The Gnome Was Watching

“Some streets don’t just look different—they feel like they belong to people who don’t even know what it’s like to run.”

The car ride didn’t take long—twenty minutes, maybe less—but every second felt weighted, stretched out like something delicate you don’t want to rush through. We weren’t just moving through streets; we were moving through a kind of memory of normal life, like stepping into someone else’s childhood where things were simple and safe and full of small, manageable joys.

The suburban houses we passed had tidy driveways and painted fences that weren’t peeling. Their letterboxes weren’t dented or rusted but shaped like dolphins or kangaroos or little red trains, each one a quiet declaration that this house belonged to people who expected to stay. One even had a fairy garden tucked beneath a tree, complete with painted rocks and a tiny plastic gnome half-hidden among the mulch. I stared at it as we passed, half-convinced the gnome might have been watching us back.

These streets weren’t like the ones we’d passed through late at night with the car windows wound up and the doors locked tight. These streets weren’t made of shadows and warning signs. They were sunlit and slow, lined with jacarandas and grevilleas and trees I didn’t know the names of, but which looked like they’d grown here on purpose. This part of Brisbane didn’t feel like a stopgap. It felt like it belonged to people who knew what day of the week it was without having to check a calendar or a petrol receipt.

Kids rode scooters and bikes along the footpaths, their wheels clicking and clacking over the concrete. Their helmets were bold with cartoon characters and glitter, and their voices floated through the open windows of our car, full of laughter and bright morning plans. It wasn’t the kind of laughter you forced for politeness or out of nerves—it was the real kind, loud and fearless.

I watched a group of them zoom down a gentle slope, their handlebars wobbling slightly before they found balance again, and I felt something twist inside me—part longing, part wonder, part a very faint, very cautious hope. They looked like kids who didn’t need to pack emergency bags. Kids who weren’t learning to read their parents’ silences or count the number of locks between themselves and the outside world.

Mum sat with both hands on the steering wheel, her eyes flicking quickly between the road and the signs, the parked cars, the mirrors. But there was a kind of lightness in her shoulders today, as if—for now—she wasn’t expecting the worst to be waiting around the next corner.

When we turned into the park entrance, I let out a breath I hadn’t realised I was holding.

Downey Park wasn’t just big. It was open. It stretched out in all directions like a living map of what life could be if you weren’t always looking for escape routes. Shady trees arched over winding footpaths. There were families everywhere—setting up under gazebos, spreading picnic rugs across the grass, unpacking containers that clicked open with the promise of sandwiches and homemade treats.

The air smelled like cut grass and warm bread and sunscreen. Like safety.

Mack leaned forward in his seat, scanning the car park as if cataloguing all the possible exits, his eyes landing briefly on each face, each vehicle, each possibility. But even he couldn’t quite hide the flicker of interest that passed across his features when he saw the skate ramp and the shaded bench beside it. Something about the scene must’ve passed his test for now, because he leaned back again, not relaxed exactly, but not braced in quite the same way.

Near the entrance, a man with thinning hair and a red face was trying to wrestle a bunch of helium balloons into submission. They bobbed above him like oversized lollies—yellow and blue and shaped like stars—while he attempted to anchor them to a folding table. One escaped and floated upward, wriggling out of his grasp like it had better places to be.

“Someone’s having a party,” I said quietly, not really meaning to speak out loud.

Mum smiled at me in the rear-view mirror. “Looks like it.”

She didn’t say more, but I saw the way her eyes lingered on the family unpacking a cake box, the kids in birthday hats, the cluster of women setting up folding chairs and checking each other’s makeup in compact mirrors. She watched them like someone studying a distant planet—fascinated but unsure if it was inhabitable.

I imagined what it would feel like to belong in that scene. To run up to those kids and be offered a piece of cake without anyone asking who I was or why I was there. To have someone tell me it was time for pass-the-parcel, and not have to pretend that everything was fine while keeping one eye on the grown-ups to see if we were about to leave again.

Mum pulled into a parking spot with a view of the biggest playground I’d ever seen—twisting slides, rope bridges, monkey bars shaped like vines, all gleaming in the sun like they’d just been installed. I reached for the handle before the engine had even gone quiet.

“Wait,” Mum said softly, not sternly, just enough to make me pause. She took a slow breath. “We’re going to have a good day, okay? Just… stay close. No running off. Promise me.”

I nodded, eyes wide and heart already thumping with the possibilities stretched out beyond the car doors.

“Promise.”

And I meant it. Because I wanted this day to be good—not just for me, but for all of us. I wanted it to be the kind of day that stuck in your memory for all the right reasons. The kind you could keep like a smooth stone in your pocket, to reach for when things got hard again.

And somewhere deep down, I think we all knew we were going to need something like that.