Inside her dream house Melinda was dying.

Melinda knew she was dying; knew it because she could feel her body getting weaker every day; knew it from the frightened, haunted look she sometimes caught in her mother's eyes in unguarded moments; knew it from the muffled conversations she couldn't quite hear between her mother and Sam NextDoor.

Sam NextDoor had another name of course, but that was Melinda's name for him, just as his name for her was Little Princess. He was little and short and, in Melinda's eyes, at least a hundred and ten years old, but, since she no longer attended school, he was the only friend she had. Like Melinda, Sam knew about doctors, too. "Tried to get me to have a by-pass once," he snorted derisively. "I soon told them where to stick their flaming by-pass!"

On days when her mother had to go shopping and do other errands, Sam NextDoor was the perfect baby-sitter, watching over Melinda as she sketched in her scrapbook, or more often reading to her from her trove of favourites.

"Hey, Little Princess," he would chuckle, blue eyes twinkling and his rotund body sinking into the rocking chair beside her bed. "Where shall we be off to today, then?"

And Melinda would drift off to the fitful sleep that was all she ever managed these days, with Sam's comforting rich voice transporting her away from her invalid's bed to the pleasant fantasy worlds of 'Treasure Island' or 'Black Beauty' or 'Wind in the Willows'.

But as the days drifted away from late spring to early summer, Sam's Little Princess drifted away as well, until it was all too clear that she didn't have much time left. One more doctor came, a kind elderly man with a deep, booming voice, who examined Melinda gently and carefully and then went out to the next room to talk to her mother. Although he spoke softly, Melinda caught snatches of the conversation: "Not much longer now..... just make her comfortable.... Anything she wants....a day or two at most..."

With a tear glistening in his eye, Sam NextDoor picked up Melinda's scrapbook and flicked through the pages to find the drawing of the dream house.

"This can't be your house, Princess." Sam pointed with one gnarled finger. "This one's got a picket fence out the front."

"I know," Melinda answered, her voice trailing off. "That was the only thing, the only thing missing....." and she slipped off to sleep, her frail chest rising and falling almost imperceptibly like that of a tiny injured bird.

For a few minutes, Sam sat there, studying the delicate sketch as if trying to memorize every line. Then he rose quickly to his feet and tiptoed quietly from the room.

By mid-morning a truck had delivered building materials and Sam NextDoor had started construction on the Little Princess's last wish. By lunchtime, when Melinda's mother, Laura, brought him ham sandwiches and ice-cold lemonade, the posts were rammed in and most of the horizontal rails were bolted into position. By three o'clock, Melinda felt strong enough for Laura to prop her up in bed so she could watch as Sam NextDoor, red face shining and sweat streaming in the hot sun, started measuring and spacing and hammering home the white pickets. As darkness fell, the tap, tap, tap of Sam's hammer was a rhythmic lullaby that sent Melinda off into a deep and dreamless sleep. Laura noticed her daughter's face smooth and seemingly free of pain for the first time in many weeks..

And that night, as Laura snatched her own sleep in the bedside rocking-chair, the miracle she had prayed for so often came to pass. Like a great dam breaking, the debilitating disease swept from Melinda's tiny body, leaving her breathing easily and regularly.

Laura woke to the sweetest sound she had ever heard: "Mummy, Mummy, open the curtains so we can look at Sam's fence."

Melinda's voice was strong and true, her breathing free of laboured rasping. She was sitting up in bed and Laura noted that colour had started to return to her cheeks and her eyes were clear. Laura drew back the curtain and watched in amazement as Melinda walked slowly but surely across the room.

"Look, Mummy, there it is! There it is! But why isn't it finished, Mummy?"

Laura looked too. "I don't know, honey," she answered, with just the tiniest catch in her voice. "Maybe he ran out of time."
With that, Laura turned and drew the curtain again to hide the view that no Princess should ever have to see. Next to the perfect white picket fence, the final gift of love for his Little Princess, sprawled the crumpled body of Sam NextDoor, the last picket clutched in his lifeless hand.