The day my dad drowned the school!

"Do you have all the ingredients, dad?" asked Florence as she clicked her seatbelt into place.
"Yeah, yeah," her dad sighed and started up the car. "But I ran out of sugar yesterday."
"But the sugar is the main ingredient, dad. You can't make Sugar Mice without sugar," hissed Florence.
"Calm yourself down, girl. I got some sugar replacement, from a mate of mine. It'll be fine."
Florence huffed at her father's disregard of how important the day was for her. She didn't want him to make a complete fool of himself in front of her friends and the teachers, again. She still hadn't forgiven him for flooding the school gymnasium the last time he was involved in 'Parent Participation' month. She folded her arms crossly and muttered under her breath "Sugar replacement. This is gonna be the worse day of my life again."
She turned away from him and stared out of the window. She was starting to wish she had stayed in bed or had the foresight to come up with a plausible reason to stay off school, like a fever, or something. Too late now.
When the car pulled up alongside the school, Florence leapt out and dashed toward the entrance without a word to her father.
"I'll see you inside then, I guess," he shouted out to her.
Florence ignored him. She ignored him all the way through assembly, even though she could see him sat at the front all fidgety and awkward next to the teachers, and she ignored him through her first two classes. But after break time there was no avoiding the inevitable.
"Right, time for some fun now," said Miss Berenger, the Primary three teacher. "Today we have Florence's father with us. Stand up, Florence."
Reluctantly Florence stood up and then hurriedly sat down again, hoping she didn't attract any more attention to herself than she needed.
"And this is her father, Mr Baker," Miss Berenger continued. "He'll be making Sugar Mice with us."
Florence's classmates cheered and clapped their hands together . One of them, Damien Cleaver, the school prankster who loved nothing better than to throw spiders at the squeamish girls, said, "I wonder if he's gonna flood the kitchen this time."
If that wasn't enough for Florence to flush a deep shade of red, watching her father doing his fish wave to the class with his hands made her want to curl up into a ball and roll out of the door. She might have found it funny when she was three for about a nanosecond, but that was five years ago.
"Okay calm down now please," said Miss Berenger. "Can everyone please go and put on their aprons and then stand round the table."
Florence sloped off and snatched her blue striped apron from her coat hook at the back of the class. Everyone except Florence was excited as they tied their aprons round their waists and eagerly waited round the table.
"So the first thing you do," said her dad as he opened the plastic shopping bag and pulled out the ingredients, "Is check you have what you need."
As he pulled out the packet of 'sugar substitute' a shower of coins and notes flew out of the bag and bounced across the table.
Florence's classmates screamed and scrambled for the loose change. Some handed what they'd picked up over, but a couple pocketed what they'd found.
"We get paid as well," said Damien Cleaver to Robbie Wright, the boy next to him. "Bonus!"
"Whoops," said Florence's dad. "Forgot I left that in the bag. Anyway, the next thing you do is take your bowl and whisk and beat up an egg white till it's nice and fluffy."
Florence cringed as her dad tried once, twice, three times to separate the yolk from the egg. And when he finally managed it, he beat the egg white so hard most of it ended up on Miss Berenger's dress. Big blobs of white fluff slid down her skirt. Miss Berenger tried to be nice about it but Florence could tell from the way she marched off to clean herself up that she was indignant.
"Then you add the sugar and a couple of drops of food colouring."
Again her dad's lack of dexterity caused a giant mess as he struggled with the delicate screw top to the food colouring bottle. His clumsy fingers were so big they snapped the neck of the bottle causing blue liquid to pour over his hands and onto the table. Everyone leapt back in case they were sprayed and began to laugh when Mr Baker tried to clear up the mess by scooping it back into the bottle. With one blue hand and a bowl full of a gloopy blue mixture he began to stir until it all came together in one large, doughy lump.
"Now comes the fun part," he said with a toothy grin and a chuckle as he pulled off a chunk of the sugary mixture and began to mould it with his fingers. He placed it on a baking sheet and rammed two silver edible balls into what he claimed was the head. “And there you have it. A mouse.”
The entire class silently scrutinised the lonely sugary blob before giving each other bemused looks. Mr Baker’s creation looked more like a legless anteater with wonky eyes than a mouse. Florence wanted to mash it with her fist. Once again she would be the teased because of her “stupid” dad.
“Wonderful,” said Miss Berenger, hesitantly. “Thank you Mr Baker, for that demonstration and creative interpretation of a mouse. Okay, everyone now take a lump of the blue sugar dough and create your own mice.”
Florence pulled off a lump and rolled it in the palms of her hands whilst her classmates feverishly sculpted theirs.
“I’m not gonna make girly mice, I’m gonna make martians,” announced Damien.
“I’m making a T-Rex,” said Robbie.
“Well, I’m making a horse with mine,” declared Elizabeth from across the room.
Florence stared down at the lump in her hands. It looked more like a snake than a mouse and it had turned her hands blue.
“When you’ve finished place your creation on the baking sheet,” said Miss Berenger. “Then after lunch, once they’ve had the chance to harden, we can eat them. Now I’d like you all to thank Mr Baker for taking the time out to come to see us today.”
“Thank you Mr Baker,” said everyone, except Florence who was watching her father frantically trying to scrub the blue food colouring from his hands in the art sinks.
He held up a hand and waved back to the class.
 
“Well that went well,” said Florence’s dad as he sat down beside her in the school yard.
”Almost well,” Florence mumbled as she munched on a sandwich.
Her dad stared down at his hands. They looked like they’d been in the freezer.
“It’ll come off soon enough,” he said as a shrill scream made him and Florence jerk round.
Milicent Bogward came tearing out of the classroom, screaming and shaking her hands through her hair. “Get it off me, get it off me,” she cried.
Florence leapt up as Miss Berenger, breathless and shaking, appeared in the doorway.
“What’s going on?” said Mr Baker.
Miss Berenger stared at Florence’s dad. She tried to speak but nothing but squeaks came out of her mouth.
Florence ran inside the classroom and was barely able to believe what she saw. The sugar sculptures had come to life and were running amok round the classroom.
Stacey's kangaroo was bouncing from desk to desk knocking books, pencil cases, and lunch boxes onto the floor. Cameron's tarantula was spinning a giant sugar web across the classroom. Robbie's T-Rex was trying to force its way through the bars of the Ernie the hamster's cage causing a terrified Ernie to bury himself under the sawdust. Damian's martian was shooting sugar bullets from its sugar ray gun. Elizabeth's horse was galloping across the floor leaving sugar poops on the linoleum. Two sugar cars were racing round the chair and table legs, a sugar budgie was flying round the room-which Florence presumed was responsible for tormenting Milicent-and Florence's snake was trying to slither into the air vent. Florence dove for the rogue candy and grabbed the tail. She tugged so hard though she pulled out not only the snake but the air vent as well.
The commotion inside the school had now attracted the attention of all the pupils. Those that couldn't get into the classroom to witness the carnage were pressed against the windows peering inside. Damian was ecstatic when he saw his martian shooting everything and was goading him on. Milicent was still screaming from what Florence could hear and Miss Berenger was a nervous wreck. She was huddled in the corner of the room, guarding her face from the dive-bombing budgie.
"No more, no more, no more," she mumbled to herself.
"What did you do, dad?" bellowed Florence. "I knew I couldn't trust you. I knew you'd embarrass me again."
"I don't know. I swear it," her dad pleaded with open arms.
Florence dismissed him with a wave of her hand. She snatched up the remains of the packet of sugar substitute and read the label.
"Toppit and Layton's Magical Grains, mix and watch. Dad, this isn't sugar, where did you get this?" she snapped and threw the packet at him.
"I told you. My mate gave it to me. He said he got it down the flea market but never used it. He did say it might be out of date though."
"I don't care what he said, dad. Look at what you've done to my school," she cried. "There are sugar soldiers over there trying to bomb Martin's sugar submarine and a sugar bear that's climbing into our fish tank. You have to do something."
Her dad stared at her, the chaos around him and then scrutinised packet in his hand. As Florence waited for him to answer her his eyes lit up. "I have it!" he beamed. "I need a hose pipe. Now!"
"What for, dad?" Florence asked sceptically.
"No times for questions, Florence, just do it."
Florence ran out of the class and into the janitor's closet and returned with a length of green piping. Her dad grabbed the hose from her, shoved one end on one of the art sink taps and turned the tap on. When the water came through her dad pinched the end of the hose and sprayed the entire class from floor to ceiling. Everything was drenched in water. All the art prints and collages on the wall began to peel, all the clothes and jackets hanging on the hooks at the end were soaked, the floor looked like a swimming pool but more importantly the live sugar sculptures began to dissolve. When they finally disappeared and order was restored all the kids that watched the excitement unfold moaned that it was over. Miss Berenger unfurled herself from her refuge behind her desk and although delighted she was no longer under attack she was horrified by the fact her classroom looked like it had been hit by a freak tidal wave.
Her dad turned off the tap and dusted his hands. "I think that's got them."
Florence looked at him. She wanted to hit him but instead she threw her arms round his waist and hugged him. "Well done, dad!" she said.
Damian Cleaver sloshed through the puddles of water with his hands on his hips and said, "I told you he'd flood something!"

The Tuesday effect

Bobby sat on the window sill in her bedroom with her knees pulled up against her chest and stared out at the trucks on the road outside. She felt nothing. And as the removal men wheeled more and more of her parents' furniture out of the house and into their trucks she still felt nothing.
"It won't happen," she said to herself. "They won't move. They've been saying it for years but they've never gone through with it. They'll change their mind last minute and then they'll have to put all that stuff back again."
But as the hours ticked by hope of a reprieve started to fade. One of the trucks left and the other was almost packed full. Bobby sighed. She rested her chin on her knees and looked round her bedroom. She hadn't packed a thing. The boxes her mother gave her were still pilled up in the corner of her room, empty. She was defiant. Number eighteen Birchwood Court saved her life. To leave it would be like someone severing one of her arms.
"How are you doing in there, sweetheart?" said her mother softly through her bedroom door. "Do you need some help?"
"I'm not going," Bobby said flatly. "You'll have to leave me here."
"Darling, we've been through this. You know that 's not possible. Besides we're due to hand the keys over to the estate agents tomorrow. The new owners are moving in on Friday."
"Then they'll have to live around me, won't they."
The handle on Bobby's bedroom door turned slowly but before Bobby could get up and block the door, her mother was inside.
"Oh Roberta, look at this place. You've not packed anything. We have to be out by tonight," her mother cried, holding out her hands in a gesture of disbelief.
"I've told you I'm not going," Bobby said as she flopped onto her bed."I'm going to epancimate myself from you."
Her mum chuckled as she started to pack books into a box. "I think you mean emancipate, and I'm afraid you can't do that. It's not legal. So you'll just have to come with us."
"You don't understand," Bobby wailed into her pillow. "I can't leave. I'll die."
"Roberta," said her mother. "Don't talk nonsense. You're not going to die. Your not surgically attached to this house."
Bobby flipped over and sat up on her bed. "I need her, mum."
"Need who?" said her mother as she taped up the box and began to fill another.
Bobby paused before she replied. "Tuesday."
Her mother took a long, deep breath and threw the book in her hand into the box.
Bobby knew she had worn her mother's patience wafer thin but there was no other way of delivering her reason for staying.
"You haven't mentioned that name in a while, Roberta," her mother said slowly rounding off each word like it was an automated message. "I thought she had gone."
"Not gone. This is her house. She's just...sleeping."
"And is she telling you not to leave?"
"Actually, no."
Her mother raised her eyes at Bobby quizzically.
"She thinks I'm ready to go," Bobby said. She climbed down off her bed and picked one of the numerous gymnastics trophies she had won from a shelf on the wall. She studied it closely, running a forefinger over her engraved name on the brass plate.
"But you don't believe her," her mother said and pulled another empty box from the corner of the room along with a roll of bubble wrap. Bobby's china horses were next in line for packing.
"It's not that. I'm just afraid that I might need her. If it wasn't for her I'd never have won these trophies."
"Tuesday didn't perform those routines you know," said her mother as she cut strips of wrapping and delicately rolled each ornament up.
"I know, but I would never have entered those competitions if she didn't tell me to."
"And you always do what Tuesday tells you."
"I feel better when I do. I feel invincible."
"But she's telling you you're ready to move on, to move out of here. Shouldn't you do what she says."
"Maybe, but she doesn't know what it's going to be like in that place."
"Have you spoken to her about how you feel?"
"She won't listen."
Bobby's mother sat on the edge of the bed and leaned towards Bobby. Bobby shied away and put her trophy back on the shelf.
"Why do you think that is?" asked her mother.
Bobby shrugged her shoulders. "Perhaps she doesn't want to listen anymore. Perhaps she thinks I'm moaning and whining for no reason, like you do."
"I don't think that at all."
Bobby glared at her. "You did when we moved here. You even told dad. I overheard you in the kitchen. But did you bother to find out why I was moaning? No."
"I asked you, on more than one occasion."
"No, mum, you demanded to know on more than one occasion and then when I was too...afraid to answer, you ordered me to bed."
Her mother turned away and flustered over a tissue that she pulled from her pocket. She blew her nose. It was a little late but Bobby got the feeling she had made a weak, if tentative, connection with her mother.
"I've never been very good at handling emotional people, delicately," her mother confessed. "If I had a problem I was brought up to fight it head on. It's not that I lack understanding or sensitivity I'm just not built that way. I suppose you get your highly-strung side from your father."
"Why did you think I turned to Tuesday, mum? She was the only one I could rely on. When I was afraid to make friends she told me to be funny. When I was afraid to hold my hand up in class and answer a question she told me I was brainy. When I was afraid I wasn't good enough at gymnastics she told me I the best in the school. I might not have been all those things but she made me feel good. She made me feel strong."
A tear fell down her mother's cheek. It was the first time ever Bobby had seen her mother cry. Now she was the strong one and her mother weak.
Bobby sat beside her mother and placed an arm around her shoulder.
"To think. Your father and I spent all that money on therapy when really it was me that had problems not you."
"You didn't want to listen then, mum," she said. "But you do now."
"It will be okay you know. In the new house. I'll make sure of it."
Bobby smiled. "Tuesday was right. I am ready."

The 49ers

It wasn't on Lloyd's to-do-list that day to catch a criminal but curiosity got the better of him when he spotted Catherine Macaulay swipe a box of floating candles from Benson's Gift Emporium. If he hadn't been in there buying the usual box of floral soaps for his grandmother's birthday he'd have been none the wiser about her or her blossoming talent for shoplifting.
As Catherine strolled out of door Lloyd hurriedly paid for his gift, tossing coins and notes across the counter, and scuttled out into the rainy car park.
It had crossed his mind to turn her in, to shout thief across the shop, but he was impressed by the stealthy way Catherine swept the box across the shelf and into her open rucksack, as though it accidentally got caught by her jacket sleeve. Instead he decided to follow her, wondering what a fifteen year old could possibly want with six floating red candles moulded into roses. Was it a gift too, albeit a hot one?
He followed Catherine, keeping a safe distance, through a rundown housing estate where every other house was boarded up, and then down to the disused aluminium plant by the harbour. Catherine snuck inside the compound through the corner of a mesh fence that had been peeled back like a lid on a can of sardines and then scurried down the weed-strewn road that snaked between derelict warehouses and office blocks. As Lloyd tailed her he spotted a mobile phone laying on the cracked concrete road. Assuming it was her he pocketed it just as she disappeared through a broken door to one of the blocks. Peering round the doorway he watched her scale a metal staircase that led to a mezzanine floor of offices.
It crossed his mind, briefly, that what he was doing was dangerous, that if she caught him he might be in trouble, but he had seen Catherine round the school before and althoughs he hung about with a bad crowd she seemed pretty harmless, if a bit wimpish.
Brushing his mild concerns aside, he stealthily climbed the stairs and peered over the sill of the office she walked into. Catherine was at the far end of the room. She had unzipped her bag, pulled out the candles and was placing the box on a bookcase filled with a variety of other objects; a picture frame, a teddy bear, a loaf of mouldy bread, a cd player, a vase, a set of glass tumblers and a host of other random objects. Was she living here?
Boldlyhe stepped inside the room and shut the door behind him.
Catherine spun round and glared at him, her eyes wide.
"What are you doing here? Get out," she spat, reaching for a broken chair leg and brandishing in front of her like a sword.
Lloyd held his ground and her voice.
"I saw you steal those candles from Bensons," he stated.
"And what of it," said Catherine.
"You're Catherine Ziane aren't you?" he asked.
"What do you care who I am?"
"I'm just curious why a nice girl like you does something so damn stupid, that's all," he said as he casually strolled over to a dusty red office chair and sat down.
"You better get out of here quick smart of I'll hit you. I'll bash your skull open like a...like a..."
"Like an coconut? Melon? Egg?"
Catherine clenched the chair leg tighter, making her knuckles turn white, and she snorted through gritted teeth. "I will. I swear it."
"Where are you from?" Lloyd asked, swivelling round on the chair's castors. "I mean originally. Where you born in England?"
"Of course I was. I speak English don't I?" she spat.
"I only asked if you were born here."
"Well I was. I'm a Londoner. My mum's a Londoner."
"And your dad?"
"From Morocco."
"That explains a lot then."
"What do you mean?"
"Your funny accent."
Catherine scrutinised him. "If you're gonna come out with some names you can forget it, I've heard them all."
"What makes you think I want to mock you because you're different?" he asked, genuinely curious to know why she was so defensive.
"Because that's what most of you do," she said. "You stick labels on people."
"And what label would you stick on me?"
"Nosey, for one," she said, lowering her baton.
Lloyd laughed. "Well, I can't disagree with you there. I suppose if I wasn't I wouldn't be here."
"Why are you here?"
"Curiosity."
"Curiosity killed the cat you know. Ever heard that saying?"
"I have," he said. "But I'm not afraid of you. If you were Jonny Boyd though that would be a different matter. I know what he's capable of."
"You better watch what you say. He's a 49er."
"Is that what they're called?" he said as he slid his hands under his thighs and continued to swing on the chair. "And you want to be one too?"
"I am one now," she said, puffing out her chest. "This takes care of that," she added holding up the box of candles in her free hand.
"I don't understand," Lloyd said frowning at her.
"My forty-ninth theft," she said, pointing to the bookcase stuffed with items she had obviously pilfered from stores across Wellborough.
"Why forty-nine?"
Catherine placed the candles on the shelf beside a shrink-wrapped box of blank cds. "Jonny said shoplifters get caught once every forty-nine times they steal stuff. He says if you can steal forty-nine times you're in the gang."
"But surely you could just buy forty-nine things and say you stole them."
Catherine shook her head. "They're not dumb you know. They say you have to video yourself stealin'. Happy snatchin' Jonny calls it."
Lloyd felt his mouth go dry. Did she video herself with her mobile phone? He ran a hand over his jacket pocket. It was still there. "I could turn you in you know?" he said
"You've got no evidence. No-one would believe you," she replied bluntly.
Lloyd thought about revealing what he had in his pocket but decided against it. Although she was a bit soft she might be unpredictable. He didn't want to risk it.
"If you're so sick of being labelled why are you so keen to be a 49er?" he asked.
"Because it's the last one people will ever stick on me."
"Aren't you happy being who you are?"
"I'm not anybody," she spat, hurling the chair leg into the corner of the room where it bounced off the wall and left a dent in the crumbly plasterwork.
"That's not what I heard."
Catherine shot him look that suggested he had better choose her next words carefully.
"I heard you entered the Interschool Under Sixteen Art competition for a self portrait you painted."
"I didn't. Miss Browns did. She did it behind my back."
"And you weren't happy about that?"
Catherine shrugged her shoulders. "Don't mean nothin'. I never won anyway."
"That's not the point. Miss Browns obviously saw something in it that made her enter you."
"Well she shouldn't have. It wasn't meant for no-one but me."
"Why only you?"
"To remind me that I'm worthless," she said as she slumped against the wall and kicked a rusty stapler at her feet across the room.
"Why are you so down on yourself?"
Catherine snapped her head round then marched up to him, her face red and her eyes narrowed. Lloyd held his breath. His body stiffened. He actually felt afraid now, afraid that he had chipped away too much of her outer shell and was now exposing a raw, explosive nerve.
"Because I ain't smart like you," she spluttered, showering Lloyd with spittle. "Yeah I know who you are. Lloyd Carter, school swot."
Lloyd leapt up out of his chair and challenged her. With only a hair's breadth separating their faces it was Catherine's turn to be afraid. Lloyd noticed her taught face loosen and her jaw quiver.
"Don't think you know so much about me, Catherine," he said as he barged past her, deliberately knocking her to the side with his shoulder. "I'm not exactly an angel you know."
Catherine rubbed her shoulder whilst he examined the contents of the bookcase.
"So what's your story then?" she asked.
"Oh you're interested in me now are you and not wallowing in self pity."
"Fine, if you don't wanna tell me."
"No, no. You asked so I'll tell you."
"The only reason I'm in state school is because my parents were sick of me being suspended from public school. They were fed up with having to pay for me to be in class when I was actually at home, getting under my mother's feet," he said.
"Why were you suspended?"
"Because I disrupted my classes. I'd throw stuff around, call the teachers names, tear up books."
"Why?"
"I was desperate to be different. In a sea of boring, stuffy, over-intelligent, ya-yas I wanted to be different. So I rebelled."
"We're not so different really, are we?" said Catherine.
Lloyd shook his head. "The thing is I realised when I left Wellborough Girls and enrolled at the Comp that no matter where I go I'm still me. I can get away from that. You just have to accept it and, without sounding really corny, embrace what you've got."
Catherine looked down at herself and across at her loot.
"Sure, I'm a straight A student. Lah-de-dah," Lloyd said. "But I'd trade that in to be able to paint like you."
"I could teach you," Catherine said. "And you could help me with my exams."
Lloyd extended a hand to her. "Sounds like you've made yourself a good deal there," he said.
Catherine took his hand in hers and with a smile gave it a firm shake.
He let go and made for the door of the office.
"What are you going to do? I mean about this stuff," she asked glancing at the bookcase of booty.
Lloyd reached a hand into his jacket pocket, pulled out her mobile phone and skimmed it across the linoleum towards Catherine.
"I'll leave that for you to decide," he said and left her in the office, alone. "See you tomorrow."

The Clockmaker's apprentice

Albert didn't mean to cause any harm by fixing his master's pocket watch. He didn't realise the clock repair skills included the ability to reverse time. He only did it was because he was angry that Mr Chivers treated him no better than a stray dog-being hurled scraps from the table or potato and carrot peelings from the kitchen, having to drink rain water that he collected in a tin on the window sill because he was forbidden from taking tap water, and having to sleep on the larder floor amongst the rats with nothing but a hessian sack to keep him warm. It hadn't always been that way though and that was what made it all the harder to cope with. But a year ago Mr Chivers's wife was brutally murdered and the police's inability to catch her killer had left him a broken and bitter man. He had lost the love of his life and with it he lost his purpose in life. Everything changed. Instead of being generous he became miserly, hoarding his cash and then lavishly spending it on himself. He kicked Albert out of his quarters and turned the room into his dressing chamber, ordering Albert to sleep in the larder or outside in the street. Albert felt sorry for him, but at the same time was angry at the way he was behaving. Albert felt he deserved better. He wanted to show the old man that if it wasn't for Albert, with his much keener eyesight and nimbler fingers, there wouldn't be a business to support his master's new spendthrift nature. There would be no more weekly visits to the tailor for fittings for new coats and suits and cravats, no trips to the milliners for new hats, or the cordwainers for new shoes, and no extravagant trips to the theatre at which to brag about his wealth and flatter any lady that crossed his path.
So one night, when Mr Chivers was fast asleep, in his hand carved four post bed, Albert crept up the stairs and swiped his master's pocket watch from the bedside table. All night Albert worked on the mechanism under candlelight, fiddling with the mainspring, the gear train, the balance wheels and the jewels until he finally managed to get the watch to run backwards. Then he carefully replaced the backing and returned the watch to his master's chamber.
When Albert woke the next morning and took his master's tea to his chamber he got such a shock he almost dropped the tray. He was expecting Mr Chivers to be bemused and frustrated at his malfunctioning watch but what he saw was Mr Chivers doing everything in reverse. He walked round the bed backwards, pulling down his pyjama bottoms and throwing his pyjama top into a neatly folded pile in his draw. Then the shirt and waistcoat he had on the night before flew through the air from off his chair and slid onto his body, his breeches slid up his legs and his boots appeared to get sucked onto his feet from across the room. Albert looked on agast. He placed the tea tray onto the dresser and looked across at Mr Chivers.
"Are you alright, sir?"Albert asked sheepishly.
"!yob em rewsna, llew"
Albert scratched his head, trying to understand what his master had said. Was he speaking a new language as well as acting oddly?
"?thgin fo emit siht ta ereh gniod uoy era tahw" asked Mr Chivers.
Albert struggled for something to say but rather than provide a response he wasn't sure his master would understand he simply picked up the tray and exited the chamber. It was only when he was sat at the kitchen table, with the steaming teapot in front of him, pondering the strange turn of events that he realised what had happened.
"I not only put his watch in reverse, I put him in reverse as well. And he's talking in reverse too," Albert gasped. "Oh my, what have I done?"
At the moment Mr Chivers appeared at the doorway of the kitchen and said something incomprehensible whilst pointing at the sunrise outside the window and then backed straight out again.
Albert heard the click of the front door of his master's shop and then the tap, tap of his boots on the cobbles outside.
"Where was he last night?" said Albert to himself. "The theatre!"
Albert grabbed his tattered overcoat and ran outside after his master. He expected the rest of the world to be turning in reverse too but was relieved, to discover it wasn't. Mrs Beets the baker was opening up her shop, William the grocer was stocking his stall with fruits and vegetables, and Mr Staines the Haberdasher was hanging length of plush fabric outside his shop window. None of them appeared to have noticed Mr Chivers walking backwards down Whitechapel Lane. He was sure if they had they wouldn't be busying themselves with preparations for the day's work ahead, they'd be doing what Albert was doing; pursuing Mr Chivers down to Whitechapel Theatre.
But when Albert arrived at the theatre he couldn't find his master.
"You haven't seen Mr Chivers at all have you?" Albert asked awkwardly.
The ticket teller, who had a bemused look on her face, pointed toward the auditorium. Albert opened the doors and looked inside. He'd never been in a theatre before and was instantly distracted by the opulence of the building. There was gilding and plush red velvet as far as his eyes could see, and there sat in the middle of the stalls was Mr Chivers. Albert stood in the aisle awkwardly. He didn't know what to do. He was sure if his master saw him there he would scold him. So Albert nestled down into one of the seats and waited to see what Mr Chivers would do. Albert sat there for two whole hours watching Mr Chivers do nothing. Mr Chivers didn't even seem alarmed that nothing was going on on stage. Then when his pocket watch struck ten Mr Chivers got up and backed out of the theatre.
By the time Albert returned to the Clockmaker's every shopkeeper on the street was alerted to the Mr Chiver's bizarre behaviour. They spent most of the day idly gossiping amongst themselves between serving their own customers. Albert was at a loss as to what to do as the Clockmaker changed from his smart clothes into his work clothes and took to his workshop to 'unrepair' a watch he had fixed the day before. Albert knew what was coming and braced himself.
".esool leehw ecnalab eht tfel ev'uoy, yob sselesU" Mr Chivers yelled. He then smacked Albert across the head, studied the watch and placed it on the shelf.
Albert knew what Mr Chivers had said. He remembered it from the day before-"Useless boy, you've left the balance wheel loose."
He knew he hadn't left it loose. Mr Chivers was looking for a reason to give Albert a slap and when he couldn't find one he made one up.
That night, when Mr Chivers had eaten his breakfast and backed into bed, Albert snatched the pocket watch again and tried to undo what he had done. But as he stared at the watch with its hands ticking backwards round the clock face he started to think about happier times. He remembered the day when Mr Chivers picked him up from the orphanage as a five year old. Albert was scruffy and dirty with threadbare rags hanging off his bony little body. But when Mr Chivers took him home he and his wife gave him a nice bath, filled his stomach with roasted meats and steaming vegetables and bought him a smart shirt, woollen trousers, a cap, a pair of black boots and some thick socks. Albert had never felt such luxury as socks. They made his feet feel like they were wrapped up in a warm sunny day. He could hardly believe his luck. On that first night Albert stayed awake all night, afraid that if he went to sleep he'd wake up and discover his new life was only a dream. Luckily it wasn't.
Mr Chivers wasn't just generous to Albert, though, he was generous to anyone in need. He never spent much money on himself or his wife (not that she wanted him to anyway). He preferred to give his money to charities to help the sick and the poor. It gave him comfort and joy. But that all changed that fateful night when his wife snuck out to buy her husband the scarf he had admired for christmas. Albert wished he could go back and make everything alright again. That was when it hit him. He could do just that. He'd already started. Mr Chivers was living his life in reverse. All Albert had to do was wait. Albert closed the pocket watch and put it back on Mr Chiver's bedside table.
Over the months that passed Albert's life was busier than he ever imagined it would be. Every waking moment Albert spent re-repairing all the pocket watches, cuckoo clocks and grandfather clocks he had repaired once before and that Mr Chivers then unrepaired. If it wasn't challenging enough for Albert to explain to bemused customers who suddenly found themselves back in Mr Chiver's shop picking up time pieces they were sure they'd collected some time ago, he found it especially tricky to adapt to Mr Chivers's backward speech. He got used to it soon enough though and was even able to converse a little with Mr Chivers.
After months of work and fending off comments from fellow shopkeepers in the street that Mr Chivers's shop was cursed by some devil work, time had turned back to the day before Mrs Chivers disappeared.
Whilst Mr Chivers was bathing backwards, the soap magically sliding off his skin and onto the bar, Albert took ten pounds from the shop till and dashed outside. He scuttled over the cobbled streets and turned down into Ruby Lane where Silby's the scarf merchant had a lavish collection of imported silks and chiffons. Albert stepped inside and pulled the blue and yellow striped silk scarf that Mr Chivers admired off the rack, and handed over his money. Mr Silby, the shopkeeper gave Albert a suspicious glare, seemingly curious as to why a young lad, not particularly well dressed, was in possession of ten pounds cash.
"I'm on an errand for Mr Chivers," Albert said.
Mr Silby gave him a nod, bagged the scarf and gave him two shillings change.

That night Albert leant over the counter of the shop and waited. He wasn't sure if his wish would come true; if she would really walk back through that door. But he had to hope.
Then just as morning broke there was a tinkle at the door that jerked Albert awake. The bell on the door had rung and there backing into the shop was Mrs Chivers with a childlike, mischievous grin on her face. Albert was so happy he thought his insides were going to explode. But now that he had set his world right he had to fix what he had started.
Whilst Mr Chivers was preoccupied with unmaking a pot of tea, Albert managed to snatch Mr Chivers's pocket watch and hurriedly set to work fixing the mischief he himself had created a year ago. Whilst out of sight he snuck into the workshop and under candlelight once more fiddled with the gears and springs and dropped the watch back into Mr Chivers's coat pocket. All he could do now, once again, was wait and hope.
The following morning Albert was woken with a start by Mrs Chivers gently rocking him.
"Albert, what are you doing sleeping on the larder floor?" she asked softly.
Albert looked up at her and smiled the biggest smile he could muster, so big it almost cut his head in two.
He leapt up and threw his arms around Mrs Chivers.
"I love you. Please don't leave," he begged, as tears began to pour down his face.
"I'm not going to leave," she said as she pulled him away and wiped his cheeks with her apron.
"I have something for you," Albert said and ran to the cupboard where he stashed the scarf.
"I know you wanted to get it for Mr Chivers so I went and bought it for you, to save you going out for it," Albert said. "I hope you don't mind."
Mrs Chivers opened the bag and laughed. "How did you know?"
Albert never considered she would ask him that. Fortunately he had become adept at coming up with convincing answers in a hurry and so simply replied.
"Let's just say I'm a little psychic."

Dodgers

Timi was asleep, nestled in his nook amongst the twisted roots of the silver birch that grew above him. He liked to sleep, it was the only time he got peace. When he was awake he was plagued with constant worry that he wasn't a good enough rabbit to be living in the burrow.
His mother tried to reassure him he would get his confidence back one day and he would rise to be Burrow Chief.
"The best Burrow Chief that Hollow Downs has ever seen," she proclaimed.
Timi didn't see that ever happening.
"You learnt your lesson when you were very young, Timi," his mother said. "You know now never to venture onto the farmer's land, especially when he's out with his gun and his sheepdog."
He had learnt his lesson, but because of it the thought of the unknown dangers lurking out in the big world made Timi tremble like a leaf in the breeze. And so he stayed where he knew he was safe-in the deep, dark tunnels of the burrow.
He was content, curled up with his black nose nestled inside his fluffy white tail, gently snoring, when a thump to his rump jerked him awake.
"Wakey, wakey, droopy ears," said a familiar, cocky voice.
Timi stirred and slowly opened his eyes. It was Curr:Timi's brother.
"Come on, it's a great day outside," said Curr, hopping over the roots on the floor of the burrow. "And I've just discovered a great new game. I call it 'Dodgers'."
Timi looked up. He was desperate to go outside but the terror he felt was like a leash tying him to the ground. He couldn't move.
"Not today," Timi said. "My leg is sore. I want to rest it."
"Timi, you're always saying your leg is sore. I know that farmer scuff it with a bullet but you can't stay inside forever."
Timi knew he was right.
"Come on, Timi," Curr wailed. "If you don't want to see me play dodgers why don't you come to the entrance of the burrow and watch me slide down the hill. I have a fresh slide that I pulled from the farmer's rubbish."
Timi leapt up onto his rump. "Curr, you shouldn't go down there. Not during sun time. He'll get you."
"Not if I have my wits about me," said Curr, stroking his whiskers. "So what do you say? Will you come to the entrance?"
Timi knew Curr would badger him until he agreed. Curr was a determined rabbit. So cautiously Timi hopped through the tunnels of Hollow Down until he reached the circle of daylight at the head of the burrow. A summer breeze blew inside fluttering the veil of roots that hung over the entrance.
"Come on," yelled Curr as he poked his head inside the entrance.
Timi inched towards the roots and just poked his nose though them. He couldn't see Curr but he could hear him.
"You can't see anything from there," called Curr. "Come out further."
Timi pushed his head out, as far as his ears and looked about.
Curr was sat on his rump, a little to the left of the burrow, with a small, empty packet underneath one of his front paws. He was at the top of the steep grassy slope that led down into the heart of the field where a group of black and white cows were happily grazing.
"Watch this, Timi," said Curr as he hopped onto the packet and whizzed down the slope with his ears flapping behind him.
The sight of Curr having fun made Timi angry. He longed to do what his brother could do. But the image in his mind of the red-faced farmer staring down the barrel of his gun reminded Timi that he was not an audacious rabbit. He was governed by a much stronger force that tenacity. He was governed by fear. But rather than face it and give it a swift kick with his hind legs, which was what Curr would do, he darted back down the burrow to the safety of his nook. And there he stayed for the rest of the day. But when night fell he was woken by a panic-stricken voice.
"Timi, Timi," it called.
Timi lifted up his sleepy head. "What's wrong?"
"It's Curr," said the voice. "He's in trouble."
Timi's eyes flicked open to see Silver standing over him. Her ears were back and she was shaking so much Timi felt the earth beneath him tremble.
"What's happened?" Timi asked as terrifying thoughts of what had befallen Curr sent his mind into a spin-Had he fallen down a hole? Was he trapped in barbed wire? Had he been attacked by a wolf or a dog?
"We were playing on the black path dodging the bright eyes as they whizzed up and down," Silver whimpered, wiping a tear from one of her black-glassy eyes with a paw. "Curr was leaping back and forth across the path but he got stuck and now he can't move."
"What do you mean he can't move?"
"He's stuck in the middle of the black path. Eyes are whizzing all around him. He's terrified, Timi. He's curled up into a ball. You have to help him."
Timi shuddered at the thought. "You have to tell our parents. They'll know what to do. They'll do something," he said, trying to make out that the wisdom of the elders was Curr's only hope.
"They're not here, Timi. They're out foraging. You have to do something."
"Why can't you help him?" he said.
Timi felt every one of his words pierce his conscience. They spluttered from his mouth before his brain could stop them.
"He's your brother, Timi," Silver pleaded. "He needs you, or he might die."
That was it. That was the catalyst. The idea of Curr dying and leaving Timi without a brother was more than Timi could bear. He would sooner die himself than see his younger brother hurt.
He sprang out of his nook and bounded through the tunnels of the burrow until he was out into the chill sting of night.
It was the first time Timi had ever seen the night. But he had no time to take it in or to be afraid by it. He pushed his apprehensions about the unknown deep down inside him until he was almost stepping on his fears and scrambled down the hillside.
Behind Silver he darted across the field, weaving through the legs of the black and white cows and round steaming, stinky cowpats toward a mesh fence in the distance. He pushed himself beneath it, after Silver, and then wove down through tall grasses to the edge of the black pathway.
Timi managed to keep his fear at bay, thinking only of the safety of his brother, but when his nose caught a noxious scent that smelt like burning Timi was reminded of the farmer's tractors. He could feel every cell in his body begin to freeze. He wanted to turn tail and run back to the cover of the burrow but the terrified cries of his brother thawed his fear.
"Timi," Curr cried. "Help me!"
Huddled in the middle of the black pathway, trembling, tired and weak, whilst loud beasts with brilliant white eyes zipped all around him, was Curr. One of his back paws was wedged within the slates of a grate. He was struggling to pull it free.
Timi had no idea how he was going to get to Curr but he knew he had to. He searched deep down into his very soul for the brash confidence he once had; the confidence that led him down to the farmer's shed that day when he was just a young bunny. He didn't have a care in the world then. He was curious, and bold. He was invincible. Instantly Timi felt a change come over him. He started to feel taller, and stiffer. He felt his ears prick up, his neck stretch and his shoulders broaden. He took a deep breath and watched the bright eyes. He deduced that the bigger and brighter they were the closer they were and so when a break came, when the eyes were far enough away, Timi took a deep breath. He bounded over to Curr and huddled beside him just as a large beast with four eyes roared past. Timi's heart thumped in his chest as a gust of wind, in the wake of the beast, ruffled his fur and a cloud of fumes choked and burned his throat. But he didn't care. He was glad he and his brother were still alive.
As Timi turned to examine Curr's paw his back legs skidded on something on the black path. It was a sticky, black, slippery substance that had a shimmer of rainbows running through it. An idea flickered into life in his mind and suddenly he felt empowered. He scooped up some of the black stuff and rubbed it onto Curr's back paw.
"Give that a wiggle now, Curr," cried Timi as beasts continued to roar up and down the path.
Curr wiggled and tugged at his paw and suddenly it popped out from the grate.
"I'm free," Curr cried with delight.
"Not quite," said Timi. "We still have to get back to verge."
With Silver watching on, pacing up and down through the grass, Timi waited until the beast's eyes were small and shouted to Curr, "Now!"
Timi and Curr darted across the black path as fast as they could and leapt onto the verge, collapsing in an exhausted heap on a mound of spongy moss.
"Thanks Timi," Curr spluttered between breaths.
Timi twitched his nose and whiskers. "The same to you."
"What do you have to thank me for?" asked Curr. "I made you risk your life to save me."
"And because of that you saved me from fear, from spending my life curled up in the burrow. You made me strong again. You made me feel important."
Curr sighed and climbed onto his Timi's belly.
"So that does that mean you'll come hill sliding with me tomorrow?" Curr asked.
"Only if you can find another slide," replied Timi.

A slice of Sky

My name is Kerry Henderson. I'm seventeen years old, and yesterday my best friend killed himself. Nobody in the town understood how such a strong, confident, gifted and personable rugby player leapt so far off the rails. Nobody saw the signs. I did, but there was nothing I could do to stop it. I was in fear of my own life.

Connor Willis was fifteen years old when he was injured in a serious house fire. It killed his sister and father and left his mother so disfigured and distraught she abandoned Connor. Nobody ever heard from her again. Connor had seventy percent third degree burns over his body and was kept in an isolated chamber in the Victoria Hospital to minimise infections getting into his open wounds. I was only able to visit him a few times but to be honest it could have been anyone lying in that bed. He was wrapped from head to toe in bandages. If it wasn't for his piercing blue eyes poking through I'd have never known it was him. He was always sedated, because of the pain he was in, so I never spoke to him until he finally got out of the hospital. That was a year after the accident.

Because I wasn't family I was never told the details of his treatment but the Aunt that cared for him said the doctors had found a suitable and compatible donor for skin graft treatment. She said that he didn't have enough of his own healthy skin to cover his wounds. As far as the doctors were concerned the treatment was a complete success. The skin took to Connor well, although the doctors said that he would never look like he did before the accident. I accepted that. I was just glad he was alive.

When I saw Connor for the first time it wasn't his appearance that worried me, it was whether he'd recognise me or not. I turned up at his Aunt's house unannounced. I hadn't planned to. I was going to let Connor get settled back to normal life before I descended on him, but I was desperate to see him, to hear him talk again. I felt like a part of my life had been on hold the whole time he was in hospital. His Aunt was a little reluctant to let me in but Connor insisted it was okay. When I walked into the sitting room he greeted me as he always did with a hug, but instantly I knew something was different. His hug was nothing more than cursory. Cold. I knew Connor. We'd been friends since we were toddlers. I knew him better I think than he knew himself. He was always the warmest of my friends. I put it down to the fact that he'd been through a terrible ordeal and so wasn't quite back to normal. So I sat on the couch and caught him up with all the gossip in the town, like who was hooking up with whom-I included the teachers in that as they all seemed to be at it as well. He laughed but as I continued talking his attention seemed to drift. He'd nod his head as though he was listening but I knew he wasn't. A couple of times I caught him looking out of the window. I didn't know what drew his focus.

I didn't know, when I left Connor's house, that his recovery wasn't going to be pleasant. The weight and strength he lost during his hospitalisation never returned. Before the accident he was always the athletic type. Rugby was 'his' game as he called it. He was passionate about it to the point where he coached younger kids to play. It gave him purpose in life. But he'd lost all interest in it. They say after a traumatic experience you're never quite the same person. For Connor it wasn't that he was never quite the same, he was completely different. He'd become lazy, slobbish, unwashed. He'd gotten into a couple of fights at school and his studies began to suffer as he failed test after test. I did what I could to help him improve his grades. I even sat with him once to help him write his English essay. When he gave up on it and slumped down on the crumpled sheets of his bed I pulled his laptop towards me and finished it for him. It was never my intention to pry, but something within me was curious to see what he'd been looking at on the web. I felt so disconnected, so distant from this new Connor I was desperate to know if a sliver of the old Connor still existed, if he still had his whimsical passion for pointless road signs (I remember him showing me a photo of one that read 'This sign is not in use'. I almost broke a hip laughing at that one. He laughed with me and before long we were rolling on the floor in uncontrollable fits of giggles). But when I flicked through his laptop I was horrified by the links on his favourites to crimes, criminals, murders, weaponry, even hardcore sex. When I challenged him about it he became defensive and angry. He leapt off the bed, grabbed me by my shirt and shoved me against the wall.
"Butt out of my business," he roared.
In all the time we'd known each other we never had a cross word. We disagreed plenty of times but it never came to the point of verbal or physical abuse. I will put my hand on my heart and say that in that moment I was scared to my core. Every bone and fibre in my body trembled and all I could think about was getting out. I packed my bag and left him to finish his paper himself.
The next day at registration he was all apologetic and promised it wouldn't happen again. I told him we needed to talk.
That lunch we sat down by the old oak in the park.
"What's going on Connor?" I asked softly, not wanting to rile him.
It seemed to take forever for him to answer. He kept staring at the ground, fiddling with a blade of dry grass.
"I don't feel like I know you anymore," I said.
He glanced across at me. His eyes were swollen and heavy. He wanted to cry but didn't seem able.
"I don't know me either," he said. "It's like there's something inside me. Something evil, crawling around, consuming me from the inside out. I can feel it. I'm...I'm loosing control."
"Well, I can't disagree with you on that score. The question is how do we put this right?"
"People, doctors, medics, keep telling me that I'm traumatised. That its the accident that's altered me. "
"That's inevitable Connor. Even I accepted you'd be a little different."
"That's just it," he said. "A little different. Not a lot different. I feel like another person."
Suddenly I felt a breakthrough. He'd admitted the extent of his change. That was surely a good thing.
"I'm ashamed of it," he said, his chin slumping against his chest.
I rested my arm delicately across his shoulders. "It's not your fault. You didn't start that fire."
"That's not what I mean," he said, shying away from me. "I...I did something. Horrible."
"Connor you don't have a horrible bone in your body. Whatever it was it couldn't be that bad."
"I killed a cat!" he spat.
The revelation rocked me but I knew I had to remain calm, not because I was afraid of being hurt myself, I was afraid of loosing the connection I had finally managed to make with Connor.
"Why?"
Connor shrugged his shoulders. "It annoyed me. It kept meowing at the patio doors. So I let it in. And," Connor shuddered as he continued, seemingly horrified himself by his actions, "strangled it."
I was horrified and upset myself, especially for Mrs Higgins, the cat's owner. Mogsy was all she had.
"That's not all," Connor said.
I braced myself for another revelation, another confession of abuse.
"While I was at the doctor's surgery, having my monthly check up I swiped a bunch of hypodermic needles. I took them down to the river and threw them at the rats, like they were darts."
"We need to get you some help, Connor. I mean psychological help," I said, rubbing his arm to reassure him I was on his side.
"It was the doctors that made me this way, Kerry. I'm not trusting them to do anything."
"What are you talking about? If it wasn't for the doctors you wouldn't be here. You'd be dead."
"I'd rather be dead than...than this. Than be this thing."
"You're not a thing, you're my friend."
"I'm loosing the fight, Kerry and there is nothing anyone can do to stop it."
At this point I was getting confused by what he was saying. It was like we were both having two completely different conversations. "What do you mean, loosing the fight? Loosing the fight against who?"
"Him," Connor spat with disgust. "The one who made me who I am."
"Connor, I'm confused. You're not making any sense."
"Sky Keppler," he said. The name vomitted from his mouth like poisoned food.
"Who's that?"
"The man who donated my skin," said Connor.
The name rolled in my head trying to find the hole in my brain in which to connect with the rest of the useless knowledge that floated around in there.
"Why do I recognise that?"
"He was in prison for murdering school kids around Birmingham," Connor said.
He pulled the sleeves of his shirt up over his elbows and began feverishly scratching his skin, like he was trying to tear it off.
"He's consumed my body, Kerry, and he wants my mind next. He's already in there. I can feel it. He's a poison that coursing through me, infecting everything."
"That can't be right. That's science fiction stuff, Connor," I said.
"You don't believe me," he roared. "I knew I couldn't trust you."
He leapt up on to his feet and glowered down at me. His eyes were burning with rage, his fists were clenched ready to deliver a blow and the wafer-thin skin on his face was taught like stretched cellophane.
I could see the struggle in his eyes. His body was ready for a fight but his eyes were pleading for peace. I wanted to cry; not for me but for him.
He ran off across the park.
I tore after him but lost him through the trees. I searched for him all day and in a last attempt to find him I decided to go down to the rugby clubhouse. The place he spent most of his life.
The lights weren't on but I figured even Connor wouldn't have put them on if he didn't want to be found. I skulked round the building, peering into the windows, looking for any signs of a forced entry. Then I heard muffled cries. Not the cries of a man.
"Why have you bought me here, Connor?" snuffled a young boy. "Are we playing rugby in the dark?"
"Quit your whinging!" Connor snapped.
He was in there. My heart dropped into my feet. I had no idea what he was going to do. In the fragile state he was in he could do anything. He'd already come close to smacking me twice and I'm sure it was only the history we had together that stayed his hand. How would he fair with a child he had very little connection with? I daren't think. A wave of nausea swept across me.
"What do you need a knife for?" cried the boy.
Hearing that sent me into a blind panic. I had to get in. I had to save the boy and try and save Connor, if that was at all possible. I found myself now actually believing what Connor had told me about Sky Keppler. It was the only explanation.
Without hesitation I scrambled around for something I could use as a weapon and happened upon a heavy branch that had snapped from a tree. I pulled of the leaves and twigs and gingerly approached the door. Connor must have had a key as the door was unlocked. As quietly as I could, I unlocked it and crept inside. I had no idea what the layout of the building was and so had to feel my way around, down and round the corridors until I could hear Connor's deep voice penetrating the walls. The boy he held was now terrified and began to scream for help.
"Shut up you whiny little brat," yelled Connor.
There was then a thud that sounded like something falling, followed by screams of pain from the boy.
My hand curled round the handle of the locker room door, my sweaty palms struggling to grip it, and opened it. I was so scared my heart was thumping in my chest.
I dropped the branch realising that any weapon would be useless to me. I had to use my wits instead.
"Connor," I called out. "Are you here?"
"Get away, bitch," Connor yelled.
"I'm not going anywhere," I said. "I'm here to help you."
"No chance of that now. I've got what I want. I'm free again."
"You're not Sky Keppler, Connor. You're name is Connor Willis. You're seventeen years old and you're my best friend."
Connor grabbed his head with both hands and shook it. "No, no, no," he yelled.
"You live with your Aunt Flora. You love rugby and play golf really, really badly. You love to laugh and you love to make people laugh with you."
Connor smacked back against the wall and slumped down on the floor. While he was distracted I grabbed the little boy and told him to run home.
When the boy disappeared through the door I approached Connor. He thrust the blade of his knife toward me to keep me at bay.
"He's mine," he shouted.
"No he's not Sky, he's mine. He's my friend."
"Kerry!" Connor cried.
"I'm here, Connor. It's me," I said, tears streaming down my face.
"I want peace," he pleaded, then his face contorted. "No, no, freedom."
Connor lifted the knife up, the blade glinted in the streetlight. Before I could stop him he plunged the knife into his throat.
"No!" I yelled. "Connor!"
Blood poured from the wound in his neck, staining his rugby and forming a syrupy pool on the locker room floor. But his life hadn't yet ebbed. I knelt down beside him and looked into his eyes. It was him. Connor. Pure Connor in those piercing blue eyes. In that last moment I saw the friend I knew two years ago. Then his eyes closed. Forever.

The peril of pop

Pearl loved pop. She loved how the bubbles danced on her tongue, how the sweetness gave her a warm and fuzzy feeling inside and how many colours and flavours they came in. It was all she drank. She drank it with her cereal-and sometimes on it-at breakfast, with her sandwiches at lunch, with her vegetables at dinner. She drank it on the bus after school, in the bath before bed, in her class under the desk. Pearl loved pop.

Her parents tried everything to stop her from drinking so much of the stuff. They gave her fruit juice but she poured it down the sink; they gave her water but she poured it into the dog's bowl; they told her that if she drank too much her teeth would fall out but she didn't believe them; they even stopped buying pop altogether, but Pearl cried and cried and stamped her feet until her mother ran out and bought her a bottle. Nothing was going to stop Pearl from drinking pop.

When Efferfizz, the local drinks company, heard about Pearl's passion they asked her to be their official spokesperson. In return for having a picture of her holding a can of pop with a big beaming, toothy smile on billboards and newspaper adverts and posters in bus stops Pearl was given a year's supply of their most popular drink, the Tonguetwister. Pearl was happier than a hyena, happier than a bee in a jar full of honey, happier than a dog in a choc drop factory. But it didn't take Pearl a year to drink all her Tonguetwisters. She' d drunk them all in a month-twelve cans a day. Pearl didn't think anything of it, although did notice her belly expand like a balloon. She was so inflated with pop she couldn't fit into any of her dresses. She couldn't even fit through the door. But Pearl wasn't discouraged.

Efferfizz delivered another year's supply of Tonguetwisters to her house and Pearl carried on drinking and drinking and drinking. She consumed that batch in two weeks and had swelled to the size of a car. Her parents could no long move her. All they could do was leave her where she was-rooted in the lounge, wobbling on the sofa like giant jelly.

Pearl was happy, but after a month of not seeing her friends, not being able to go out and play and having to wear her mother's maternity clothes, she started to feel unhappy. She wished she was a normal size again. She stopped drinking pop but it did nothing to deflate her. Then one night, whilst Pearl was fast asleep, she accidentally rolled off the sofa, across the lounge floor and over her mother's bag of knitting. One of the needles, jutting from the bag, pierced Pearl's stomach and with a pop and a hiss, she was suddenly zipping across the room. Pearl jerked awake when she bounced off the walls. She had no idea what was going on. The loud hissing sound woke up her parents too. They burst into the lounge just as Pearl plopped down onto the sofa. She looked down at the dress that hung off her body like a sack and smiled. "No more pop, mum" she said.

The life and times of Bob the duck

Once again Bob jostled for position against the thousand other yellow, rubber ducks on the River Flowt. He loved the build up to a big race. It was almost as much fun as competing in it-bobbing up and down with the undercurrent of the river, bumping and spinning as other contestants plopped onto the surface out of cloth sacks from above, the anticipation of who was going to win or who would be scooped out before the race began. It was exhilarating. But this race was the most important one of all. This was Bob's last race.

When the rope was lifted to the jubilant cries of the humans on the river bank Bob waited his turn. Experience taught him that patience was key to a successful race. It may not guarantee a win but then being first off the mark didn't either.

As the ducks began to spread out the gentle flow of the river took hold of Bob's underbelly and guided him down. The start of the race was usually calm-a ploy, Bob assumed, to stop any duck getting a head start on the others, or worse getting lost-and this race was no different. It was so calm he was able to admire the scenery: the leafy green trees, the crystal clear water, the swooping birds. But as he was enjoying the sight of a brilliant blue-green dragonfly, hovering over a clump of yellow marsh marigold he was sent in a tailspin and only stopped when he bumped into a rock jutting proud of the river surface. Ahead of him Bob saw a motorised duck whizzed past, weaving through the throng until a wave lapped against it, toppled it over and with a fizz and a pop shorted the duck's circuits.

"Poor thing," thought Bob as frantic chirping to his side, drew his attention.
A rubber duckling was weaving between clumps of grass, alone and in distress.
Not wanting to see a fledgling racer put off from a life on the open river, Bob floated alongside it to keep it company until its mother rejoined it.
"It's okay, ducky," he said softly. "You're mama will be back. A wave has probably blown her off course. Meantime I'll keep you company."
The duckling quieted and smiled up at Bob.
"You look really old," it said. "You're beak has faded to pink, and you're all scratched up and stuff."
"Sadly I am old. But I do remember when I was as young and as pristine looking as you. Oh yes," Bob began. "I was made in China, far, far away, and packed onto a ship for America. But I never made it there. The box I was in fell off the ship."
The duckling gasped in horror but Bob didn't notice, he continued with his tale.
"When the box was corroded by the salt water, it released me and hundreds of my fellow ducks into the Pacific Ocean. That's like a river that's so big it would take you years to cross it."
Bob thought he was entertaining the helpless duckling but the duckling began to tremble. "What did you do?" it asked.
"Nothing I could do," said Bob, casually, except float, adrift, lost and alone on the wild ocean waves.
The duckling began chirping loudly again.
"Oh sorry, no," said Bob frantically. "I didn't mean to frighten you."
"What's the meaning of this?" said another duck with long curved painted eyelashes. "What are you saying to my son?"
"Nothing, really, I was just talking about life on the open waves."
The mere mention of the word waves sent the duckling into deeper fits of distress. Rather than cause any more upset Bob sailed off toward a rush of white water that took him further down the river.
The current steered him toward gentler waters near the banking where he came across a pale yellow duck, shivering.
"You're either cold or terrified," said Bob.
"I'm both," said the duck. "Terrified of the cold. It's perishing in here."
"I actually think its quite pleasant in here. Temperate, I think is the right word."
"I wouldn't call it that," the duck huffed. "I'm not used to this northern climate. Give me races in Kent or Surrey any day."
"If you think this is cold you should try being encased in the arctic for a year," said Bob.
The duck looked at him with disbelief.
"It's true," said Bob. "After I was cast adrift, lost and alone. I found the water of the Pacific Ocean gradually get colder and colder and before I knew it was caught up in a big freeze. Stuck in a lump of ice I was for a full year, until the sun came round and melted me out."
The pale duck raised the line of his eyebrows at Bob before drifting into a cluster of reeds and overhanging branches.
Bob drifted on by. "Sorry I can't stop and help," he called out.
Up ahead of him was a group of three ducks huddled together, quivering, their eyes frantically scanning the surface of the water.
"Where did it go? Did you see it?" said one.
"No. It's not here. I must have dived below," said another.
"What are you looking for? Lost a duck?" asked Bob as he cruised alongside them.
"No. Fish!" said the third.
"You're all afraid of fish?" asked Bob.
"Yes," they chimed as a black speckled trout darted through the water beneath them.
"Oh these fish are tiddlers," said Bob. "I've met bigger fish than that."
"Where?" said one of the ducks.
"In the ocean. I was adrift you see, and after I'd been frozen in the arctic and defrosted I was swallowed up whole by a barnacled encrusted gray whale."
The three ducks gasped. "What happened?"
"It didn't think I was tasty enough so it spat me out through its blowhole. I shot out, into the air with a fountain of sea water and landed with a plop into the ocean."
The three ducks' black eyes rolled back into their head and they toppled flat on their backs. Out cold.
"You've got nothing to fear from trout!" said Bob as his underbelly caught the edge of a swirling eddy that propelled him down river.
He sailed past a row of ducks, one following the other, and then collided beak first into a duck leaning on its side.
"Oops, sorry there," said Bob. "I wasn't watching where I was going. Can I help you right yourself?"
"You can try but it won't work. I'm a bit wonky. Too much weight on one side," said the duck.
"How did that happen?" asked Bob.
"Owner tried to repair a slice in my side but he covered me in too much plastic. Now I don't sail upright anymore."
"You don't sound too worried about it," said Bob.
"Nothing I can do really. Just gotta live with it."
"I know what you mean. I was repaired too. See the lump on my back," said Bob. "I had a hook stuck in there. After my expedition on the open waves I was washed ashore in the south of England and picked up by a fairground traveller. He had a 'hook-the-duck' game. They give humans sticks so they can fish you out by your hook, if they get you they get a prize which is determined by the number on your underbelly."
Bob leaned to one side to expose his flat underside and the faded number painted on it.
"Four," said the duck.
Bob nodded. "Well, when the fairground traveller became ill he gave all his ducks away. I ended up on a shelf in a charity shop but not before they pulled the hook from my back and filled the hole with glue."
"Did it hurt?" asked the duck as he tilted further into the water.
Bob shook his head. "I was glad it was taken off to be honest," he said just as the duck capsized completely.
Before Bob could help the poor duck out of the water a fast flowing current whisked him away and through a maze of rocks. He bumped and twisted and turned about them before tipping over the edge of a small waterfall and getting dunked momentarily in the white foam. When he bobbed to the surface he was floating beside a duck who had clearly taken on water. He was sunk low on the surface, with only his neck and head above water.
"Are you okay down there?" asked Bob.
"I think so," it said. "As long as I don't get any more water inside me. Although it is a little worrying. I'd hate to drown."
"You'll be okay," Bob said. "You've got plenty of air in your head to keep you afloat. I've spent a lot of time under the water so I know."
"You have?"
"Oh yes. After I was bought out of a charity shop I went to a house where a very small human used to play with me in its bath. Every day it would dive bomb me under water. Sometimes it would hold me under there just to see if I would fill up."
"And did you?"
Bob shook his head. "And neither will you," he said as the duck sank a little further into the water before becoming wedged between two rocks. "Told you!" Bob yelled as he floated away.
As he rounded the bend of the river and felt the tickle of the swaying reeds beneath him on his underbelly he passed a duck that was frowning down at the water.
"Oh what a ghastly place this is," he said recoiling. "The water's filthy, and heaven only knows what is lurking down there. All sorts of bugs and little nasties."
"I think this is a luxurious river," said Bob.
The duck spun his head round and glowered at Bob. "And what would you know about luxury. I'll bet you've never been the Queen of England's bath toy. I'll bet you've never been pampered with chamomile and orange bubble bath."
"No, but I'll bet you've never been dumped on a pile of festering rubbish when you're no longer wanted as a bath toy. That is far more hideous and foul than floating peacefully in the fresh air," spat Bob as the duck suddenly became entangled in a thick bunch of reeds. Bob didn't want to help him.
As the sun began to peek through the thin veil of clouds Bob could see the finish line, the flags were flickering in the gentle breeze.
He knew he hadn't won as there were a number of ducks already ahead of him.
"Looks like we've lost, mate," said a duck with black sunglasses on, who bobbed beside Bob.
"That doesn't matter to me," said Bob. "I've been in so many now, winning is bittersweet."
"How do you make that out? Winning is the whole point."
"Once you've won you put pressure on yourself to win again, and again, and again. Before long it isn't enough. It's not about the destination, it's about the journey," said Bob as the flags came into full view of Bob and his companion.
"So how many races have you been in then?" asked the bespectacled duck.
"This is my five hundredth. And it's as important to me as my first. I thought when I was left on that scrapheap that that was it for me. If I hadn't been rescued by that duck race supplier I'd have spent the rest of my days on a rotting pile of waste. A purposeless life. But now I've earned my feathers," said Bob with a delicate smile of his pink beak.
As he crossed the finish line his scuffed and scratched plastic gradually softened and the delicate outline of plumage became visible across his back. His eyes suddenly blinked, his tail twitched, his wings separated from the rest of his body and to his delight he rose up out of the water and took flight, soaring high into the sky on the current of warm air. He was real.
'It's not about the destination, it's about the journey,' he thought.

Caspian the Merboy

Becca skipped down the stony slope to the small beach at the foot of the ruins of St Andrews castle with a torn piece of paper in her hands.
"Look, Wallace," she beamed to her brother as she jumped onto the soft, loose sand, waving the paper in her hands. "I was right. I was right!"
"Right about what?" said Wallace without severing his attention from the rock pool he and his friend were peering into.
"The fish boy!" huffed Becca.
"What fish boy?" said Wallace's friend, snapping his head round to look up at Becca.
Wallace was still more interested in studying the contents of the pool than his sister. "Becca thinks she saw a boy in the water with a fish tail, last week, Evan," Wallace mocked.
"And I'm not the only one," Becca announced as she shoved the torn piece of paper under Wallace's nose. "Read that."
Wallace snatched it from her hands and skim read the print.
"Coastguards were called to the West Sands yesterday when several people spotted what they thought was a boy being swept out to sea. However, when rescuers arrived at the scene the boy could not be found. Fearing he had drowned a team of local divers scoured the sea bed where the boy was last spotted but also found nothing. A few local residents who witnessed the incident were hesitant to describe what they saw. One, who was willing to speak to The Citizen, claimed that he had seen the boy dive under water, but instead of seeing legs he saw a fish tail. Further questioning has revealed that others saw the same thing but were in disbelief and reluctant to admit as much fearing ridicule. As a result of this strange phenomena, The Citizen," Wallace continued, his eyes suddenly lighting up, "is launching a competition, with a prize of five hundred pounds, for the first genuine photograph of the fish boy."
He looked up at Becca, his eyes were as wide as saucers and his jaw was flopped open.
"Five hundred pounds!" exclaimed Evan. "Do you know what we could do with that?"
"New bike!" said Wallace, dreamily.
"Endless Big Mac Meals."
"Anyway I still don't think you saw it cos you said he was on the East Sands, not the West Sands," said Wallace.
"It makes no difference. You didn't believe me when I told you and now you have to believe me cos I'm not the only one that saw him," she snapped and stuck her tongue out at him.
"So are we gonna enter this competition then or what?" asked Evan.
"Of course," said Wallace. "And we split the winnings, three ways."

The next day when Becca, her brother and Evan crossed the old golf course to the West Sands they were dumbstruck by the number of people that were out to find the fish boy.
"I thought the streets looked a bit deserted for a Saturday," said Evan.
"We don't stand a chance of getting the first shot now. The entire town must be down there," said Wallace a little crestfallen as he leaned over the white fence by the 18th fairway, and stared out across the throng of eager photographers.
"I saw him at the East Sands," said Becca. "Why don't we try there?"
Wallace glowered at her. "He's not going to be at the East Sands, Becca."
"How do you know? Have you asked him?" she replied stamping her feet.
"Fine, but if I find you've cost me...a third of five hundred pounds," Wallace said. "I'll snap the heads off all your dolls."
"And if I don't I'll snap the heads of all yours," she said and strode off along the gravel pathway that led to the East Sands.

As Becca suspected there wasn't a soul on the East Sands. She jumped over the wall at the harbour end of the beach and made her way down to the shore, with her brother and Evan in tow.
"He's not here, Becs," said Wallace as he kicked a branch of driftwood.
"That's because we've only been here thirty seconds," she replied as she scanned the shoreline for anything poking above the breaking waves. "Beside he's not exactly going to stand up and pose the moment he sees you."
"We need to be stealthy, then," said Evan. "Like them ninjas, except without the balaclavas."
"Ninjas don't wear balaclavas, stupid," Wallace said, slapping Evan on the arm.
Becca ignored them and continued to trudge over the waterlogged sand, getting ever closer to the rocky shoreline at the foot of the cliffs ahead.
With no sight of him Becca was about to concede defeat when Evan began bouncing up and down, gasping for air and pointing at the rocks in the water.
"Over there, over there," he said excitedly.
Waves were crashing over the rocks making it difficult for Becca to make out what he was looking at, but when the water receded Becca's heart leapt into her mouth. There lying belly down with his chin resting on his hands was the unmistakeable figure of a boy. He looked normal from his head to his waist-naked body with short brown hair and blue-white skin-but from the waist down he wasn't. Where he should have had legs he had a long, sleek fish tail instead. Its smooth scales glimmering with pearlescent hues of blue, pink and green-a stark contrast to the slimy, green seaweed strewn rocks . Becca let out a sigh. The boy seemed to be sad as he was staring down at the sea, barely flinching as the waves crashed over him. His eyes were lowered and the corners of his mouth were turned down.
Wallace reached for his camera and began fiddling with the controls and when he began snapping the sounds alerted the fish boy. He sat bolt upright and was about to dive into the sea when Becca called out.
"It's okay, it's okay," she said holding her hands up. "We're not going to hurt you."
The fish boy hesitated. He looked down at the sea and then across to Becca and her brother.
Becca gingerly approached the rocks, wanting to get closer but not wanting to alarm the boy. But when she got within ten feet of him the boy started to twitch. He shuffled himself back, away from Becca. Becca stopped and crouched down between a couple of rock pools.
"Hi," she said. "My name's Becca. Do you have a name?"
"C-C-Caspian," he said.
"That's my brother over there. His name is Wallace. And the other boy is his friend, Evan."
Caspian raised a hand and pointed to Wallace. "B-brother?"
Becca nodded. "Do you have a brother?"
Caspian nodded. "And sister, and mother, and father," he said as a lone sparkle of a tear trickled down his cheek.
"Why are you sad?" asked Becca.
Caspian wiped a hand across his eyes. "Lost," he said.
"Where do you live? Perhaps we could find your home."
"Island," Caspian replied and turned, searching for a direction in which to point but gave a huff of frustration when he couldn't get his bearings.
"There are hundreds of island in Scotland," said Wallace. "For all we know he could've come from as far out as the Hebrides."
"With puffins," said Caspian.
"May Island has puffins," Evan proffered, diffidently.
Becca could see that Wallace was about to come back with a quick quip and stepped in before he had even taken a breath. "You're right,Evan. May Island does have puffins."
She turned to Caspian.
"How long have you been lost?"
Caspian counted on his fingers. "Seven suns."
"And do you think you've swam far away."
Caspian nodded.
"But did you always see land whilst you were swimming?"
Caspian pondered the question before giving a confident nod.
Becca turned back to Wallace and Evan. "That must be where he lives."
"Are we going to help him get home?" asked Evan.
"Of course," Becca replied.
"Yeah but how?" asked Wallace with his hands on his hips. "I'm not about to jump in the north sea and swim with him. Do you have any idea how cold it is in there?"
"We don't have to swim stupid," said Becca. "The coastal path snakes right round the east neuk. As long as we can see Caspian and he can see us we can direct him to May Island."
"But that's a long walk," said Evan, staring up at the cliffs.
"You could use it, Evan," she said looking down at his portly frame before turning her attention back to Caspian.
"Now, Caspian, you have to listen very carefully," she said. "We'll get you home. You have to follow the coastline south, but you must look out for us. We'll be walking to guide you."
Caspian nodded and smiled. He cautiously reached out a hand to Becca. Becca was hesitant to take it at first, after all he was an unnatural being. But when she did she felt a rush of excitement that made her heart skip a beat. His skin was cold and clammy, but as soft as velvet.
"You'll be okay," she said softly.
Caspian dived in the water and waited as Becca, Wallace and Evan scaled the side of the cliff and began walking along the narrow pathway. All the while Becca kept a keen eye on the sea below to check on Caspian's location. He appeared to have perked up and was leaping into the air, twisting and performing somersaults before crashing down into the waves. Becca liked to think that he was showing off for her. The idea of it made her skin tingle.
As they continued on, the pathway dipped and climbed and wove round dunes and thorny gorse bushes but where it curved inland and out of sight Becca worried that Caspian would loose his bearings again and end up swimming north. But she needn't have as when they returned to the coastline there was Caspian, sloshing about in the twinkling water.
A couple of times her heart leapt into her mouth when she spotted boats and yachts skim past where Caspian was swimming. But Caspian seemed to know what to do when they neared and dived into the water, popping his head back out only when they were sufficiently out of sight.
Onwards the three of them walked, passing a number of golf courses, towns and farms before the coastline curved round past a campsite. Becca knew they were getting near to Caspian's home.
"How much further is it Becca?" Wallace moaned. He stopped and bent over, resting his hands on his knees. "My feet hurt."
"Stop complaining you big sissy," she said. "Once we get Caspian home we can get fish and chips from the Anstruther fish bar."
Wallace stood bolt upright. With an expectant and greedy glint in his eye he strode on past Becca. Evan clearly was just as excited by the prospect of making up for lost calories and trotted after him. "So which way is it?" Wallace asked.
When they past by the coastal village of Crail they neared their goal. With the Isle of May clearly in sight Becca stared out to the Firth of Forth and waved to Caspian. When she caught his attention she, Wallace and Evan all pointed to where May Island stood proud of the water. Caspian recognised his home and back flipped in the water. Becca laughed. But rather than swimming off into the mist, Caspian bobbed in the water for a moment or two, staring back at them. Becca waved to him. He waved back then leapt and twisted in the air, diving back down into the deep blue without so much as a ripple on the surface of the water. It was a display of acrobatic grace that made the hairs on the back of Becca's neck stand on end.
And then he was gone.
"Bye," she said choking back tears that threatened to cascade down her cheeks at any moment.
Wallace stepped up to her side.
"What do I do with these photos?" he asked delicately.
Becca smiled at him. "I think you know."
Wallace peered down at his camera and flicked at the controls. "Delete, delete, delete," he said.

The Biggleswich Wars

The Brownie and Boy Scout clubs of Biggleswich have been sworn enemies for ten years. Their sour relationship began at an Annual Biggleswich Town Fair when they competed against each other in a tug-of-war contest. The outcome sparked a bitter war. Before the event started there had been much heckling with the Brownies calling the Scouts blue-capped sissies that couldn't win against a bunch of fleas and the Scouts saying the Brownies were so stupid they'd probably push the rope instead of pull it. Fortunately for the Brownies strength and wit were on their side and they triumphed after a close fought match. But the Brownies lacked grace in victory. They stuck their tongues out and blew raspberries at the defeated Scouts who were so enraged they swiped the Brownies gleaming trophy from the table and snapped it into bits, with each Scout taking a piece for themselves.
The Brownies declared war. They pulled the toggles from their neckties, threw them on the ground and began to chant a new version of the Brownie Guide song.

We're Brownie Guides, we're Brownie Guides
We're here to kill the scouts
We hate their guts and think they smell
We wanna knock them out
We're Brownie friends, we're brownie friends
We're never gonna stop
We're joined together in our wish
To hear their brains go pop

Over the years the legacy of hatred was passed down with each Brownie being inducted into a secret pact to 'smash their skulls, serve their heads on a silvery platter and help myself to their juicy innards', whilst the Scouts pledged 'to swing them about by their ratty pigtails and gouge out their eyes with a spoon'.

The war was quite brutal. During an outdoor pursuit day the Scouts tipped the Brownies archery arrows with explosive powder which resulted in the Brownies blowing up targets, a couple of pine trees and the 'Out N About' centre's equipment shed. The Brownies knew full well who was responsible and so retaliated when the Scouts went on a white water rafting expedition. They hid in the bushes and trees along the banks of the River Wes and when the Scouts were sufficiently far enough away from shore, cruising along singing sea shanties, the Brownies fired darts through thin pipes at the inflatable rafts. Before the Scouts new what was going on they were chest deep in the freezing cold river surrounded by floating oars and curious river rats.

On another occasion the Scouts sabotaged the Brownies trip to an outdoor production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves by letting the air out of the tyres of the Brownie bus. The Brownies flew into a rage. They swiped a box of matches from a camping equipment box in their store cupboard and set fire to the Scouts' entry into the county 'Megastructures' competition: a five foot high, lolly stick replica of the Taj Mahal. It went up like Guy Fawkes on bonfire night.

But the long and drawn out war came to a head one wintery day when a particularly virulent case of flu had wiped out all but one of the nursery nurses. Two Scouts and two Brownies were drafted in to help take care of its twenty preschoolers.

The day started, as expected with snippy comments and sneering looks during morning story time.
"You're gonna get it today, Bethanne. You're number's up," spat one of the Scouts as he pushed over the blonde-haired brownie beside him with a firm shunt of his shoulder.
"Not if we get you first, Clive," Beth snapped back giving him an even harder shove coupled with an elbow in the ribs.
Clive winced and bent over, rubbing his side. He turned toward Bethanne and snarled back at her.
But when story time was over battle commenced.
It started with plasticine balls-some small, some fully moulded into aliens, animals and other unidentifiable objects-being fired indiscriminately across the room, splattering against the walls, or smacking bare limbs with a thump and a wail. Then moved on to the paints with paint pot lids being hurled into the air and streamers of red, yellow, blue and green paint streaking across the room, like a colourful ribbon display. They splattered the floor, chairs, toys, dolls and the poor nursery nurse who tore across the room.
"That's it," she cried. "I've had enough of these toddlers. They're out of control. No amount of money is worth me putting up with this."
The brownies and scouts looked at each other dumbfounded that they had been abandoned. All they could do was grappled for anything they could use as a shield-oversized picture books, tea trays, cushions-as rubber cups, saucers, kettles, pots and pans came flying in their direction. Anything small enough to be picked up and hurled by a four year old had to be deflected by the Brownies and the Scouts. Once the kids had cleared the contents of the playhouse they hauled boxes of lego out from a cupboard-not just the small bricks, which were painful enough if one hit you in the eye or the tooth, but the pirate ship, the ghost castle, the aliens and the robots. The brownies and scouts hurriedly built themselves a barricade with as much furniture they could get their hands on and hemmed themselves in to a corner of the room.
"These kids are vicious, Campbell. I've got cuts on my leg from being stabbed with a plastic sabre," complained the dark haired brownie.
"That's nothing, Melanie. That ginger haired little runt over there bounced a bowling ball on my toes. I think he's broken them," said Campbell.
"If we don't do something we not going to get out of here alive."
"I've got an idea," said Bethanne. "You keep them occupied whilst I nip into the kitchen."
A few minutes later she returned with four inflated balloons, three rattling toy guns and a length of piping that stretched into the kitchen.
"When I say 'now' throw the balloons up into the air over the toddlers, then shoot them," she said handing the balloons and the guns to the others.
"What the kids?" said Campbell with a frown of disbelief.
"No, not the kids the balloons."
"These balloons are heavy. What's in them?" asked Melanie.
"You'll find out," replied Bethanne with a wry smile.
"And what about you? What are you going to do?" said Melanie.
"I'll be in the kitchen," she said.
The three ducked behind their barricade, dodging flying shoes and picture books, as Bethanne scuttled out of sight.
"Now," Bethanne called.
At that moment the brownies and scouts hurled their balloons into the air and pulled the trigger of their guns. Dried peas fired from the barrels and exploded the balloons causing a rain of flour to fall all over the toddlers.
The kids instantly stopped their reign of terror over the brownies and scouts and looked at each other. The ginger haired kid began laughing and pointing at his friends.
"Look, you're all covered in white," he said.
"So are you!" cried another.
Pretty soon all the toddlers were in fits of giggles, and when Bethanne turned on the taps in the kitchen and began spraying the toddlers with water they laughed even more. They stamped their feet, mixing the floury paste on the floor into the streaks of paint and smeared their faces and each others faces with the white gloop.
When the toddlers were sufficiently distracted Bethanne turned off the water.
"It worked," said Clive. "They've stopped throwing things at us."
"Quick let's get out of here before they start up again," said Campbell, as he launched himself over the barricade and out the main door.
Breathless, bruised and bloodied, the brownies and scouts looked at each other and smiled. Not a flicker of malice or hatred against each other graced their faces. They simply smiled and reached out their hands to shake on a truce.

Rubber boy

Rob knew he was different from every other kid his age. He wasn't made of the same stuff. He was rubber, through and through. He had rubber skin, rubber bones, rubber blood, rubber organs and even a rubber brain. When he was born he was a medical marvel but the doctors said there was absolutely nothing they could do to cure his condition. He would be that way until the day he died, or was worn out.
Apart from having no hair and a slight velvety nap to his skin he looked the same as everyone else. In fact being made rubber had its advantages, which Rob discovered when he was very little and decided to jump off the roof of his parents house. If any normal kid had tried that they' have broken practically every bone in their body, but Rob just bounced off the ground and landed square on his feet.
All the kids he grew up with thought he was cool because he could do neat tricks they couldn't like tie his legs into a bow, stick his arm down plug holes, fire missiles off his tongue and kick a football from one end of the pitch to the other. But for all his talents, being rubber caused his mother significant problems. Apart from having to vacuum the house daily because of the rubber shavings he'd leave in his wake, when he brushed past walls he took off half the wallpaper print with him.
The townsfolk also adored him, especially as he kept the town clean of graffiti. Every Saturday he'd take a walk down to the underpass and use his head to rub the tiles clean. He never did it for money. He just liked feeling useful. So when his dad said the family were going to have to relocate because of his job he was more than a little sad.
"Think of it this way, son," he said, trying to appeal to Rob. "There will be fresh challenges for you to embrace in this new town. Think of all the ways you might be able to help them."
That didn't appear to be possible, as rather than embrace him and his 'uniqueness' as his mother called it. He was the town freak.
Everywhere he went people stared and gossiped about him.
"He looks fairly normal for someone that's not real," he heard someone say.
"I thought he'd look more, like, square or angular, you know," said another.
He was the talk of the town before school even started. If his chilly reception by the residents of Quimby Slate wasn't enough to make him pack his bags his first day at Quimby High should have been.
Rumour of his condition had spread like fire across the school to the degree where almost every kid was congregated in the playground waiting for him.
When his mother dropped him off, Rob was petrified. He was sweating rubber bullets. They dropped off his forehead and ricocheted around the car.
"Rob, sweetheart, be careful, you'll take my eye out. Don't worry you'll be fine," she said.
Rob took a deep breath, wiped his brow and when he slammed the car door shut he strode through the crowd. With his eyes focussed on the main door he tried to block out as much of the tittle-tattle that reached his ears as he could, but some of the more cutting comments stuck like glue.
"Hey, pencil head, bounce back to where you came from, freak," yelled one boy.
Another called out. "Can we borrow your head 'cos our football's gone missing?"
Rob scuttled inside, away from the hundreds of pairs of scrutinising eyes, and down the corridor towards the reception. It was lined from floor to ceiling, either side, with trophy cabinets displaying hundreds of glittering and gleaming sporting accolades. Rob couldn't help himself. He saw a smudge on the glass of one of the cabinets and instinctively he rubbed it off with a finger. He cursed himself. It was going to take more than a filthy cabinet for everyone to appreciate him.
His first day, as he expected, did not go well. Not only did the kids get their fill making fun of him the teachers couldn't help joining in too. Mr Cutter, the maths teacher, who thought he was the funniest teacher ever born, asked Rob if he would come and clean the blackboard. The class roared with laughter.

"It'll get better. You'll see," said his mother hopefully over dinner.
But it didn't. The kids in his classes nicknamed him 'Rubbie' and kept asking him if they could borrow his thumb or his ear or his nose, as they'd left their rubber at home, or they'd pick him up and bounce him down the corridor. There was even a suggestion that they should find out if he would bounce higher than a Whizzball. Rob knew what Whizzballs were. They were tiny and rubber and hard and could bounce higher than a three storey building. Rob wasn't terrified of being dropped from any height as he knew it wouldn't hurt him. What he didn't want was to become someone's play thing. What he needed now was a miracle.
The next day there was a change in mood at the school. Mercifully attention had turned, with both the staff and the pupils, from persecuting Rob to the horror of what had happened that night. Practically the entire school was huddled round the football pitch. Rob nudged and bounced his way through the crowd to see what was going on. When he broke through he saw the extent of the damage. Someone had broken into the grounds shed, stolen the school's line painter and covered the entire pitch with lots of squiggly lines and shapes and wiggly writing.
Mr Treville, the football coach, who was standing beside Rob, held his crestfallen face in his hands. "Who would do such a thing? And why couldn't they have done it tonight instead of last night?" he whimpered.
One of the footballers, who was decked out in the school colours yellow and black, gave Mr Treville a look of despair. "But the final starts in three hours coach. What are we gonna do?" he said.
"We'll have to scratch. Forfeit," replied Mr Treville.
"What? Loose? But its the Interschool Football League Championship final."
There was a collective roar of disapproval from everyone on the pitch. That was when an idea struck Rob. "I can fix it," he said hesitantly.
Everyone turned and grimaced at him. "What you? Rubber head?" said the footballer
Rob nodded. "I used to help the town clean graffiti of the walls where I used to live," he proffered timorously.
All the pupils and teachers looked at each other. As the idea gradually sank in, smiles replaced their frowns. Rob could see they were a little sceptical that he could carry out such a mammoth task in such a short space of time but over the years of cleaning for the council Rob learned how to speed erase.
He took of his jacket and shoes and socks and set to work. He started of by cleaning off the edges of the outer lines with his hands, then used his feet to round the curves of the centre circle and then used his head for the rest. The crowd watched on agog at Rob's talent. He whizzed like a whirlwind across the pitch and by twelve thirty his head was whiter than the snow and the pitch was back to it normal green, ready for the game.
The crowd erupted with jubilant claps and cheers. Kids rushed up to Rob and began patting him on the back-some patted so hard their hand bounced back.
"That was so cool, way too cool," Rob heard someone say.
"I've never seen anything like it. He amazing," said another.
Mr Treville had other ideas. He strode up to Rob and took hold of him firmly by the shoulders. "How are you at football?" he asked.
"Erm, not bad. I suppose. I'm not Pele, but I can kick a ball, fairly far," he said playing down his confidence.
"Right, you in. There's kit in the changing room," said Mr Treville. "I've had a kid call off sick. You can replace him."
If getting praise and gratitude from everyone for saving the championship wasn't enough, being allowed to play was the cherry on the cake.
Rob strode out to the roar of the crowd with a vindicated smile on his face and the yellow and black strip over his pink rubber body.
Nobody watching or even playing knew this yet, but Quimby High was about to win the championship again by a 8-1, curtesy of Rob's infamous full pitch kick.