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[COVER]

🎨 __N1__ and __N2__, two best friends around age ten, sitting on a garden shed roof at golden hour with a huge hand-drawn map unrolled across both their laps, marked with drawings and a dotted route; a bicycle leaning below, late-summer light. Open sky at top.

1

Every proper friendship has a headquarters. Theirs was the shed roof at the bottom of __N1__'s garden — strictly forbidden, which was one of its best features. From up there you could see the whole street, half the park, and, if you stood on tiptoe (also forbidden), the glinting roof of the chip shop. It was where all their important meetings happened. And this one was the most important yet.

🎨 The two friends on the shed roof in meeting-mode: cross-legged, serious faces, a biscuit tin between them labelled with a hand-drawn skull (no text); the street, park and distant chip-shop roof spread out beyond in warm light.

2

The news had arrived on a Tuesday, the way bad news likes to. A new job, a new town, a moving van booked for the last Saturday of the holidays. Two weeks. When your best friend is moving away, two weeks is no time at all — and also, somehow, the only time there is. They sat on the roof and said nothing for a while, which is a thing best friends know how to do together.

🎨 The two friends sitting side by side on the roof in silence, shoulders almost touching, looking out at the street; below in a driveway, a parent taping up the first cardboard box; the golden light very quiet.

3

It was __N2__ who broke the silence. "We're not going to be sad for two weeks. That's a waste of two weeks." And it was __N1__ who had the idea — the kind of idea that arrives whole, like a parcel: "We'll make a map. Every place that was ever US. And then we'll do the whole thing, one last time. The Grand Tour."

🎨 The idea moment: __N1__ kneeling upright with arms spread wide mid-announcement, __N2__ looking up with a spreading grin; between them an unrolled blank sheet of paper, a tin of coloured pencils spilling in the light.

4

The map took three days and was, they agreed, better than most real maps. It had the park with the climbing tree drawn ten times too big (correct, importance-wise). The bus stop bench with their initials hidden under the seat. The chip shop. The library steps. The lamppost that flickers when you high-five it (this is true and science cannot explain it). Nine places. Nine expeditions. The Grand Tour.

🎨 Overhead view of the finished hand-drawn map covering a bedroom floor: wobbly streets, an oversized tree, a bench, a chip shop with drawn steam, a lamppost with drawn sparks, a dotted route connecting nine crayon X marks; four hands adding final touches (no readable text).

5

Expedition One: the climbing tree. The lowest branch had grown higher — or they had grown lazier — but from the top, the world still looked like it belonged to them. They found the old rope swing knot, grey now, still holding. "We tied that in Year Three," said __N2__. "It held," said __N1__. Neither of them said the obvious thing out loud. The knot said it for them.

🎨 The two friends high in a huge old climbing tree, sitting on a wide branch, legs dangling; one pointing at an old grey knotted rope around the branch; the park spread golden below them, their bikes dropped in the grass.

6

Expedition Two was the bench, where they re-inked the initials with a marker borrowed from __N2__'s dad (borrowed meaning: to be discussed later). Three was the chip shop, where the owner, who had watched them grow up one Friday at a time, heard the news, went quiet, and then wrapped up a double portion. "On the house. For the road." Chips taste different when someone means them.

🎨 Split warm scenes: the two friends crouched behind the bus-stop bench re-inking hidden initials; then at the chip-shop counter, the kindly owner passing over a generously wrapped paper bundle, steam rising, both kids' faces caught between grin and lump-in-throat.

7

Four: the library steps, where they had once waited out a thunderstorm and invented their secret handshake (patent pending). Five: the flickering lamppost, which flickered on cue, because legends keep their promises. Six: the hill where the sledge broke. Seven: the fence gap that was a shortcut to everywhere. The map filled up with ticks, and the days emptied out like sand.

🎨 Montage of small pilgrimages: the secret handshake mid-move on the library steps; the lamppost flickering above two triumphant faces at dusk; standing solemnly at a hilltop like visiting a monument; squeezing through a familiar fence gap. A drawn map corner shows X marks being ticked.

8

Somewhere around Expedition Eight, they stopped pretending it was just a tour. It was a goodbye — but the good kind, the kind you do on purpose, with chips. They started a list called THE RULES on the back of the map. Rule one: video call every Sunday, seven o'clock, no excuses except broken arms. Rule two: broken arms require photographic proof.

🎨 Evening on the shed roof: the map flipped over, the two friends writing a numbered list together by torchlight (text not readable), both laughing at something just written; moths around the torch beam, deep blue sky.

9

The last place — Expedition Nine — they saved for the last evening. The shed roof. Headquarters. They brought supplies: the biscuit tin, two blankets, and the map, now soft at the folds like something old and important. Below them the moving van sat in the driveway, already half-loaded, pretending not to be there.

🎨 The final rooftop evening: two blanket-wrapped figures on the shed roof among biscuit crumbs, the worn map between them held down by the tin; in the driveway below, a half-loaded moving van with its ramp down; the street lamps coming on one by one.

10

That's when __N1__ brought out the tin's real secret: not biscuits, but a time capsule. They filled it together — one chip-shop receipt, the marker (to be discussed later), a drawing of Chomp-the-lamppost, a photo of the two of them mid-handshake, and one folded note each, not to be read by the other. They buried it under the third fence post, two spade-deeps down, and shook on it: ten years. Not one year sooner.

🎨 Night-time ceremony by torchlight: the two friends kneeling at a fence post, lowering the closed biscuit tin into a small hole; solemn faces lit from below by the torch; a spade stuck in the earth; fireflies or dust motes glowing in the beam.

11

Saturday came anyway. Saturdays do. There was a hug in the driveway that neither of them counted the seconds of (eleven), and a van door that closed with the most final sound either of them had ever heard. But through the back window, __N2__ saw it: __N1__ on the shed roof, holding up the map like a flag. And that is the correct way to see your best friend for the last first time.

🎨 The moving van pulling away down the street in morning light; through its rear window, the view back: __N1__ standing tall on the shed roof holding the unrolled map high overhead like a banner; __N2__'s hand pressed to the glass in the foreground.

12

Sunday. Seven o'clock. The call connected on the second ring, because both of them had been sitting there since ten to. A new bedroom appeared on the screen, full of boxes. "Right," said __N1__, unrolling something. "New town. New map. You do the streets, I'll do the important bits." Because here is the thing about a map of us: it doesn't show where you are. It shows who you're with — even when you're not.

🎨 Split scene at dusk: two bedrooms miles apart, each friend at a screen showing the other's face; on one desk the old worn map, on the other a fresh blank sheet with two pencils ready; both faces lit warm by screenlight, both grinning. Final hopeful scene.