Page 92 of Second Chances at the Board Game Café

She took it off him, and looked at the photo on the screen. It was a miniature landscape with small stone houses and rolling hills. She recognised the little trees from the box. And there was a canal too, with a bridge going across it and the cutest little narrowboats. And crisscrossing the entire thing were railway tracks, tracks that passed through miniature stations, where tiny people were awaiting their trains.

‘Harry made all that,’ said Max.

‘Some of it,’ said Harry. ‘I bought a lot of the buildings.’

Max disappeared back into the shed. Taylor stood looking at Harry’s phone and then she looked at Harry.

‘It’s beautiful, Harry. I had no idea you were so creative.’

And with that, all her intentions to take things slowly, to wait until he was ready, to go at his pace, went out of the window and she stepped towards him and pressed her lips against his.

He seemed surprised, hesitating for a moment before kissing her back and wrapping his arms around hers. And she hoped that he’d got all of that oil off his hands, because this was one of her favourite dresses and much as she liked him, she didn’t want it getting spoiled.

‘Yuk,’ said a voice.

She and Harry pulled apart to see Max staring at them.

‘I thought you wanted us to get together?’ said Taylor.

‘Yeah, I do, but you don’t have to kiss in front of me.’

Epilogue

Four months later

There were so many trains, but then there were always trains on a day trip with Harry. Harry liked routine as much as Max, so every Saturday the two of them caught the train to York and went round the National Railway Museum, whilst Mum had what she called ‘me time’.

But today she’d come along too, and they hadn’t caught the train, they’d come in the car and Harry had driven them to a special place because he had a special plan. There were still trains though so Max didn’t mind missing their usual visit to York.

Some of the ones here were boxy locomotives from the seventies, but Max still liked them, and there were some steam trains too. Harry had told him that sometimes steam trains came through Hebbleswick station, but he’d never seen one. There were loads of them here though, all different colours. Max liked the green one best. It was shiny and had the words ‘Great Central’ written on the tender that it pulled behind it.

They were in Barrow Hill Roundhouse. Max hadn’t known what a roundhouse was when Harry had told him and Mum where he was planning to take them that Saturday. It was, it turned out, a huge shed with a turntable in it. These days trains could go in two directions, but the first trains couldn’t so turntables were needed to turn the engines around.

‘It’s like a lazy Susan for trains,’ Harry had said.

This roundhouse was special; it was the last one in the whole of the United Kingdom with a turntable that still worked, and, at twelve o’clock exactly, there would be a demonstration.

It had taken nearly two hours to get here – there had been a traffic jam on the motorway. He had sat quietly in the back, watching Mum and Harry in the front. Mum had seemed excited, even though she hadn’t a clue what was going to happen today. But then she always did when they went out with Harry, even though the two of them had been boyfriend and girlfriend for ages now. Since the day he and Harry had cleared out the shed.

They’d lived in Mr B’s house for a bit, but then Mum had said it was silly paying rent there, when they spent so much time at Harry’s, so they’d moved house again, in with Harry this time, which was brilliant as he and Harry had built an enormous model railway in the shed and he got to play with it whenever he liked. And when he wasn’t doing that, they played train games. Harry had loads of train games. Railroad Ink was Max’s favourite. You rolled dice and then drew a map of your railway using one of those pens like they used on the whiteboards at school.

Sometimes Max was allowed to invite a friend over for tea. He could invite anyone he liked and he always chose Oliver. He got on okay with the boys in his new class – he was in Year 5 now – but Ollie was the only person he knew besides Harry who loved board games as much as he did. One afternoon, Harry had helped him and Ollie to make their own fan version of Ticket to Ride. Ticket to Ride ‘Ey-up, Welcome to Yorkshire’ featured the rail network of the whole county, including the Worth Valley Railway, with the little station of Oakworth – that was the one in The Railway Children. Max had drawn a little picture of the board game café next to Essendale station on the map, and a little picture of his new school beside Hebbleswick.

The best thing of all was that he would soon have a little sister. Mum and Harry had shown him a blurry black and white photo of her inside Mum’s tummy.

‘That’s Esme,’ Mum had said.

‘After the judge in the sewing bee programme?’ Max had asked.

‘After Harry’s gran,’ Mum had said, but she had given him a little wink.

Max couldn’t remember feeling this happy, and he couldn’t remember seeing his mum look so happy either. She was checking her make-up now, staring at her reflection in the shiny polished metal of one of the engines. She often checked her appearance, he’d noticed, when Harry was around.

‘You look great, Mum,’ he said, putting an arm around her waist. She’d be even happier after today.

He was so excited at the sight of all the engines that he almost forgot to keep an eye on the time. This was vital if Harry’s plan was going to work.

‘I’ll need your help, buddy,’ Harry had told him. ‘At exactly two minutes to twelve, you have to say you need the toilet. Then your mum will offer to go with you – she always does – and you say no, that you’re too old to have your mum waiting outside the door of the gents and you’re going on your own.’