excellent – the best circus I have ever seen!”
Turning her attention to Eric, she said, “I can see you are a child of distinction, a child who can see…possibilities.”
Scratching his head, bamboozled by her strange words, Eric believed she had lost a good many marbles, and by the look of her dowdy appearance, it had been many a long year ago.
“Jimmy!” said Eric, turning to him, “what do you think?”
Jimmy, however, smiling peculiarly, offered no reply.
“What are you smiling for?” Eric asked.
“What am I smiling at?” Jimmy dreamily replied
“Pardon?”
“Still smiling peculiarly and speaking ever so slowly, Jimmy said, “You should have asked what I was smiling at.”
“Is there a difference?” said Eric, feeling increasingly uncomfortable with the loopy situation.
Pointing to the rear of the marquee, with one of her long bony fingers, answering for Jimmy, the old woman said, “There is a difference to so many things... if you care to look.”
His eyes following her pointing finger, Eric saw another old woman motioning for him to come closer.
“Her?” he asked.
She nodded.
“She’s wants to see – ME?”
She nodded again.
“But…”
“Go, go see her,” the ticket seller ordered. “GO!”
“Jim,” Eric called out. “What do you think I should do?” Jimmy, however, smiling benignly, contentedly, offered him no reply.
“Leave him be.”
“But…”
“GO!”
With that, Eric made his way across to the second old woman, who was a second old woman too many as far as he was concerned.
The closer he got to her, the more Eric felt he was approaching the first one’s twin sister. By the time he was standing in front of her, staring into her wizened old face, he was convinced she was her twin sister. Down to the very last wrinkle, wart on her chin, and creaky old voice, she was the ticket seller’s exact double. The only thing different between the two being this woman did not have a cat.
“Come closer,” she said creakily. “I want to ask you a favour…”
Gulping hard, inching closer, Eric said, “A favour?”
“Yes, my dear,” she replied. “I want you and your friend to do an errand for me.”
“A favour? An errand?” Eric asked.
She nodded.
Looking back over his shoulder, Eric saw his best friend standing, still smiling vacantly. Returning his gaze to the old woman, Eric almost jumped out of his skin, with fright, for cradled in her arms was the first woman’s black cat. Stroking it lazily, she asked, “Well?”
“Well – well what?”
“Are you going to run that errand for me?” she asked, stroking the cat. It purred contentedly.
Not wanting to commit himself to something that he knew absolutely nothing about, yet trying to extricate himself from the crazy situation he found himself in, Eric agreed, saying, “Okay, I will go on that errand for you – but Jim has to agree, also.”
Stroking the cat, smiling, she said, “Oh, he will, he most certainly will…”
Having returned to Jimmy, Eric poked him in the side, saying, “Jim, that old woman,” he pointed across to her, “wants us to go on an errand.”
Snapping out from his daze, Jimmy asked, “What old woman?”
“That one, there,” he said, pointing, but she was gone; there was no sign of her, not anywhere.
“Here,” said the first woman, having reappeared as mysteriously as the second one had vanished. “Take this.”
“What’s that?” asked Eric, spotting a piece of paper within her hand.
Passing it to him, she said, “It’s a note…instructions for your errand. My sister told me to give it to you.”
“Your sister?” said Eric, scratching his head, confused. “Where did she go, anyhow?”
“She was called away.”
“Let me see that,” said Jimmy, snapping the note from out of his hand. “I want to see what this is all about.” After reading the note, he said, “You can tell your sister that I – we will be delighted to run her errand.”
Studying Jimmy’s face, Eric feared marbles were disappearing, being lost with wanton abandon.
Mr Smith’s Wonderful Emporium
Well, are we going to keep walking along this path – like forever, without telling me what it said in that note?” Eric asked, frustrated by Jimmy’s increasingly erratic behaviour. “Ever since you met that old woman, the witch, you’ve been acting mightily strange…”
Stopping, gazing out to sea, at one of the huge ships heading out from port, Jimmy said, “That note,” he took it out from his pocket, “is a plea for help.”
“A plea for help! What on earth are you talking about?”
Waving it high above him, Jimmy said, “This is a cry for help. GO ON, READ IT!”
Taking the note, Eric began reading the words, the scribbles written upon it. There were not many, just a few, asking them to run the errand… To go to the shop, the grocery-cum-hardware store, in John Street, and collect a sack of flour, then deliver it to the address recorded in the note.
“This is not a cry for help,” said Eric. “It’s just a note from a nutty old woman, who wants you – us – to run an errand for her. She probably wants us to do it without any pay, not a single penny for either of us, I’d hazard a guess.”
Snatching the note, Jimmy mumbled something under his breath. Eric never heard him. “Well, I’m going to do it, to help her,” Jimmy insisted. “If you don’t want to help, that’s fine with me.” With that, he returned the note to his pocket and began walking away from his best friend.
Left alone, Eric once again felt like a cad, raining yet again on their party. “Wait,” he called out, running after him, “I’ve changed my mind.”
Next morning, Jimmy got up earlier than usual, at five a.m. It was going to be a busy day, so he wanted to have as much time as possible for all the things he had to do. Dressing hurriedly, his head caught inside his pullover. Hissing his annoyance, he pulled harder until his head shot through the opening, to freedom. “Phew, that’s better!” he said. After splashing a few drops of water onto his face, Jimmy picked up his shoes, creeping silently out of the room, without awakening either of his two brothers.
Pouring some oat flakes into his bowl, dripping a smidgeon of skimmed milk over them, Jimmy scoffed the unappetising mixture with his usual gusto. Having finished breakfast, he grabbed hold of his duffle coat and gloves, not forgetting the battered old bucket, and slipped out through the front door, into the darkness.
“Morning,” a voice called out from somewhere across the road. He saw him, Jimmy saw his best friend, Eric, emerging from out of the inky blackness. “Morning,” he replied. “Got your bucket?” Tapping it (the bucket banged and clattered noisily), Eric signalled that he had.
Arriving at the fence bordering the coalmine, the boys were stunned to see the opening they always used, passed under, had gone. Someone had replaced the entire section of fence, with new. “Don’t worry,” said Jimmy, “we’ll soon find another opening. There are always one or two others on the go somewhere along it. It’s just a matter of finding one.”
They found another opening all right, but it was only after searching for a good half hour. Squeezing his way through, Eric passed under the fence. “Here’s your bucket,” said Jimmy, handing it to him. “We’ve lost a whole lot of time, so we must hurry!” Nodding in agreement, Eric began sliding his way down the slagheap. Jimmy followed closely behind.
Arriving home, Jimmy plonked the bucket of coal next to the fireplace. His mother who was kneeling in front of the grate, cleaning it, said, “Thanks, Jim. I don’t know what I’d do without you.” Seeing him making a bolt for the door, she asked, “Where are you off to, now?”
Rushing out, pulling the door closed behind him, Jimmy answered, “I�
��m off to do an errand, another sack of flour to be delivered…” With that, he pulled the door shut behind him.
“Who was that?” asked Jack, sauntering down the stairs, looking ever so sleepy.
Laughing (crying?), the mother said, “It was Jim, your brother Jim. Oh how I do wish that you and your brother, Bill, were more like him, oh how I wish…” With tears in her eyes, the mother returned to her grate cleaning duties.
“Psst,”
“Who’s there?” Jimmy asked, seeing no one.
A face, peering round the corner of the street, round the gable end of the redbrick terraced house, it said, “It’s me! Did you think it the witch – or even her twin sister?”
“Now stop that,” Jimmy warned, “or I’ll leave you behind!”
“That’s fine with me,” said Eric. Then he added, “Sorry, I didn’t mean that.”
Giving him a pretend cross look, hurrying across the street, Jimmy said, “Come on; let’s get this over with…” With that, the boys set off for John Street.
“I still don’t understand why you think it’s so important, doing this errand,” said Eric. Jimmy, however, never answered.
Turning the corner, they saw him, Mr Smith, the shop owner, an incredibly old man sporting a snowy white beard, standing proudly in his brown shop coat, outside his emporium. Like a guard on duty, no one was entering his shop without him knowing so, first. “Morning, boys,” he said cheerily. “And what delights are you in search of today?”
The reason Mr Smith asked this was that his shop had a sweet counter. It was huge. It was famous, with every conceivable type of sweet, and then some. Children dragged their mothers from far and wide to spend what little
Jimmy, The Glue Factory and Mad Mr Viscous Page 5