Mr. Brown tried to lean on the bar in a manner he hoped indicated that this was something he did often and was entirely comfortable with. He had arrived early, far too early, and now in his nervousness had almost drunk the pint of bitter he had ordered. Just as he was wondering whether he could cope with a second, fortune smiled on him (sort of). Cyril Mason sauntered in through the doors and made a beeline.
Category: Stories Page 1 of 4
J didn’t utilise the two hours available for sleeping very well before his Mum was at the door calling him down for breakfast. Round and round in his head was his parting conversation with Mo, a good hour after dawn.
‘I won’t lie to my Dad, Mo ….. I can’t.’
‘Ugggggghhhhh,’ retched Eb, hands on his knees, ‘Yuuuuuukkkkk’, he gasped, before retching again.
‘But what’s the point?’, Dob’s face creased into incomprehension as he carefully held the folded paper that seemed to have two mouths, depending on how you held it.’
‘It’s just a bit of fun,’ laughed Mo, ‘just like pushing this tank of smelly water around, no point, just fun.’
Standing immediately before it, the four boys stared up at the cylindrical tank. It dwarfed them, even Dob. Bum set off round the contraption, reappearing moments later from behind one of the four wheels that were set one at each corner. The wheel alone was only slightly shorter than Bum himself.
‘Tyres are OK,’ he grinned, ‘slightly soft, but apart from this one,’ he put his hand on the offending rubber, ‘should be alright for moving.’
J sat back in his chair, his eyes momentarily unfocusing on the plans on the desk before him. Only two days ago he’d been on the beach with his cousins, playing cricket and football when the tide allowed and in and out of the sea whenever they felt like it. Life was all holiday, sandwiches and pop at regular intervals, through endless days that ended at twilight with an evening meal in the large house on Anglesey that was always rented for those two weeks of the year.
