The Ashton Road Gang Chapter 7. July

Chapter Seven.

School Sports.

At the beginning of July, the Headmaster of my Junior School stood on the stage. Mr. Plunkett took Assembly every morning and always had something to say. We rarely listened. This Friday morning, he announced, "As you know the time for the School Sports is upon us once again."

He frowned the groans to silence.

"This year, we have decided to make them different." He paused for effect. Everybody was listening now. "Up to now each colour, Red, Yellow, Green and Blue, has chosen its best competitors to represent it in the sports."

In the middle of the hall, I was thinking that the only good thing about the School Sports was that it meant that the long holiday was not far away. Mr. Plunkett was still speaking. "This year, however, we have decided that every boy in the school will take part." He looked round the hall. To my jaundiced eye, he appeared to be looking straight at me. "Everybody and I mean EVERYBODY, will be found an event to take part in!"

While that sank in, he beamed round the hall at the suddenly stricken faces. "I thought that would please you. But there is more yet. The Sports day will be held on the Queen Elizabeth Recreation ground. We will be sending a letter to all of your parents, inviting them to attend to see you take part."

Why did I get the impression that he was speaking only to me? "So, make sure that you all have your sports kit on Monday, for practice. I’m sure that Mr. Peach will find a way of dealing with those who forget their kit."

Mr. Peach, who stood next to the head on the stage, smiled grimly and nodded his head.

"Good! Now we will sing ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’."

I would not have given the letter to my parents, but Mary brought one home as well. It said that to celebrate the opening of the new sports field, the boy’s school had invited the Girl’s school to attend the Sports day.

"Where’s your letter about the Sports?" asked Mum.

"It’s in my coat pocket." I said. "I forgot about it."

"Well fetch it!"

Reluctantly I did as I was told. Mum read the letter and passed it over to Dad.

"That’s nice!" she said. "Billy’s going to be in a race this year."

"Not if I can help it," I thought.

Mary giggled, "That’ll be funny. He’s so stupid, they’ll have to put sign posts down the track so he doesn’t get lost."

"Hush!" said Mum. Mary did not heed the warning. I stuck my tongue out at her.

"The only race he’ll win is the ugliest face race!" I would like to have thumped her, but she was too handy with her fists to risk it.

"That’s enough!" warned Dad. "You’ll cut yourself on that sharp tongue, one of these days my girl."

That shut her up.

"I think we’ll go" went on Dad. "If I can get the afternoon off work."

I scowled.

"I’m sure Granny Acock and my mother would like to go anyway," said Mum.

I groaned. On Monday afternoon, all the members of the yellow team, including me, were stood around Mr. Peach. He was trying to decide who was to be in which event. There was a great deal of arguing. "That’s enough!" he ordered. "Everyone will try everything. Then I will decide who does what!"

We lined up for the 100 yards sprint. I came last. Even Gordon Pugh with his withered leg beat me by yards. Then we ran the hurdles. I knocked every single one down. In the long distance I collapsed with a stitch after fifty yards. I was last in the throwing the ball, the high jump, the potato race and nearly broke my partner's ankle in the three-legged race. There was no sack into which I could fit for the sack race and in the long jump I did not even reach the sand. I got tangled up in the net in the obstacle race so badly it took three teachers to get me loose. Eventually all the Yellow team had been placed in an event except Lewis Ramsbottom and me.

Lewis was the exact opposite of me. He was undersized, blind as a bat and stammered. He had been known to misspell his own name and did not even know how many fingers he had. It only needed someone to tell him that the headmaster wanted to see him for Lewis to cry and wet his trousers. He was scruffy, dirty, smelly and had nits. He was not at all popular. Most of his playtimes he spent hiding in a corner away from the rest of the school.

The last event was the egg and spoon race. Mr. Peach did not give us any choice or even a chance to practice. He wrote our names down. Lewis sidled over to me when Mr. Peach had gone.

"W...w...w...w...we’re in the s..s..s..same r..r..race."

"So?" I was not pleased.

"W...w...w...we’ll have to be f...f..f.. friends."

"Get lost you scruffy beggar," I told him and walked away in disgust.

Now apart from his appearance and lack of cleanliness and brains, Lewis also had two other problems. He tended to get strange ideas about people. It only needed a kind word from someone and he used to follow them around like a puppy. I, for one did not want a smelly animal following me around.

His other shortcoming was that, if he understood them, he took orders literally. He did exactly as he was told. The habit had caused problems before on at least two occasions. Someone had told him to go and stick his head down the toilet. Lewis did. It was only by luck that a teacher found him half drowned.

During a science lesson, a teacher had told us to, "Hold your breath, we’ll see who can last the longest." Then he had been called out of the room. Naturally, we all breathed and started talking. Not Lewis, he held his breath until he went blue. The teacher came back in time to tell him to breathe again, otherwise Lewis might have suffocated.

We had been warned to be very careful of what we told Lewis to do. Since everybody felt sorry for him, nobody took advantage of this peculiarity. I though no more about him as I walked back to the changing rooms, grumbling to myself. I had been trying to make it impossible for Mr. Peach to find an event to put me in. There had to be some way of getting out of the egg and spoon race, but none sprung immediately to mind. When I was changed I lined up with the rest of my class to wait for the bus to take us back to school. Miss Trumpeter came dashing up. I heard her say to Mr. Peach, "Lewis is not here."

"What?"

"His clothes are still in the changing rooms." She sounded a bit worried.

"Oh!" Mr. Peach turned to us. "Anyone seen Lewis?" We had all seen him, but not since the end of the lessons and certainly not in the changing rooms.

"Who saw him last?" It turned out that the last time anybody could remember seeing Lewis was when he was talking to me.

"Come her, Billy!" said Mr. Peach. "What did you say to him?"

"I dunno sir! I can’t remember."

Mr. Peach sucked his moustache, a sure sign that he was not happy. "Come on lad, Think it may be important."

I thought. I remembered. I groaned. "Well?" said Miss Trumpeter.

"I didn’t mean it! I forgot about Lewis. It was an accident, honest!" In my panic I did something that I never did, in public anyway, I cried. "Don’t be so stupid." Mr. Peach was never very sympathetic. "What did you say to Lewis?"

Miss Trumpeter took over. "Come on Billy. Blow your nose. Tell us what you said to Lewis." She was trying to be gentle. It is difficult for a seventeen stone, six-foot tall, moustached female with a voice like a fog horn to be gentle.

I sniffed, wiped my nose on my sleeve, which made her shake her head, and confessed, "I told him to go and get lost."

"Typical!" snorted Mr. Peach. "Get back in your line. I’ll deal with you later."

I crept back into my line. Miss Trumpeter went to tell the bus drivers we would be a little late in leaving. Mr. Peach organised the boys into groups of three to search the playing fields.

"Come back if you find Lewis or if you hear the whistle!" he ordered.

The field was big and very bare. The only possible hiding places were in the bushes that grew on the banks of the stream that ran across the middle. The fence round the boundary was too high for anyone to climb. The only exit was where the buses were parked. The drivers would have noticed Lewis leaving that way.

Soon the whole field was covered in groups of shouting schoolboys. The stream and bushes were very closely scrutinised by the teachers. There was no sign of Lewis.

The whistle went and everybody made their way back to the changing rooms The teachers were looking very anxious. I suppose they would have been in trouble if they had to go back to school and report that they had lost a child. The drivers were looking at their watches and muttering about having other jobs to go to. The boys were getting fed up. They wanted to back to school so that they could go home.

I was getting concerned myself. No matter what happened I was in serious trouble. In desperation I began to look for a place to hide for myself. There was only the changing rooms. There was nowhere else to hide inside, just four rooms with benches and lines of hooks. I looked up at the roof. Nobody had searched there.

Without stopping to think, I left my place in the line and began to walk around the building looking for a way to climb on to the roof. At the back was a drainpipe. It could be climbed. Mr. Peach caught up with me. "Where do you think you are going? One missing person is enough."

I explained. "Hmmm you think he might be up there?" said Mr. Peach. I shrugged my shoulders. Mr. Peach did not tell me off of that as he normally would. "I suppose he could be," he went on thoughtfully. "We’ve looked everywhere else." He looked at the drainpipe. "Somebody will have to go up and look."

"I can’t climb up there!" I protested, thinking he meant me.

"Having seen your lack of athletic ability I was not thinking of asking you." he said. "Mr. Chambers is the lightest of the teachers. He should be able to get up there."

Mr. Chambers was sent for. None of the teachers were exactly well liked but he was positively hated. Mr. Chambers or Jerry, as he was known, was different. He did not use the cane. He used something far worse. He used a slipper. Those of us who were caned regularly had developed a hardened hand, so that being caned was not that painful. Jerry made people bend over. No-one had yet discovered a method of hardening their backsides.

Mr. Chambers climbed the drainpipe as easily as climbing stairs. We could hear him walking about the roof. Mr. Peach shouted up "Any sign of him?"

"No................aghhhhhhhhhhhh!" The long drawn-out cry came because Mr. Chambers had found out the hard way that the roof was not strong enough to take even his weight. The next thing we heard was a crash from inside the building. Mr. Peach ran inside. I stood by the door, not daring to follow. I was in trouble good and proper now.

Two minutes later Mr. Peach came out and ran across to Miss Trumpeter. I followed at a safe distance "Will you ring for an ambulance please?" he said to her very quietly. Miss Trumpeter gave a gasp, "Lewis, he’s not...?"

"No!" said Mr. Peach. "It’s not that dratted Lewis. It’s Mr Chambers, He’s broken his leg."

Miss Trumpeter was confused. "But... How... Where?"

"Never mind." said Mr. Peach. "I’ll explain later. Just go to the phone box and call an ambulance please."

He turned around and saw me. "You’ll be glad to know that Lewis wasn’t on the roof." he said. "I'm sorry about Mr. Chambers," I replied in a small voice.

"You might well be. Look, just leave the worrying about Lewis to us. Go back to your line and wait. I crept off and hid myself among my class mates. When the boys were told by Mr. McDonald about Mr. Chambers accident there was a general feeling that the day was not as bad as it might have been. The remaining teachers marched us onto the buses to go back to school. Something about the changing rooms was nagging at the back of my brain. The drainpipe, that was it. I knew of one place that I would stake my life that no-one had searched.

No teacher was going to listen to me now. The only thing to do was to go look myself. I realised that finding Lewis was the only way I was going to reduce the trouble was in. Mind you if I was wrong then I was going to be in it up to my ears. Without waiting to ask permission I ran back along the bus and jumped off. Mr. Peach was in the changing rooms with Mr. Chambers. Miss Trumpeter saw me dashing off across the field and set up a yell, For once in my life I ignored the orders that she was screeching.

On the far side of the field, very well hidden, the stream went underneath the main road via a drainpipe. During one of our expeditions the Ashton Road gang had followed the stream from where it entered the river. We were trying to find its source. We had reached this drainpipe and been unable to get any further, nor could we find where the stream left the pipe. The pipe itself was too small for any of us to crawl through and none of us were brave or daft enough to try. Lewis was daft enough and probably small enough to fit.

Miss Trumpeter was in hot pursuit. Fortunately, she was not a fast mover. I reached the drainpipe a hundred yards in front of her. I stooped down and looked in. It was too dark to see very far, but I was almost certain that I had seen something moving. "Lewis!" I whispered. "It’s me Billy. Are you in there?" There was no answer, but something definitely moved. "Lewis, it’s me. I didn’t mean it. You can get unlost now."

Miss Trumpeter arrived. She grabbed me by the collar and hauled me to my feet. She opened her mouth to shout. It was perhaps a good thing that she was out of breath, it gave me time to turn around and put my fingers to my lips and whisper

"Ssh!"

She looked amazed and angry. Her eyebrows almost disappeared into her hair at my cheek. I wriggled out of her grip and pointed to the drainpipe. She was ready to shout again. The situation called for desperate measures. I put my finger on my lips again and said "Shh!" I grabbed her hand and pulled her away.

To my relief and amazement, she closed her mouth and came with me.

"Well?" she said in a quiet voice when we were twenty yards clear. "What do you think you are doing?"

"It’s Lewis, Miss. Please! He’s in that pipe."

"Are you sure?" she asked.

"Yes! I heard him moving about, but he won’t come out if he hears you. He’s frightened of you." I said.

"Will he come out for you?" she wanted to know. She seemed to believe me.

"I don’t know, but it was me that told him to get lost and he might get unlost for me," I said.

"There’s no such word as unlost," she replied absently. "All right. You try, but if he’s not out in five minutes I’ll go and get Mr. McDonald."

She nodded towards the pipe and walked off towards the group of teachers who were coming across the field to see why she had suddenly taken up cross-country running.

I went back to the pipe. "Lewis!" I called. "It’s OK there’ only me out here. You can come out now."

"Can’t!" came the reply.

He was there, my heart lightened. "Aw, come on, it’s safe. Everyone’s gone."

"Can’t!" repeated Lewis.

My heart went heavy again. Lewis was going to be awkward.

"Why not? Look it’s safe. I.. I’ll be your friend!"

I was feeling pretty desperate to offer that.

"Can’t!" replied Lewis.

"Oh, for heaven’s sake! Come on be a pal, come out. If you don’t Miss Trumpeter will come in and get you" The threat and the promise of friendship made no difference.

"Can’t!" said Lewis. This time there was tears in his voice.

"Blast you, you dozy little creep, why not?" Worry was making me angry.

"I’m stuck!" came the very sad voiced reply.

I groaned, "That's all I need!"

Miss Trumpeter was stood watching a few paces away. "The idiot’s stuck!" I answered to her unspoken question.

She shook her head in resignation. "I’ll stay here, you go get Mr. Peach." she said.

I turned back to the drainpipe. "Don’t go away Lewis, we’ll get you out."

"I won’t." said Lewis.

Miss Trumpeter gave a gasp and sat down on the grass and started to laugh. I stared at her. If she was having hysterics I was supposed to slap her face. Least ways that is what my Dad did to Aunty Lil when she had hysterics. Somehow I did not fancy slapping Miss Trumpeter across the face. She would murder me.

"Do you know what you just said?" she giggled. I started to back away. "Oh, never mind!" she gasped "Just fetch Mr. Peach."

I fled.