The Kicking Tree

by Trevor Stubbs

  Later in the afternoon the group took them round to their hostel which was just behind the beach in a beautiful tree lined road with attractive gardens. The flowers were big and colourful. “One or two beds?” asked Kakko.

  “Two please,” replied Jack and Jalli in concert. They looked at one another and smiled. As far as anyone else was concerned they were well and truly an “item”. It seemed odd that they had only known each other a couple of weeks. It felt much longer.

  They were escorted upstairs by Kakko and Tod (who were also clearly together). “Your room is just across from us,” they announced, and before Jack and Jalli could say any more they found themselves in a pleasant room overlooking the garden.

  “Two beds but one room,” observed Jack.

  “Well I trust you not to take advantage of a vulnerable maiden,” teased Jalli.

  “As long as I can trust you not to take advantage of me,” laughed Jack. “Which bed do you want?”

  “The one you’re not sleeping in! Seriously though, we’d better not let on to Grandma that I have been sharing a room with a boy.”

  “No. You will not have shared with a ‘boy’, but a ‘gentleman’ offering you protection in a strange land.”

  “In fact,” said Jalli, “I am glad I’m not in a room on my own. This place doesn’t seem to be the safest place in the universe.”

  “Sad that.”

  They unpacked and used the bathroom and then went downstairs where the group was deciding what to do that evening. A beach barbecue was quickly agreed upon. They left to buy meat at the local market. Jalli produced her money and the group helped her buy what seemed as plain a piece of meat as any on offer.

  That evening proved to be unforgettable for both of them because they had not been in the company of so many kind and welcoming people before. Neither of them had really fitted into the “youth society” in their respective home towns that well. These people turned out to be an absolute delight. By the end of a couple of hours, it was amazing how many of their names they had already learned.

  They soon ascertained that the group took it upon themselves to look after people like them who were vulnerable in the beach resort. “Why do you do that?” asked Jack. “Many people would come with their group and take no interest in others.”

  “It’s part of what we do,” Tod explained. “If we want to be looked after ourselves, we also need to be aware of the needs of others.” That was so simple, thought Jack. Why don’t more people do it? He even found himself joining in with some of the choruses of the songs. “There,” Jalli had declared, “you can sing.” Jack was discovering so much about himself first from Jalli, and then this group. He seemed to be far more “likeable” to others than he ever imagined himself to be. He decided he had never been so happy as he was at that moment. He was partnering a lovely girl, on a tropical beach, with a group of great people. It was straight out of Hollywood! He half expected them all to get up and sing and dance as if they were in some incredible musical!

  But what happened next remained in the minds of all those young people for many years.

  8

  Without warning, as the fellowship group were sitting together on the edge of the sand, a half empty can landed in their circle. It narrowly missed Tod’s head spraying beer as it went. The can was followed by jeering and cat-calling.

  “Better to ignore it,” advised Tod. “Everybody OK?”

  “I smell like a brewery,” sighed Kakko, trying to wipe beer off her front, “but the can landed safely.”

  Then things got worse. The group of drunken young people had started disturbing a street front restaurant. One of them upturned one of the tables tipping all the food, plates and cutlery over the people around it. A second got onto one of the other tables, tottered and fell off dragging everything behind her and breaking one of the chairs as she fell.

  The owner came out of his restaurant remonstrating. But you cannot argue with someone who is drunk, let alone a group of ten. He was pushed and manhandled. Horrified diners quickly deserted the place and left. The unhappy man was incensed. “I am sending for the police,” he shouted. But before he could re-enter his restaurant, one of the group had hurled a large stone at the plate glass window that divided the inside from the outside from floor to ceiling. It shattered. Two of the drunks, screaming delight, rushed through the space and kicked over more tables. Others set about scooping bottles from the shelves and snatching pictures from the walls. Decorative paper flowers flew as a drunken girl, looking to join in but incapable of reaching anything else, hurled the vase into the air. In all the mayhem it was amazing no-one was hurt.

  The police did not take long to arrive. The “fellowship”, now huddled together further down the beach for safety, could hear the sirens approach before the revellers. But as soon as they did some were off down the street, while others were quite incapable of flight. Fleeing or not, however, all were soon rounded up and bundled into the back of police vans as they tried to argue and protest their innocence. The scene was an ugly one.

  After they had all gone the police looked for witnesses, but it was amazing at just how quickly the crowded street had cleared! “People are scared to come forward,” explained Kakko. But that did not stop her approaching the police herself to tell them that she had seen the whole incident. Tod took Jalli and Jack to one side.

  “When something like this happens,” he said, “most people don’t want to know because they are afraid of reprisals from the families of the drunks. But we think that if no-one is willing to help and people get away with things that doesn’t help anyone. It’s OK most times because the families don’t usually do anything.”

  “Kakko’s brave,” remarked Jack.

  “Sometimes you have to be brave to do the right thing. But,” he added quickly, “whatever you do, think twice before actually tackling someone who is drunk or on drugs. You can get seriously hurt, and you may even be arrested along with them. Leave the fighting to the police.”

  A police-officer came across to the fellowship group to confirm Kakko’s story. He urged them to look after themselves and warned them about being about after dark. “Stay together!” he ordered.

  Eventually the police-officers finished talking to the restaurant owner, a Mr. Pero, put their notebooks in their shirt pockets, and indicated the direction of the police station. It was clear they would sort out the rest tomorrow. No sooner had they stood up to leave when another officer from beside one of the cars shouted across to his colleagues. They quickly got back into their cars and left. Another incident.

  The restaurant owner picked up one of the chairs and sat down with his head in his hands. He was in shock. The staff, who had been hiding in the kitchen, emerged and looked around them in disbelief. They starting righting the tables and chairs. “Put them all inside,” murmured the owner. “The police are sending somebody to board up the front early tomorrow morning. Then that’s it. No insurance – couldn’t afford it. Come back tomorrow and I’ll pay you what I owe you, then we’re all out of a job.” The staff picked up the worst of the mess. The fellowship group came over and helped. Soon the poor owner was left sitting on the pavement at an empty table all by himself, still dazed.

  Jalli instinctively approached him. “Are you hurt, sir?” she inquired.

  “No. Just ruined,” he sobbed. And soon he was pouring it all out to them. He had come there three years previously and gradually built up the business. He had re-invested all he earned into it.

  He had decided to upgrade the place and soon he had established a reputation, but he still owed the bank a lot of money and had taken a risk with the insurance. “The premiums were so high,” he mumbled. This was the incident he dreaded, and no-one would want to come near his place after that night, would they? He took one look into what was, just an hour before, a bright, cheerful, well-ordered and inviting restaurant. Tomorrow it would be all boarded up. Even new plate glass would be beyond him.

  “But you still have to pay yo
ur bank loan!” This was Tod who had come over and was listening.

  “Don’t tell me about it!” despaired the owner. “If I’m lucky, I might sell the place for what I owe.”

  “But you live here! Where would you go? OK, here’s the deal,” said Tod. “You promise to open up tomorrow at ten o’clock in the morning and we’ll guarantee the place will be ready.”

  “How can that be! We don’t open until twelve noon anyway, and there will be no staff.”

  “No problem. We’ll do coffee and jam sandwiches until they arrive. There are twelve of us. Ros” (Tod indicated a large lad with broad shoulders) “and I will stay here overnight and guard the place while you rest. Everyone will be here at sunrise and we’ll put the place to rights.”

  “But what about the window?”

  “We’ll order a new one first thing.”

  “But I told you I haven’t any money for a new window.”

  “You will have by tomorrow evening when you close at eleven o’clock,” said Tod. “We’ll insist that the glass is installed by three o’clock at the latest.” Tod had a father who talked like this, and he knew that if all else failed he could turn to him. The parents of this group were proud of the way their children looked after everyone else.

  “But what about your holiday weekend?”

  “We’ll still have time for a swim in the afternoon, but this’ll be better fun than anything else because it will make people happy,” explained Kakko.

  Tod and Ros went back to the hostel to get a blanket each, and the girls went into the kitchen and made a cup of tea for Mr. Pero. “The kitchen’s full of scrumptious food, with no-one to eat it!” exclaimed one. “Mr. Pero. There is a lot of good food getting cold in the kitchen. Can we eat it? We’ll pay.” They had brought the owner into the kitchen and sat him down with his tea.

  “Why not? It’ll only go to waste.”

  Beginning with the pavement, the whole group swept the glass into a heap. Two of them went into the bar from where the drunks had been drinking and asked for brooms. The people from the neighbouring flats appeared and helped too. When that was done all the tables were set out once more and the remaining food distributed. The group insisted that everyone pay for it by putting a large cardboard box by the door. One of the group had written in large letters – FOR THE RESTORATION OF THE CAFÉ! on the side of the box. Mr. Pero would never have called it a “café” but these young people were incredible. He really believed they meant what they said!

  “Why are you doing all this for me? I will never be able to pay you back.”

  “We would not be doing it, if you could,” said Kakko. “The unions wouldn’t wear it!” and they all laughed. “We are doing this because you need someone to help you, and we like helping people. Besides this is fun!”

  “Helping people is what this group seems to do,” interposed Jalli. “They’ve looked after us since we arrived this morning.”

  “My, this food is good!” declared a cheerful girl with rosy cheeks.

  “Best in the resort,” mumbled Mr. Pero.

  “In that case, we’ll be doing everybody a favour,” stated Kakko.

  “Far too good to allow this place to close,” declared the girl, tucking into a delicious looking pie.

  “Don’t eat the stuff that will keep till tomorrow,” warned Kakko.

  Jack and Jalli tried different dishes they had not tasted before. Not only was this a quality place, the ingredients were different from what either of them were used to.

  “Out of this world!” declared Jack. Jalli laughed.

  “No. Out of our worlds you mean.”

  “Right. But it’s amazing how quickly you can get caught up in a new world. We have only been here just over twelve hours and we’re involved in everything.”

  “That’s because of this fellowship,” reflected Jalli. There needs to be more groups like this. We could do with one in Wanulka.”

  “And Persham,” added Jack. “I think I can see why the Owner wants us here now.”

  They had taken to calling the invisible owner of the white gates the Owner for want of any other name. “He wants us to learn from these people.”

  “And help. If we can.”

  “You certainly can,” declared Kakko just coming over to them. “You don’t mind, do you?”

  “Not at all,” replied Jalli.

  After everyone had eaten and done the washing up, and Kakko and a couple of the others had taken Mr. Pero upstairs to his flat, Tod and Ros made a couple of beds from cushions and laid out their blankets.

  “We’d better get back to the hostel to sleep now,” said one. “We’ve got an early start.” They waited while Kakko and Tod took their leave of each other.

  “It started last summer,” the group explained. “They hate being apart.”

  Back in their room, Jack waited, while Jalli went into the bathroom, undid her bows, took a shower and put on her nightdress. He washed too. He didn’t tell Jalli until later that that was the first shower he had ever taken in his life! And it was also the first time, for either of them, being without siblings, to share a bedroom with someone else. They didn’t think about it for very long though, because they were soon asleep. And, before the sun rose again someone was knocking on their door saying they were leaving for the café in half an hour.

  Dawn saw Jack and Jalli, along with the rest, setting about the clearing up of the mess with a will. It was amazing just how rewarding the task was. One of the lads immersed himself in a sink washing the stained tablecloths, while a second rinsed (exercising some quality control and rejecting any that were still marked), a third wrung them out whilst two others straightened them and ironed them dry. The shelves were washed down, and the bottles and ornaments that survived were washed and put back on the shelves under the direction of an artistic looking girl who also restored the paper flowers, putting them into far more ambitious arrangements than they had been. All the pictures were replaced on the walls with the exception of two with broken frames that Tod took with him when he went into the town to order the new plate glass.

  The police turned up and were amazed at what was going on! They had ordered a skip and some men to come with boarding. They left the skip but cancelled the boarding up. Jack found himself using the woodwork skills he had picked up in school to re-glue some of the joints on the tables that had come loose. A couple of the chairs, however, were damaged beyond use and they put them into the skip, together with the broken glass and the rest of the rubbish.

  The girl with the lettering skills had made big posters for both sides of an A-board belonging to the bar (which they had willingly lent – persuaded by a couple of the lads). It read “OWING TO VANDALISM ‘RESTAURANT PERO’ WILL OPEN CONTINUOUSLY FROM 10 am TO 11 pm.” She wrote three other notices declaring “Restaurant Pero OPEN” and arranged them on the pavement. True, the lettering was not quite in the style that Mr. Pero would have chosen, but as he looked at them his heart filled with delight. Despite his worries he was enjoying being looked after. Their energy and openness was amazing and the fuss they made around him as he was preparing food in the kitchen restored his belief in young people.

  A newspaper reporter and a radio broadcaster came down to report on the vandalism and write the usual things about “youth violence” with headlines like “Drunken Teenagers Wreak Havoc In Local Restaurant!” but when they arrived all that Mr. Pero could talk about concerned the fantastic young people who had rescued him. He proudly showed them the clean linen and restored decorations and the cardboard box for the collection towards the new window. “I’m having to stay open all day today because these young people want to make sure we have enough customers to pay for it,” he explained. “They have promised to work for me for nothing!” So the word about what was happening went out very quickly, and people started to come down just to watch and put contributions into the box.

  The girl with the rosy cheeks had purchased a small bunch of fresh flowers, and she and Jalli were busy ma
king them into table arrangements, when a dishevelled teenager approached them. His appearance and posture betrayed a heavy weight somewhere deep inside him. It was in stark contrast, Jalli remarked, to the fellowship group of which she had so quickly become a part. “I’ve come as soon as they let me go,” he stammered.

  “I… I have come to apologise. I kind of got caught up in the crowd yesterday and was drinking too much. The next thing I knew I… I was inside this place when the police arrived. I don’t know what I was doing. I just wanted to say sorry to Mr. Pero – if he’ll let me?”

  “You’d better sit down here and I will go and find Mr. Pero and see if he wants to speak to you,” said the rosy cheeked girl. The boy took a chair opposite Jalli. She looked at him. He hung his head, he looked in pain and his heart was full. He looked ill and broken and his hand shook. “Why did you do it?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. I was drunk I suppose.”

  “No. I mean, why did you get drunk?”

  “Well, nobody really cares where I am, or what I do, and then I just do what other people are doing. They buy me drinks and I drink them. But I’ve just slept it off on the beach before. This time it got stupid.”

  “But couldn’t you find friends that don’t drink?”

  “Well, not really. Nobody really wants to be my friend. I haven’t got a rich daddy like you people.”

  “I don’t have a father,” stated Jalli. “And I’m not rich.” Jack, who had seen Jalli talking to this stranger and feeling a pang of a mixture of protectiveness and jealousy, had come and sat in the empty chair.