At Pat & Brian's today and again a great mix of stories making choosing the best very difficult. By one vote Sally's was acclaimed the winner.
If I'm seen
Tom was seven years old he was a lanky lad with short cropped hair, the type of hair that was rather like a old worn tooth brush, he had startling blue eyes in a small pinched face with a wide smile that seemed to reach from ear to ear.
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His gangly appearance was highlighted by his clothes. A grey Jersey with receding cuffs to halfway up his arms and two neat holes at the elbows, the cuffs were ragged and soiled by the repeated brushing upwards with one cuff and downwards with the other, past his runny nose.
Tom’s Mother was not renowned as a dressmaker, her hilarious attempts at mending and dressmaking were a family joke. This was apparent by the style of Tom’s shortened trousers that had rough patches on the seat and the left leg of the trousers was much shorter than the right. His slender legs were emphasised by the absence of socks, and the tatty boots he wore were rough against his chilblained feet.
It seemed he had run for hours, his chest hurt as he inhaled the cold air, heaving and panting for breathe he leaned against a tree. He bent over groaning if only he could relieve the stitch in his side. Hastily Tom looked behind him. there was no sign of the school board man nor yet of his mother. She had given him a good chase, he was quite proud, he had the fastest mother in town. He had to be careful because the fastest mother in town carried a wooden spoon and if she caught up with him her frustrations would be abated on his somewhat dangling patches. As it was he had sprinted up a hill it was mostly covered in creepers with the odd bramble vines that had twisted around all the most likely holding branches that would perhaps injure a hand holding onto a wooden spoon, it was not his fault she got to the top of the hill as he reached the bottom and sped away into distant lands.
He thought, “Not much further to go, to his fathers allotment and if I’m seen running over the farmers field I’ll say that that I have just shot a tiger and its only wounded and I am running for my life. Oh! And they had better scarper too“.
Falling over a wall into the allotments he saw his dad who was digging away at the hard ground, his Father looked up and laughed when he saw Tom, who by now was all red faced and even more untidy than usual. He beckoned to his son and together they sat happily on an old wooden seat where they shared bread and cheese. Even the birds were happy. It was a beautiful day.
Next meeting on the 28th April, Chez Nous - the theme "an explosive situation"
