Frankie and me weren’t bothering anyone; we were just minding our own business, playing a quiet game of marbles in the corner of the playground. Frankie was winning three games to two and I was determined to draw even, before the bell rang to call us back into class. I knelt, took aim and was interrupted by a sneer from behind.
‘You’ve got no chance Milly, you couldn’t hit a barn door if it was facing you.’
I knew the voice, it belonged to Harry Thuggy Smith - an old enemy - and it sounded as rough as its owner looked.I took my shot, knocked Frankie’s marble from the circle and turned around. Thuggy hadn’t got any prettier since I had last seen him; he still looked like an overgrown toad.
‘Listen Thuggy, the name is Miller not Milly and I’d like to see you do any better than that.’
‘I,’ he growled. ‘Could beat you blind folded, couldn’t I Gord?’
Gord, or Gormless Gordon McKye, was Thuggy’s sidekick and as thick as they come.
‘You sure could,’ said Gord. ‘Harry is the undisputed champion of St Aiden’s.’
‘I doubt it,’ said Frankie. ‘And why are you here instead of St Aiden’s.’
‘Father Finkle sent us with a note for Mr Edwards.’
‘Well, in that case,’ said Frankie. ‘Why don’t me and Geordie, take on you and Gormless here, and the pair that wins are the champions.’
‘I don’t like that name,’ whined Gormless. ‘And marbles is for wimps, Harry and me have better things to do. Haven’t we Harry?’
‘Aye, we have Gord. We’ve got better things to do.’
‘Like What?’ I asked.
‘Like fine-tuning The Arrow.’
‘What’s The Arrow when it’s at home?’
‘It’s only the fastest boogie around here.’
‘No chance,’ said Frankie. ‘Our boogie will beat yours any day.’
I looked at him as if he had gone soft in the head. What boogie? We didn’t have a boogie. I opened my mouth to say so, but Frankie shook his head so I closed it again and hoped that he knew what he was doing.
‘Right you’re on, Knotty’s hill 10 o’clock Saturday morning,’ said Thuggy.
Knotty’s hill had a long smooth slope that swept down to a flat meadow and was where we did our sledging in the winter. We would barrel down it whooping and hollering and come to a gentle stop, as the speed was bled away by the level ground at the bottom. Then we would drag our sled back up to top and do it all over again.
‘OK,’ said Frankie. ‘We’ll take you on, but on Watermill Hill.’
No one sledged on Watermill Hill let alone ran a boogie race down it. It was too steep and there was no flat land at the bottom only a wide stream that curled around its base. There was a bridge of sorts across the stream but it was only four planks laid side by side and if you missed it you were in the water. If Frankie had said it to scare Thuggy it seemed to have worked, because he went pale and I thought he was about to refuse. But before he could say anything Gormless Gordon piped up, ‘We’ll be there. Won’t we Harry?’
Thuggy looked at Gormless as if he would have liked to strangle him, but there was nothing he could do without losing face, so he just said, ‘Yeah,’ and walked away.
I could tell he was scared, but he hadn’t backed down. He obviously thought he could beat us, Mind you since we didn’t even have boogie, I thought he could too.
I waited until they were gone and then turned on Frankie, ‘Have you gone daft? We haven’t even got a boogie and if we had, I wouldn’t go down Watermill hill if you paid me.’
‘I know, I know, but I couldn’t let that big lug think he could beat us, I just sort of spoke without thinking.’
‘Well, you better start thinking now, because we’ve got to build a boogie before Saturday.’
‘Does that mean you’re on for the race?’
‘No, it means I’m going to help you build a boogie.’
Frankie’s face fell, but he was always stubborn and I knew he do the race on his own if he had too. I also knew that despite the fact that we would probably break our necks I would do it with him, but I was so mad at his stupidity in insisting on Watermill Hill that I let him think I wouldn’t.
It was Monday when Frankie had dropped us in it with Thuggy and despite searching every evening after school, we didn’t find the wheels until late on Thursday evening. They were still attached to an old pram with a broken bracket at the top of one of the springs and looked as if it had spent its last days carrying coal.The broken bracket must have ended its useful life, because it had been abandoned on the tip. Like I said, we had found our wheels but by the time we dragged the pram to the road and pushed it home, it was too dark to do anything with them.
The next night, straight from school, we removed the pram body and were left with a set of four wheels with the ends of the curved springs sticking up, one at each corner. Now all we needed was a plank of wood, then we could separate the wheels from the springs, fix one set at the back of the plank, attach the other set to a length of wood, bolt it in the centre at the front of the plank and attach a length of rope to each side to steer with. Easy peasy we thought, and we went down to the allotments to see if we could scrounge a plank. We tried everyone down there, but no one had any wood suitable and with only a couple of hours until dark there was nowhere else we could try. Reluctantly we set off home and were cutting through an abandon plot when Frankie fell over something lying in the long grass. After Frankie finished jumping around rubbing his knee where it had collided with the top edge of the hidden obstruction, we dragged it clear of grass and turned it the right way up.
‘It’s an old trough for the horses to drink from,’ said Frankie.
‘No, it’s an old tin bath,’ I replied.
‘Get away, baths are white with taps and a plug hole.’
‘Aye, they are now. But in me granddads time they didn’t have bathrooms, just one of these, Grandma used to fill it up with water and granddad use to sit in front of the fire and have his bath.’
‘Brilliant, I wouldn’t mind taking a bath in front of the fire, especially in the winter.’
‘Aye, me too, but it’s a plank of wood we need not a tin bath,’ I said and paused as an idea hit me. ‘But if we haven’t got a plank why don’t we use the bath instead.’
Frankie looked puzzled so I explained, ‘The bath is long enough so that we can sit one behind the other and narrow enough to fit between the springs. All we have to do is find a way to fix it onto the axles.’
Frankie’s face broke into a large grin, ‘ We won’t be able to steer it.’
‘No, we’ll have to line it up and go in a straight line, so why the grin?’
‘You said you wouldn’t go down Watermill Hill if I paid you.’
‘Well, I’ve changed my mind, besides you wouldn’t manage if I didn’t go with you. Now come on, give me a hand to carry this home. Once we got back we only had time to attach two short lengths of wood to the axles before it got dark and we had to get up early to fit the bath the next morning. A quick test run down Willow bank, which ended in us smashing through the fence around the allotments and flattening two rows of Mr Parkers Brussels sprouts and we were ready for the big race.
We reached the top of Watermill hill first and lined The Tank – well, what else could we call it after it flattened the fence and the Brussels sprouts – up with the plank bridge at the bottom. A couple of minutes later Thuggy and Gormless arrived and after sneering at The Tank, lined up The Arrow on our right. We move the boogies forward onto the slope and while Frankie and Gormless held them in place, Thuggy and I mounted up – well Thuggy did, I sort of climbed in. After a shouted, ‘One, Two, Three.’ Frankie jumped in behind me, Gormless jumped on behind Thuggy and then we were off, tearing down an impossible slope heading for a tiny bridge over a wide stream at the bottom.
With no means of steering The Tank we had to trust that it would stay on line and hit the bridge or we were in trouble. All went well until two thirds of the way down when we hit a clump of grass that threw us off course, not by much, but enough to make us miss the bridge. At the speed we were going we would hit the water within seconds and we braced ourselves for the crash.
Luckily at the last minute we hit another clump that put us more or less back on course. We were going to hit the bridge with two of the wheels but miss with the other two. As we shot towards the bridge I leaned to the right, screamed for Frankie to do the same and we flew over the planks on two wheels. Behind us there was an almighty splash that we knew had to be The Arrow diving into the water, but we were too busy hanging on, to turn and look. The Tank flew off the end of the bridge, jolted across a patch of rough ground at speed and plunged into a field of barley.
There was silence when we finally came to a stop, which was broken by peels of laughter, as we realised that we had made it in one piece.A quick hug, a pat on the back and we walked back to see what had become of Thuggy and Gormless. The Arrow was wrecked; it lay half submerged in the stream and the front wheels had been torn off when the front end had buried itself deep into the muddy bank at the other side. There was no sign of Thuggy and Gormless and despite the water not being deep enough we looked downstream to see if they had been washed in that direction, before checking the bottom of the hill, to see if they had bailed out.
Oh, they had bailed all right, but not at the bottom, they must have chickened out before the arrow had picked up much speed, because we were just in time you see them disappear over the top of the hill. We won the race that day and a few other boogie races after that. All of them down Knotty’s Hill, and neither us, nor anyone else we knew, were mad enough to chance a race down Watermill Hill again.
Billy stood knee deep in the river, he had been standing without moving for the past fifteen minutes. Suddenly he moved plunging his hands down and bringing them back up again grasping a large fish. ‘Here, Johnny catch,’ he said, as he threw it to his friend, standing on the bank.
Johnny caught the fish, grinned, and then screamed, as the bank gave way hurling him and the catch into the water. Billy grabbed him by the collar and hauled him coughing and spluttering to his feet, but it was to late, not only had the fish escaped, the splashing had alerted the crocodiles and they began sliding into the water.
Nothing had gone right since they had become separated from the rest of the expedition five days ago. Apart from a small amount of dried meat and a canteen of water between them, which they had consumed on the first day, they’d had nothing to eat and were growing weaker by the hour. Now, the fish that they had been going to grill over an open fire was gone, and there was no chance of catching another.
It had been the same yesterday, when he had spotted the nest high in the jungle canopy and climbed up to get eggs. He’d gotten two, but when he came back down and handed them to his friend, Johnny had fallen over a log hidden in the undergrowth and broken them.
Billy had shouted at Johnny then, calling him all the clumsy clods he could think of. But when Johnny had hung his head and said, ‘Sorry, Billy,’ he knew he had been unfair. Dropping the eggs had been an accident, and today losing the fish was an accident too.
‘Come on, Johnny we’ve got to keep moving,’ he said, as he helped his friend up the bank and onto the trail.
‘Follow me and keep close behind.’
As they set off once more Johnny knew that they couldn’t go on like this, if they didn’t eat soon they’d collapse and die. He felt terrible, it was entirely his fault, if he hadn’t dropped the eggs and lost the fish they wouldn’t be starving now.
Ahead of him, Billy began to stagger as he walked, then suddenly he fell. Johnny stumbled up to him, dropped to his knees, and shook him, ‘Billy, Billy, come on, get up, we need to keep moving.’
But his friend just gave a groan and mumbled something that he couldn’t make out. Now what was he going to do? He wasn’t used to making decisions, he left all that to Billy, he was good at it. But Billy was out of it and that only left him to save them.
‘Up you come, Billy,’ he said, as he bent and hauled him to his feet.
He staggered on, supporting his friend, but it was slow work and he knew they wouldn’t get far, and they didn’t. A few moments later they stumbled and fell. Johnny lay there for a long time and then staggered to his feet. This wasn’t going to work, he would have leave Billy here, while he went to find food. The most upsetting thing was that there were berries all around them in the jungle; they’d tried eating them on the second day, but had become so violently ill that they wouldn’t dare try again.
Johnny dragged Billy to the side of the trail and propped him up against a tree and saying, ‘Bye old friend, won’t be long,’ set off.
He didn’t go far, he must have only gone twenty metres when he saw the hut to the right of the trail. It was no native hut; it was an abandoned log cabin, which must have belonged to some long gone explorers, like themselves. And maybe, just maybe, those explorers had left a stash of food behind, like Captain Scott had in the Arctic.
He made his way back to Billy, he hadn’t the strength lift him, so he grabbed him by the arms and dragged him along the trail and into the hut. Leaving his friend on the floor, he looked around. At one end there were two beds made from bamboo, at the other end, a table and four chairs and beyond the table was a kitchen area, with cupboards also made of bamboo. There was even a sink carved out of a tree trunk and on the bench next to it, were two bowls and two wooden spoons.
Johnny headed straight for the cupboards, he opened the first, it was empty, the second was also empty, but in the third he found four tins all with no labels. Carrying the tins to the table, he looked around for a tin opener; surely they wouldn’t have left tins and nothing to open them with. He tried the rest of the cupboards, nothing. There must be one somewhere he thought, as his eyes roved the hut, still nothing. He was about to go outside for a rock to bash the tins open, when he spotted the small drawer next to the sink. Pulling it open he smiled, success, taking the opener to the table he opened the first tin, it was full of peas.
Grabbing Billy again, he managed to lift him into a chair and holding the tin to his lips fed him the pea juice. As soon as his friend could hold the tin himself, Johnny got the bowls and spoons and began opening the other tins, they were all peas, but still it was food.
Emptying two tins into each bowl he sat down next to Billy, and they had barely begun to eat, when the door opened and a voice said, ‘What on earth are you doing with those tins of peas?’
Johnny startled, looked up and said, ‘Sorry, Mum, we was just playing explorers.’
Whodunit? That was the question, and freelance investigator Henry Periwinkle needed to find the answer. Henry or H P as he was known, had been retained by the Abbot of Barnsley William Heinz.
‘What’s that you say? A right saucy pair?’
‘Ha, ha. Listen mate I’ve heard that one before and a few more besides. So if you wouldn’t mind putting a cork in it, I’ll get on with the story… Now where was I? Oh yes.’
The Abbot who ran a wholesale grocery business on the side, was all of a dither. Someone had broken into the abbey kitchens, murdered Brother James and stolen his latest recipe. Now Henry had been given the job of identifying the guilty party, or parties.
After a long and dangerous journey, H P had tracked down the suspects to their lair, a large hall set deep in Hairywood Forest. It was late evening just as the light was fading when he walked up to the great wooden door of the hall, pressed the bell and waited. Five minutes later he was still waiting. Isn’t that typical? People fit bells to their doors and either they don’t work or if they do, they have the television turned up so loud that they can’t hear them. He reached out again, placed his finger on the bell push and held it there while he counted to sixty, like you do. When there was still no response, he reached for the knocker. It was one of those great antique wrought iron rings. In fact it was so big that he couldn’t lift it with one hand, so he grasped it firmly with both hands, raised it as high as he could and that was when he heard a voice from inside, ‘Alright, alright, keep your hair on I’m coming!‘ and before he could release his grip, the door swung open dragging him with it.
From his position on the floor H P looked up at the red-haired, red- bearded, barn door of a man who stood over him. The man looked down and said, ‘Yes?‘
‘Good evening,’ H P said as he stood and dusted himself down, ‘Is the master of the house at home?‘
‘We don’t want any.’ stated the giant in a deep rumbling voice.
‘What?’
‘Mobile phones, double glazing, a conservatory, a new kitchen, or whatever else you’re selling.’
‘I’m not a salesman. I represent The Society for the Preservation of Ancient Oaks.’
‘A worthy cause. However, we don’t do subscriptions either.’
‘Oh, I’m not collecting subscriptions, I was doing a survey in the forest, became lost and I was wondering if you could put me up for the night?’
‘In that case, come in, Mr…?‘
‘Henry Periwinkle, but it’s H P to my friends.’
‘Nice to meet you H P. My name is John, Big John, come. Walk this way and I’ll introduce you to the gang.’
Despite this strange request, HP complied, and after lengthening his stride found himself quite exhausted by the time they reached the dining hall, where the rest of the gang were feasting.
‘What ho! Big John, who’s this you’ve brought us?’ The speaker, the spitting double of the action hero Berrol Phin, was dressed in a green tweed suit, and despite it being the height of bad manners at the table, wore a rather natty deerstalker hat with a feather in it.
’This is H P, Boss, a lost tree-hugger, who requests a bed for the night.’
‘Welcome H P,’ I‘m Rob the Hod, Plasterer Extraordinaire, pull up a pew and I’ll introduce the rest of the gang.’
H P did as he was bid, with a struggle. The pew, made of solid oak with a neat little mouse carved on one end was rather heavy but eventually he manage to drag it to the table and sit down. Rob waited until he was settled and then turning to the blonde sitting next to him said, ’This is my lady, the fair and beautiful Marilyn.’
H P was be-dazzled by the vision before him; the blonde-haired, blue-eyed lady had a peaches and cream complexion and wore a white silk dress that did nothing to hide her beautiful figure. Almost robbed of speech he bobbed his head and managed a breathless, ‘My Lady.’
Rob, obviously aware of Marilyn’s effect on others, simply smiled and continued. ‘This is Willy the Pink, teller of tall tales and bookies runner.’
‘Like the tights, nice shade of pink,’ said H P.
Rob turned to a plump cherubic-faced man, ‘And this is Fryer Tuck, the best chip man in the business, he can also do wonders with a PC. When he’s not feeding his face, that is.’
H P gave Fryer a nod, and Rob motioned to the next man, ‘Meet Much, McDougall. Much comes from Binding in the Marsh, a village on the edge of the forest.’
H P flashed a smile and the pasty-faced youth gave him a wink in return.
‘And lastly,’ said Rob, ‘The guy wearing the Led Zeppelin T-shirt is Allan-a-Diddly, roadie to the stars.’
H P watched the others as they ate. They were certainly a mixed bunch, but which of them had committed the foul deed? He was spoiled for choice - a ginger giant, a dandy in green or even an angel in white, surely not the angel? Then there were the others; Pinky, Porky, Doughboy and the Zeppelin roadie. He studied them all evening and apart from the niggling feeling of having missed some small clue, was none the wiser when they bade him goodnight.
Unable to sleep at first, he tossed and turned until the answer came to him and then he slept. In the morning he arose full of beans. Now that he had the answer, the next step would be the arrest. Taking Lady Marilyn to one side he had quick word, then gave the signal and sheriff and his swat team burst into the hall. On H P’s orders the whole gang; saving Marilyn, were hauled off to the dungeons.
Under torture the gang admitted to stealing the recipe but denied killing Brother James, claiming that he had slipped, fallen into a vat full of tomato sauce and drowned before they could pull him out. Despite the best efforts of the inquisitor and sheriff, the gang - much to the chagrin of the Abbot - refused to reveal the whereabouts of the missing recipe.
As to H P, he change his name to Herbert Penndel ran of with Marilyn and gaining a grant from the local council, set up in business as, H P Purveyors of Fine Foods; Their main product? That’s right, their soon to be famous, baked beans in a special sauce.
‘Ouch!’ I exclaimed, as my brother Michael dug me in the ribs and bundled me sideways behind the clump of bushes. ‘What was that for? It’s not time yet,’ I complained.
‘Shh!’ he hissed, as he crouched, his head to one side, a look of concentration on his freckled face. – Sun kisses, me mam calls them, sheesh!
His freckles were the reason we were crouched behind this bush, on the edge of a clearing, in the middle of Washerwell Woods. His freckles, and his ginger hair, no, come to think of it, it was more his ginger hair, but if you added to that a face full of freckles and a cheeky grin, you had a combination that made him stand out in the schoolyard and that was the trouble.
It began on the first day that we arrived at the new school; we were in the schoolyard, kicking a ball about at break time, when a pair of older boys swaggered over to where we were playing.
‘Giv is a kick of ya ball, Ginger,’ said the taller of two. His name, we were later to learn was Cyril Thompson, nickname, Thomo.
‘Yer, giv us a go, Carrot Top,’ Growled his sidekick, a big fat lad called Snotty Smith. Looking at him you might have though they’d have called him Fatty instead of Snotty, but he was strong as well as fat, with a vicious temper, and had a habit of going off on one if anyone mentioned his weight. Strangely enough he seemed quite happy to be called Snotty.
Anyway, Michael tapped the ball to Thomo, he passed it to Snotty who promptly booted it to the other end of the yard.
‘Oops, sorry, Freckles,’ he sniggered, 'I think you better go and get your ball back.’
As the pair of them swaggered off, I ran to fetch the ball and came back to Michael, who hadn’t moved an inch. He stood in the same spot, with that look on his face, as he watched them walk away. I knew that look and while I didn’t think much of Thomo and Snotty, I did sort of pity them.
Michael wasn’t a typical red head, or what other people classed as a typical red head, he didn’t have a quick or violet temper. What he did have was the capacity never to forgive an enemy, and that look on his face left me in no doubt as to whom the enemy were. Like I say, I pitied them.
Michael would bide his time and only mete out what he considered to be due punishment, when the recipient least expected it. Mind you, he was always fair and for a simple thing, like calling him names, I didn’t expect the punishment to be severe.
If Thomo and Snotty had been sensible they would have received a short sharp shock and that would have been the end of it. But they couldn’t leave well enough alone, they had to keep on at him, calling him names, bumping into him in the dinner queue, hiding his coat in the cloakroom, or simply crowding him, in the playground. Lots of little things, none of which could be construed as much more than simple horseplay, but when they did it, over and over again, day in and day out it was pretty nasty.
I offered to call them out, and while we might not have beaten them in a straight fight, if we’d managed to get a few good licks in, it might have made them think twice. But Michael was having none of it; he had a punishment in mind that he reckoned would get them off his back forever.
So Michael had thrown out a challenge and now after spending the first day of the half term preparing, we were hiding behind a bush waiting for Thomo and Snotty to arrive.
I opened my mouth to speak, but Michael motioned for silence and I heard them, they were laughing, no double sure that they would annihilate the two little squirts, who had dared to challenge them.
As the voices drew near, Michael stepped out from behind the bushes dragging me with him to stand facing the other side of the small clearing. Within seconds Thomo and Snotty arrived at the other side and stood facing us across a carpet of fallen leaves.
For a moment all was still, as we stood there like the gunfighters at the OK corral and then with the cry of, ‘Let’s get them.’ They rushed towards us only to promptly disappear howling, as the covering collapsed, plunging them into the pit. Then as the stench wafted into the air, the howls turned to gagging sounds, as they floundered in the pig slurry that we’d carefully pored into the bottom.
