Finley and the Last Five Minutes

Finley is the Sidekick who knows what time it is. She has a watch with no numbers on it, just a moon and a sun that go round, and she checks it in a way the little kids find fascinating.

She didn’t used to care about time at all. Then she had the worst goodbye of her Sidekick life.

She and a little girl called Ana had been playing shops for half an hour. Finley was the shopkeeper, Ana was buying everything in the shop, and it was brilliant. Then the Playroom door opened, Ana’s mum came in with her coat on, and Finley said, “Oh, time to go!”

Ana burst into tears. She clung to the toy till. She wouldn’t put her shoes on. She cried all the way out of the building, and Finley felt awful, like she’d done something wrong.

“I didn’t do anything,” she said to Sola afterwards. “It just ended.”

“That’s the thing,” said Sola. “It just ended. For her, it was like the floor disappeared.”

“So what do I do? I can’t make it not end.”

“You can give her a warning,” said Sola. “And you can make the ending a part of the game.”

The next Saturday, Finley tried it. She and Ana were playing shops again. When the moon on her watch got near the top, she said, “Five more minutes of shop, then the shop closes for the day.”

Ana frowned, but she kept playing.

A bit later Finley said, “Two more customers, then closing time.”

Ana bought two more things, a plastic banana and a teapot, very slowly, as if to make them last.

Then Finley said, “The shop is closing. Shall we put everything back on the shelves for tomorrow?”

They put the food back together. Ana put the till away herself. Then Finley held up her hand. “Best customer of the day,” she said. Ana gave her a high five so hard it stung.

“Same shop next Saturday?” said Finley.

“Same shop,” said Ana.

When Ana’s mum came in, Ana put her shoes on and waved goodbye. No tears. A few sad looks back at the shop, but no tears.

Finley could hardly believe it. “It was the same ending,” she said to Sola. “Exactly the same time. But she was okay.”

That’s the skill of ending well. Little kids can’t always tell how long things last, and a sudden stop can feel huge. A warning gives them time to get ready. A tidy-up together makes the ending part of the play. And a little goodbye ritual, a high five, a wave, a promise, shows them that the fun will come back.

Finley teaches the new Sidekicks her plan for the end of a session:

Give a five-minute warning, and then a two-minute warning.

Make the ending part of the game: the shop closes, the train goes into the station, the dinosaurs go to sleep.

Tidy up together, with you doing most of it.

Say a proper goodbye, the same way every time.

And at home, Finley has noticed something. When she plays with her own little brother, a short session that ends well is better than a long one that ends in tears. Fifteen good minutes, she says, beat an hour of grumpy ones.

Five-minute warning. Fun ending. Proper goodbye.