Girl from Mars by Tamara Bach

older or grown up or both that I won’t live here anymore. I might live in a big city, maybe even in Berlin, or...who knows.
    In ten years I’ll be twenty-five. What will I be like then? Maybe I’ll have been in love with the same person for a few years. Maybe I’ll have children, or a dog. I wonder what I’ll be doing then. I picture an apartment overlooking a street full of traffic. At night drunk people wander down the sidewalk singing arias. Actually, I justpicture myself standing there and looking out at the street below. Nothing more.
    It’s getting warmer out. I stand out on the balcony and smoke a cigarette butt that I’ve hidden. This is nice, the balcony. You can stand here and look out at the garden. Beyond that is nothing but countryside.
    But what I really like about it isn’t the fields or the trees, but the sky. The sky is so big here. In the city it always looks as though the sky has just been hung out to dry between the houses. But here it’s different. At night the sky is a big black blanket with flecks of stars, a blanket that I can pull over my head when I’m sad. Or happy. A cool blanket when I have a fever. A warm blanket when I’m cold.
    The balcony door opens and I quickly hide the cigarette butt with the others.
    â€œHey, sweetie?”
    â€œYeah?”
    â€œHow are you?”
    â€œOkay.”
    Mum links her arm through mine. “Did you have a fight with Dennis?”
    â€œWhatever.” She hasn’t noticed the cigarette.
    â€œLove life problems?”
    I shrug. Then we’re quiet.
    â€œThere are supposed to be shooting stars tonight,” Mum says suddenly.
    â€œYeah, I heard that.”
    â€œNice, isn’t it?”
    And I nod.
    â€œThe sky is completely clear. We’ll probably see some.”
    I’ve never seen a shooting star.
    And then one falls. I see it out of the corner of my eye.
    â€œSo, did you make a wish?” Mum asks.
    â€œNo.”
    â€œSo, think of one quickly then.”
    And then another one falls. What should I wish? I look over at Mum. I see her face looking up at the sky. And she smiles and in the moonlight she looks much softer.
    Sometimes I wonder how everything can be so shitty most of the time and then suddenly completely different, so still and peaceful. Like the way she’s standing here right now, her hair pinned up and with the moonlight shining on her face.
    What do I wish for her? I wish her the best. I wish her luck and good health and then I wish that we wouldn’t fight so much. So that she wouldn’t have to be sad.
    Another star falls.
    â€œDid you make a wish on that one?” Mum asks.
    I nod.
    And Mum smiles.

10
    â€œSo have you ever had pets?” Laura asks me.
    â€œA few. Nothing with fur, though. A few fish, a turtle that ran away. And a budgie.”
    â€œI had a budgie, too, once. But I killed it,” says Phillip.
    â€œWhat?” I say. Laura starts to laugh.
    â€œShut up, Laura!” Phillip snaps. “It was really tragic. He used to fly free in my room and one day I went into my room and forgot that I’d left the cage open. I slammed the door shut as soon as I noticed, but Hansi was caught in the middle.”
    Now Laura’s really having a fit.
    â€œWhat do you mean, in the middle?” I ask.
    â€œI crushed him. With the door.”
    â€œOuch!”
    â€œYeah, it was not a great moment,” Phillip says, but even he can’t stop smiling a little.
    â€œIt was my fault that our budgie Joker died,” I say. “I left him out in the sun too long and his weak heart couldn’t take it.”
    I still remember the Ferrero Rocher box that we buried him in. Funny. That box never showed up again.
    â€œHe was a good budgie,” I say.
    Laura raises her cup high. “To Joker. He was a good budgie.”
    â€œIt’s all a bit macabre, isn’t it?” I say then. “I was pretty devastated at