What did they mean? He hated it when grown ups explained things and it made it no clearer. So they'd say the same thing but slower as though that would make it better. Surely they should be able to tell him what it meant?
"You can read between the lines."
Read what? What lines?
"It's just a saying."
Yes but what does it mean?
"That it's not what's written, it's what they are implying."
Imply. Now they were using words they knew he didn't understand. He gave up and walked away. Upstairs in the quiet of his bedroom he took out a piece of paper and drew a line. Next to it he drew another and sat back. He stared at the gap between the two pencil grey lines and concentrated hard. Nothing. He continued to stare until the lines seemed to flicker but he still could find nothing to read between them. He lifted the sheet and put the paper right to the end of his nose. Now the lines blurred until he wasn't sure what he could see anymore, but he felt it.
He was falling, falling like in a dream. Falling into the space between the lines. Falling and spinning inducing a feeling of nauseousness and a popping in his ears. When he landed it took a few moments to realise that the rough terrain was in fact the fibres of the paper. The massive grey motorways were made of his pencil marks. He looked around and his eyes settled on a notice board in the distance. He ran towards it and as he got nearer he could begin to make out words. This is it, he thought, this is the writing between the lines.
He stood, hands on hips, and read the sentence in front of his eyes. What on earth did it mean?
'Mind the Gap'?
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