Jack sat on the kitchen stool while I made him coffee - milk with no sugar - because that's about the only thing he drinks beside plain old water. Cassie thinks he might have caffeine poisoning, depending on how long he's been like that but I guess doctors are never really serious about anything. Mum used to say that coffee matched the colour of his hair, but I don't think I ever realised it before that Sunday afternoon.

'Thanks,' he said, wrapping his cellist fingers around the porcelain, hungry for its warmth. 'This is brilliant. It's freezing out there.'

'Is it still snowing?'

He shook his head slowly. 'I think it's melting, actually. And it's about time.'

'Yeah,' I agreed, but I could tell that there was something else on his mind - it was in the way his eyebrows furrowed in a combination of anger, melancholy and futility.

He must have noticed that I was staring at him - waiting, perhaps, for something more - and allowed me a half-smile, a glimpse through the mask that he was carefully keeping between us. He opened his mouth, and I thought that he was going to explain but he looked past me and said, 'They're beautiful.'

He said it so quietly that for half a minute I wasn't sure that he had even said anything at all, but then I turned and saw what he was referring to: the cluster of crisp, lopsided white flowers in their black vase on the bench near the window, spotlighted in a beam of pale sunlight. 'Yeah, they are, aren't they?'

The wind sighed through the gap between the glass and the window frame, and I thought I heard Jack sigh too. It didn't sound strange at the time, though I would look back and think so. 'Yeah, snowblossom.'

I reached out and picked a sprig of flowers and the fragrance of fresh vanilla fused through the air. Vanilla filled to the brim with a promise of spring. The kind of scent that Cassie uses when she goes out on weekends, but not nearly as artificial. When you sniff Cassie's perfume, you can smell the crushed too-sweetness of flowers already dying. Snowblossom doesn't have that smell. It's the scent that lingers long after the flowers are gone - the scent, and the remembrance of its beauty.

'Why are you here Jack?'

'I came to tell you,' he hesitated, 'the Statue is going to be demolished.'

I remember freezing up momentarily, though I was shaking the way you do when you try too hard and your muscles are too tense. My fingers were trembling so violently that a delicately lopsided petal fell from one of the flowers in my hand. The Statue had been there my entire life. I passed it everyday on my way to school, on the way to the park, on the way to Jack's house. I'd had special times there with Cassie, with friends, some of whom weren't my friends anymore. And with Jack. Always and especially with Jack.

My heart caught somewhere between my throat and my ribs and shuddered painfully, before dropping back into nothingness.

'We have to go there,' I said. I don't think there is a word to describe how I said it. Language can only communicate so much emotion, and even now I am not as literate as I would like. Urgency, perhaps, comes close but still not halfway to what I was feeling.

I don't remember much of the walk there. I do remember the cold and the jacket that Jack pressed into my hands as we left the house - I remember that it smelt like him. I remember the little things, like the trail of vanilla scent that swirled around us in amongst the snow, and the sight of Cassie's car, half-buried in slowly melting snow. And I remember making footprints in that thick layer of untouched snow on the footpath - that's something that nobody every forgets. I couldn't remember the last time we had had snow, and we haven't since that year, so long ago.

The statue was also lined with a frosting of snow. Tiny rivulets of water trickled down the ridges between the feathers of the angel's wings to the dark loam at the statue's base. The tiny birds could hardly be seen under the blanket of white. A few pieces of stray litter lay scattered around the urban clearing but I ignored them and went straight to the Statue. With the afternoon sun shining through behind it, it almost looked like a real, heavensent angel. Raphael wearing a "To be demolished" badge on his proud breast.

Yeah, I remember that moment very clearly. It really did look like an angel. Almost.

Almost.

I sat down next to Jack on a stone bench overgrown with unwanted climbing vines. Ivy, mostly. The ice on the stone next to my leg began to melt as I stared thoughtfully up at the Statue, setting a slowly expanding cold, damp patch against my skirt.

'Remember the time we hid in the bushes and scared the people passing by?'

Even as the words left my mouth, I felt how wrong they sounded. At the time it had been funny for both of us. Now it seemed . juvenile. Immature.

But Jack simply muttered, 'Yeah .' I guess he was enjoying the silence for what looked to be the last time.

'I can't believe they're going to raze this down,' I said, gazing fondly up at the angel. Looking at it brought a whirlwind of memories, which in turn sent a myriad of mixed emotions jolting through my mind: hate (like the time Ellouise Henderson chased me hear back in third grade . I still have the scar where one of the sticks she loved to throw hit its target: me), adoration (whenever Cassie stayed long enough to take me here) and - and quiet, if that was an emotion. The Statue was my place before it was anyone else's, even Jack's. It was where I had met Jack for the first time, and for the most part it hadn't changed one bit. The graffiti stains on the grey stone were a little deeper and the brush was a little more overgrown, successfully hiding the many layers of orange peels and plastic chip packets thrown in there over the years.

'Has Cassie been back lately?' Jack asked, without looking at me. He didn't really have any real sort of enthusiasm for the idea.

'Not since June. Oh, she used to like this place,' I remembered, fondly. 'She used to like it a lot. She used to take her boyfriends here sometimes -'

'Yeah, I remember that,' Jack said, and for the first time for a while, he looked at me and smiled. 'We came to see if Snowball had maybe come here when the gate was left open, but they were here. That was embarrassing, that was.'

It had been embarrassing, and that had been about eighteen months from that Sunday afternoon - a good seven years from now. I hadn't been able to look Cassie straight in the eye for the rest of her visit, but by the next one, she seemed to have forgotten.

'Do you think she ever forgave you?' Jack asked suddenly.

The question caught me off guard. He had always been mellow for his age - ever since his mother and sister had both died, one from an accident and the other from something that may have been unavoidable - but he'd never really been one for talking when it wasn't necessary, and that included hypothetical questions that didn't really mean anything.

'Maybe .' I answered cautiously. 'She only mentioned it once, and that was when she told us that she'd dumped the guy. But I think she has. I'm not sure.'

Jack smiled again, but this time it was humorless. 'Sisters are like that,' he said rather wryly. 'And maybe boyfriends - or girlfriends - are too. I wouldn't know. But some things never change.'

'And some things do, I guess,' I replied, vaguely. The Statue, washed in afternoon sunlight had caught my attention again and would not let go. I had been leaning towards Jack almost unconsciously, the only source of warmth in a world of cold I had not been prepared for in my impulsive dash to visit the Statue again. I leaned back, a shaft of light filtered through the finest gap between the angel's robe and the waves of water from which it was emerging.

In that instant, as my sight was blinded by with rosy gold, I took a leap towards understanding. Not the beginning of my understanding, nor the end - it would be the first link in a long chain of learning to understand life - but it was, perhaps, a beginning. I blinked furiously to clear my eyes of the bright shapes that appeared to have etched themselves onto my retina. And then, everything changed. It was like seeing the clearing for the first time.

With snowblossom scent still lingering about us, I noticed the way Jack's jacket hem had started to come unravelled, and how the dark cotton was dragging down in the snow that was now turning to mush. My first instinct was to pick it up and wring it out, but I stopped myself even as I reached down towards it. Since when had I ever cared about dirt? I, Sam, who had worn the same shoes for five years even though they didn't fit anymore - not because they were so filthy that the buckles were no longer looked like polished brass, or because we couldn't afford to get another pair, but because they were already broken in and new ones always took so long to become comfortable. I, who had, with Jack's help, dragged my bed mattress outside so that we could jump from the garden ledge onto the ground without hurting ourselves, and then dragged it straight back on the bed in time for dinner? And here I was, picking out a stray piece of thread, soaked through with sleet and soil? No, not this Samantha Mack.

But the jacket was about to become the least of my problems. I saw the dark outlines of all kinds of trash, no longer limited to orange peel and chip packets in the bushes. I saw the multicoloured garish patterns of many, many layers of graffiti over the angel's stony skin. I saw the way one of the angel's ears had fallen away, and how one of the bird's wings had been ripped off by some force greater than, if not as determined as, the weathering of nature. The snow on the footpath, that had seemed so white, was now a slushy grey. The magic that had held the Statue together had collapsed in an instant, and here I was staring at some kind of echo of its being.

'Jack .' I said, standing up. I think my voice shook, because he stood up too and came to stand behind me. 'Do you - do you see it?'

'See what, Sam?' He seemed genuinely curious.

'The Statue. The ivy. The rubbish.' I waved my arm around helplessly, finding for what would be the first time that language would not serve to express myself. 'Your jacket. What's happened?'

'What do you mean?'

'It . it isn't there any more,' I said, lamely. 'The - the beauty. The magic.'

'Beauty and magic, huh?' He looked amused, which only made me grate my teeth. 'Oh, that . that hasn't been here for years. Two, at least.'

'You haven't seen it for two years? But it was just here.'

'For you maybe.' He thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his pants and looked deceptively grim, for all his exuberant coffee-coloured hair. 'It's been gone a lot longer for me.' 'Two years?' I couldn't believe it. 'The Statue has been like this for you for two years? But it's . horrible. Ugly. I don't know why-'

'You didn't see it before?' he talked right over me. 'Yeah, some things are like that. Some things you don't see until they're right on top of you, and then it's too late.'

'What things?'

'Oh . things,' he said distantly. 'But you - as for you - I think you just grew up.'

'I - I grew up?'

'Well, that's not what I meant.' He, too, struggled to find words. 'Growing up is a process that takes a while. That's what the teachers at school say, anyway - and I'm sure if you'll ask Cassie she'll tell you the same thing. But the first step is always the biggest. I think you just took your first step.'

A thousand thoughts were spinning through my mind, each as incomprehensible as the last. 'Does that mean . things are going to change like this?' I meant the Statue but Jack seemed to grasp that fairly quickly, even if I hadn't mentioned it.

'Sam, you're thirteen. Some things are bound to start changing sooner or later.'

'But some things don't change.' And I remember putting special emphasis on this phrase, as if I could believe in it hard enough, everything would be set right again. 'Some things don't . right?'

'Yeah,' Jack said, sighing deeply. 'Some things don't change, whether you like it or not. I'm growing up too, you know. Times are changing, and so are we. We can't help that, but we can bend with it.'

I sniffled.

'Don't make this harder than it is, please,' he said, and there was something of a pleading in his voice. I had never heard him use that tone before, and I never did again - just like the snow that would come for this special time only.

I said nothing, but leaned down to pick up a can, sharp and jagged around the opening. A small handful of snowblossom petals fluttered to the ground in my sudden movement. The can felt very real as I turned it around in my hands, examining every inch of it with my senses, though I could not completely block out the persistent vanilla scent that clung to both Jack and I.

By accident, or by some deeper, unconscious movement, the sharp edge of the can found my flesh and cut away at it, leaving a line where red blood sprang to the surface and spilled over. There was a slight twinge of pain, and then there was nothing. Jack reached over with hardened fingers and took my hand in his, squeezing the cut closed. Blood welled up even more quickly as if eager to escape and fell to the snow in congealing, exploding droplets, scarlet against dirty grey.

I tossed the can away into the bushes and dug my hands deep into the folds of the jacket that was not mine. 'I'm going home,' I said, and turned away.

He must have heard me, but he made no sign that he had. Jack only stood there, gazing at the Statue with a kind of expressionless reverence. I left him like that. The Statue was demolished the following Monday and replaced with the smallest car park in the city.

I was walking past Jack's house on the way home from school sometime that week. There would be no one at home except him, and I wasn't sure if I wanted to talk to him at all, so for a while, I just stood outside and listened. He was practicing his cello, not that he sounded like he was practicing. It sounded as if he was on stage performing in front of a thousand people for money - and there were many who would pay to hear him play the way he did that day.

Cello music has always been my favorite music. Whether it is a cause or an effect of Jack's influence on the way I see life remains to be seen, but that was the only time I ever heard him play. His family, what was left of it, moved away a few months later. Maybe it was for the best.

He never took back his jacket, though. I still have it - it hangs on the back of my wardrobe door and smells wonderful. Sometimes I simply bury my nose in it and smell the blood from my cut finger (I have that scar, too), the faint but very distinct smell of snowblossom and deep amongst all the other smells it has accumulate over the years, is the smell of him. The smell of a young boy still finding out who he was, and on the way, helping to find out the identity of a young girl. I miss him and the snow, but it doesn't snow here anymore.

Seven years ago or more, one snowy Sunday afternoon, I went to see Sam. The urge for her company was as alien to me as the twinkling on the stars, and just as spontaneous. I was alone at home with my cello - Dad was at work, which wasn't uncommon, as he spends more time there than at home - but even a cello is just an instrument. It can't talk back to you, even if you are fool enough to talk to it. You can't hug a cello with any sense of satisfaction, and you can't cry on its shoulder - not that boys are supposed to cry, right? But I've cried plenty in my years on earth and maybe it's just because I've had the opportunity. The misfortune. The loss.

A cello is not a pet at the best of times. It was a silent companion to me in my darkest hours, but it was not a friend. And, I think, it was a friend I wanted that day. Or maybe something more. Even now, I don't know.

I walked the path I knew so well to Sam's house. The cold was bit through my coat, whose threads were woefully coming undone and had been for years. How many times had Dad told me to get a new one? Too many. It was only a short distance, but before I was halfway there, my fingers were frozen numb in my pockets and I had to stop to warm them.

I stood in the middle of the street, with my fingers pulled to my mouth, where I was rubbing them together and blowing warm air on them - though even that was not very warm - and then I noticed the statue I had not visited for over a year and a half. Crudely taped to the stone was the yellow paper of a council notice: "Marked for demolition".

I wasn't surprised at the time, and now I wonder if there was really any reason to. When I was younger, I used to hang around the statue a lot; just sit on the bricks and stare up at it. Sometimes it almost seemed to be looking back with its blank eyes and I used to pretend that it could hear me talking. I guess that's what every kid without a mother wants - someone to talk to. A statue was as good as anything, and it even had a humanoid shape.

But on Monday it would be gone. Broken from its ethereal height to be sent to the deepest depths of the local tip. The neglected plants would be ripped up and turned into mulch and fertilizer for their house-broken cousins, and decades of accumulated rubbish would be exposed.

Maybe I was glad. I don't quite remember. Maybe I should have been glad - that statue had lost its magic for me long ago. But Sam still loved going there and, as far as I knew, she still did.

Sam. Why was everything about Sam?

The derelict statue gazed nobly at me and, in the rifts of my confused mind, silently answered my question. A final gift of understanding. I was growing up.

I gave the statue a half nod of acknowledgement and thanks. Nothing else would have been appropriate. Then I turned and continued my walk to Sam's house. I did not look back. It would not be the last time I saw it.

Sam let me in when I arrived and took me straight to the kitchen where the kettle was already boiling. She knows that I only drink coffee (milk, no sugar) and water. It's not something I would explain to anyone else. Only Sam would ever really understand, and some things never change. No one has really understood me since Sam first did.

'Thanks,' I said, upon warming my fingers on the coffee mug. 'This is brilliant. It's freezing out there.'

She sat down across from me with a cup of hot chocolate - that's what she had been making when I came. 'Is it still snowing?'

A strange sensation was growing at the corner of my mind, triggering a slight fluttering in my stomach. I turned both away with a steady shake of my head. 'I think it's melting actually,' I answered. 'And it's about time.'

'Yeah .' she mumbled, lowering her huge brown eyes to the rim of her cup. She was thinking about something else, even as I was but neither of us knew each other's agenda. And when she looked up, she looked me straight in the eye.

Waiting.

Remembering what the statue had told me as its last words, I allowed a sliver of a smile. In my heart, I was finding the words to express what I want to say. I remember letting my eyes wander around the room, preserving that moment forever as if it would - and it did - change my life forever. I could paint it, if I had any skill with a brush or even a pencil, I remember it that well. The windows were rattling with the sweeping winter wind, the room was filled with half-hearted sunlight and there was a sprig of white snowblossom, rising out of the rich ebony of the vase.

I sighed, wondering whether what I was doing was the right thing. I tried to look up but I couldn't quite meet her eyes.

'You're beautiful.'