Ava put a coin in the jar.

Clink.

She looked at it. Then she looked again.

“It hasn't changed,” she told Louis.

“It has one more coin.”

“It isn't full.”

Not full. Not empty.

Ava was keeping coins for rocket-patterned skates she wanted. The jar had no special powers. It couldn't make tomorrow arrive, and it couldn't turn one coin into ten.

I hovered beside it. I checked. Still one coin.

Mum brought a piece of paper to the table. “Would a picture help you remember what you're keeping it for?”

Ava drew a rocket with flashing heels. The picture grew until it covered half the paper. Then she drew herself beside it, with especially large ears.

Louis helped make a paper sleeve for the jar. They left a little window in it so the coin could still be seen.

“Now it looks like a spaceship,” Ava said.

The coin sat in its little window like a passenger waiting to leave.

Not full. Not empty.

Later, Ava wanted to check it again. Louis was building a cardboard moon. He asked her to help choose where its craters went.

Ava looked at the jar. Her plan was still there. It would keep while she did something else.

She put the jar safely back on the shelf and joined Louis.

By teatime, the coin hadn't changed. The cardboard moon had three craters, two doors and a very small place for me to park.

Waiting had contained a whole afternoon after all.