Before the friend went away for the week, Mia held out both hands, and into them came a kite — bright red, light as a leaf, with a long paper tail that whispered when it moved. "I'll fly it carefully," said Mia. "I promise."
The afternoon was gusty. The grass ruffled this way, then that way, under a wide open sky. Up went the red kite, tugging, dancing, and Mia held the string tight and laughed at the tail going swish above the hedge.
Then a big wind came, sudden as a sneeze. It pulled. The string went slippy-slidey, out and out and gone, and the kite flew off sideways into the tangled hedgerow with a soft paper crackle.
Mia stood very still. The red kite hung in the twigs, and its long tail had a tear in it, a raggedy tear, flapping. Her hands felt empty. "Mom," she called, in a small voice, "I dropped it."
Mom lifted the kite gently out of the hedge and they took it home, and set it on the kitchen table. She fetched red paper, and a little pot of glue, and a brush no wider than a daisy stem. And Mia did the mending, all alone, slowly.
Careful hands, careful hands. A dab of glue. A small red patch, smoothed flat with one fingertip. Another dab, another patch, smoothing, smoothing, until the raggedy tear lay down quiet and neat and the tail was long again.
When the sun went low and the wind went soft, Mia carried the kite outside. This time she wound the string twice round her wrist and held on, held on, held on — and up it rose, red against the pink sky, its patched tail whispering, flying.
"Down you come," said Mia, and wound the string in slowly, round and round, into a tidy little roll.
Now the kite rests on the windowsill in the moonlight. Its tail lies smoothed flat. Its string sits neat and ready. Tomorrow the friend comes home, and the red kite will go back into those waiting hands.
Sleep now. Outside, the hedge is still, and the wind has gone to bed too.