Often, people ask me what drove me down
that rocky road to writing stories and there are a thousand answers to choose
from; most of them used, most of them contrite and supposedly clever, but the
real reason? I’m not much good at anything else. And anyway, I genuinely love
the art of cobbling together interesting stories; to leave behind perhaps, a
trail of tasty crumbs...
*
To The Sky! A young boy’s antics in old Africa:
... Didn’t take long for me to reach full
speed; reckon it must have been all of eight miles an hour down the hill to
Willie’s house – our crash-out zone at the bottom. But hell-for-leather I went
at those cursed and buckled old pedals; the chain kept slipping so that at
least twice, my tender, teenage parts were flung against the crossbar.
‘Faster!’ The ground crew shouted and we
shoved and pulled like demented rats up a drain pipe.
By now, Gilbert’s face had turned as pale
as any black kid’s face could manage, but his grip on the half crown piece was
unrelenting. Frozen to his imaginary stick and rudder pedals he willed the
beast to fly. The homemade bamboo wings were forced upwards at a sickly angle;
the skate wheels screeched and clattered over the tarmacadam and firmly fixed
to the tailplane, Junior shoved for Mother Africa and screamed, Geronimo!
whenever he caught his breath. Bob got a fit of the giggles and infected us
all. Thirty yards from the bottom I hit my almost non-existent brakes and
Gilbert wet himself. We were going in. Big style. Willie’s dog shot out from his
driveway, barked his brains out and snapped at my front wheel. I kicked out at
Ponkie (I know, strange name for a dog), but instead of the dog I found the
spokes of my front wheel. Up I went and still at maximum thrust, ejected from
my seat.
I saw things, wonderful things; the sky
was underneath instead of above, sort of in slow motion. The trees were upside
down then sideways-on and Bob was laughing even louder. I think at this point the
wings came off and what was left of Gilbert’s plane crashed through the front
of Willie’s garden.
Three weeks later, when all of the
parental dust had cleared, we once again joined forces and for another two-bob,
with his left arm still encased in plaster, Gilbert foolishly stepped inside
our very unseaworthy home-built river boat...
*
No comments:
Post a Comment