I opened a fresh packet
of sweet cigarettes and
stuck one to my lower lip.
She peek-a-booed me
from under a diamante
barrette, class right down
to her new Clarks sandals.
'It's about a bird' she breathed
the scent of Parma Violets
in my face. I wouldn't
have swapped a tube of
blue smarties for the feeling.
'What kind of bird?' hoping
she'd do that thing again.
'Me dad's pigeon, it's gone.
Margaret Eckersthorpe says
you found her St Christopher
last half-term.' I shrugged,
traced a figure-8 in the
dust beside the Irwell, with
the point of a sand-shoe.
I thought about my twelfth
birthday and watching Bogey
and Astor, with my dad on the
sofa - hiding the blue bag - and
pinching all the crisps for himself.
'I guess I could, see,' I lisped.
She popped another purple sweet.
Fatty Gutman said he didn't know
a thing about it and Donny
Lawrie wiped his sweaty hands
on his shorts, then snapped his
snake-belt with his thumbs.
But the bell went and we
all had to go to Geography.
I didn't know it was such
a fancy-bird: My dad only liked
horse-racing or the dogs at Belle Vue.
I saved my money up and bought
a white one in the pet-shop for
seventeen shillings and sixpence,
but Bridget and her dad had moved away.
Comments
jennifer | March 27, 2009 - 13:21
Are any of them relatives though?
Very different from your usual fodder, a lovely 'story-poem'...but smoking at that age? Tut tut!
J x
chuck | March 27, 2009 - 13:41
Sweet cigarettes jennifer....the ones with a dab of pink on the end. Packets of five if I recall. Trying to remember when blue Smarties came out.
Ewan | March 27, 2009 - 14:59
They were in the tube in the sixties and - apocryphally because of adverse reactions on kids' behavior - I believe, were withdrawn some time in the 70's. Who knows? Does it matter?
Sweet cigarettes... it beggars belief doesn't it. I loved 'em. Never graduated to the real thing though. Didn't work after all Messrs Wills, haha!
chuck | March 27, 2009 - 16:38
Couldn't help googling. According to wiki the blue ones replaced the light-brown ones in 1988 (?) but were later withdrawn and reintroduced in 2008.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smarties_(Nestl%C3%A9)
I got hooked on Weights quite early. Behind the bike sheds where else. But I'm happy to say I've been clean for 20 years.
Ewan | March 27, 2009 - 16:38
Aha! I'm sure I remember blue ones in the Sixties, maybe not. It is on Wikipedia after all. LOL.
Blue Remembered Smarties. Good title for a play?
chuck | March 27, 2009 - 16:41
You've got me wondering now. I definitely remember light-brown ones. Got those old Smarties blues again.
Ewan | March 27, 2009 - 16:54
Surely not, Smartie people are happy people, aren't they?
chuck | March 27, 2009 - 17:36
That's true. Just a touch of nostalgia probably. I'm sure it will pass.
Ewan | March 27, 2009 - 18:08
Milk of Magnesia, that's what you want for that! :-)