...I just don't like teasing...unless I know it's only teasing. I thought you really didn't like me anymore."

"Then I shall never tease you again...Are you going to come back over now?"

"There's not much time left. I might as well see what Nan wants to have for lunch."

"But I want to make up for teasing you."

"Oh."
He climbed the tennis court fence again, and came down beside her. His head only reached her neck. He had no idea what she was going to do, because he did not know how girls made up for teasing people.

Percy was a boy who did not tease people, but the ones who did had never made up for it, and Percy was looking forward to whatever she was going to do.

Until she kissed his cheek.

For a split second it felt wonderful, and then he looked around, to see if there was anybody in sight.

"Don't you like that?"

"Yes I like it. It's just ... embarrassing, but you can do it again at night, if you would like to, not Wednesday night, but some night when it's just you and me."

"Alright, well I won't be embarrassing anymore. How old are you?"

"I'm ten."
"I'm twelve, and I like you," said Jenny.

This was why it had mattered so much not to have upset her when they had been playing with the dolls.

"I'm ten, and I like you too."

"Jenneeeey! Lunchtime!"
"Oh, that was Mother. I have to go. I'll see you here at one o'clock on Thursday morning. Here, take Sally to keep you company. Bye, Percy."

"Bye, Jenny."

He watched her close the dolls house, and carry it out of sight.

He'd never had a kiss from a nice young girl before. Percy merely thought of kissing as an embarrassing, nauseating procedure, which was always to be performed at the commencement and conclusion of visits to ageing relatives. This time it had been "to make up for teasing," and it was special, and pleasant, and fun.

As Percy found ways of amusing himself, in order to fill in the next two days, he found himself with new priorities on his mind. James Hamilton had paled into insignificance, and there was another notable change.

Percy's parents had given his grandmother enough money for her to supply Percy with his pocket money every Monday for the rest of the holidays. In addition to this, he would be given any money that the soft drink bottles would provide, and the occasional extras. For the first time, the idea of going up to the shops to buy a comic book was not of primary importance. Wednesday would be the seventh of December, and Percy wanted to buy something for Jenny in time for Christmas. He did not think about moving back home and going back to school, or if he did, he thought of those things as being items of unpleasantness on the other side of a high wall. Each week of the holidays was a certain distance away from that wall. He did not know how he would cope with that, when the weeks ran out and he had to climb the wall and face the items of unpleasantness on the other side. He would simply think to himself each Monday, "Well, I've still got ... weeks of holidays to go."

Percy had always seen the summer holidays as being segmented into Before Christmas and After Christmas. Now it was different. Christmas was just a date in the middle of a lot of fun that he would have with Jenny.

On Wednesday night, Percy said goodnight to his grandparents and went up to his bedroom. Percy's bedroom was at the end of the eastern upstairs hallway.

He set his alarm clock for a quarter to one, and put it on the end of the bed beside his pillow. That way he could stop its ringing before it woke up his grandparents. He climbed into bed, still wearing his clothes, and slept ... for a few hours. He dreamt that Jenny had reduced his size and was putting him gently into her dolls house. He enjoyed this too, which made his real life feelings for Jenny even more significant.