You Did Say Have Another Sausage

by John Meadows

  “Meadows have you lost something?” asked a familiar voice pointedly from one of the top bunks. I looked up to see Minichello sitting up in bed stroking the Maplehurst cat. He was a real-life Blofeld. He fixed me with a stare and gave the faintest of smiles, not dissimilar to Damien in the ‘Omen’ movies. It didn’t take Robert very long to exact sweet revenge.

  Round-the-Lake Challenge

  During a morning briefing around the stars and stripes flag, an announcement caused everyone to start whooping and hollering. On Saturday there would be a challenge race around the lake. Richard and I couldn’t understand the reason for all the excitement until it was explained to us that something of a tradition had developed over the years whereby the reigning champion could be challenged. The race involved just two competitors who ran in opposite directions around the perimeter of the lake along a narrow dirt track which snaked its way through the woods, shrubbery, and cherry orchards for about two miles. The reigning champion was a counsellor named Mark, who had dark hair, dark eyes and a swarthy, Latin American complexion. He was about nineteen years old, weighed about 101/2 stones and was built like a whippet. He had held the title, a Maplehurst trophy, for a few years through his days as a fifteen year old camper, then as a counsellor-in-training, and now as a counsellor who coached athletics. His challenger was Bruce, our friend the Art Garfunkel look-alike. On the day of the race everyone had divided into supporting camps and paraded down to the lake carrying banners and chanting slogans, all expertly choreographed by teams of cheerleaders. Many of the girls were members of their high school cheerleading teams, and they told me proudly that they often competed in cheerleading championships. It was a competitive sport in its own right.

  “And do they play a football match at half-time?” I inquired with only a vague hint of sarcasm, which was completely lost on them anyway.

  Richard and I sat on the grass enjoying the atmosphere, which was something between a picnic and a school sports day, as the two sets of supporters goaded each other with good-natured chants and songs. Bruce and Mark warmed up and approached the starting line with a look of grim determination and apprehension as if they were two boxers about to enter the ring. Richard and I could barely conceal our indifference to the outcome, but I must say that I was starting to favour Bruce because Mark had often shown a tendency to be over-confident and slightly over-bearing when taking part in competitive activities, be it running, American football, soccer, baseball, table tennis or even a game of darts. Actually, the more I thought about it the more I realised that he was a bit of a pain in the arse, or the ass as the Americans would say. The cheering built to a climax as Moose fired the starting pistol, barely audible over the cacophony of noise.

  I jumped to my feet and shouted “Go Bruce,” as they sprinted off. The race itself would never catch on as a spectator sport. Both runners started from the same line, scratched in the dirt, but facing in opposite directions. One would run the course clockwise and the other anti-clockwise, and both disappeared from view after running about 100 yards. That was it until they reappeared about 10 minutes later, racing back to the scratched line. None of the spectators were deterred as everyone continued to sing and chant and the cheerleader troupes went through their acrobatic repertoires. Everyone gathered back at the start/finish line and waited with anticipation, looking in both directions along the track. The tension built up as if we were watching for the train to arrive in ‘High Noon’, and then Mark’s supporters started to cheer as he rounded the bend and came into view. Bruce’s supporters watched in silence as if willing him on, and then he appeared, but too late. He put up a great performance, but unfortunately Mark was still the champion as he crossed the line with a swagger and a smug grin. Magnanimous is not a word I would use to describe his attitude.

  “What did you think of that?” asked Richard as we made our way back up to the cabins.

  “It was like watching just the opening titles and closing credits of a film, with nothing in between.”

  “No, I don’t mean the race; I mean Mark’s smirking, bragging attitude.”

  “Rather ungentlemanly, certainly not cricket,” I replied in a mockingly exaggerated posh English accent.

  “Yeah,” agreed Richard. “I would love to see somebody beat him and wipe that smug look off his face.”

  A Dangerously Unstable Cycle-path

  The following day, Richard and I had some spare time after lunch, and I asked him if he fancied a stroll around the lake. We had a pleasant chat about our plans for a Greyhound Bus Tour across America at the end of the season, and we both agreed how much we were enjoying working in the USA. However, my mind became distracted as I wandered off and looked around furtively.

  “John, what’s the matter? You are hardly listening when I am talking to you.”

  “Sorry, I am thinking about what you said yesterday about someone beating Mark in the round-the-lake-challenge.”

  “Have you got somebody in mind?”

  “Me.”

  Richard stopped in his tracks and gave me the kind of woeful, pitiful look I might have expected if I had calmly announced that I was going to fight Joe Frazier for the World Heavyweight Championship. He shook his head, looked me up and down and said, “With the greatest respect,” (which is usually what someone says prior to saying something extremely disrespectful), “you have about as much chance of beating him in a race as I have of winning Wimbledon. You would be the biggest underdog since David met Goliath.”

  “Yes, and who won that one? Remember the old adage: if at first you don’t succeed...?”

  “Try, try, again,” continued Richard, finishing the quote

  “No... cheat.”

  He looked at me dubiously, but his almost imperceptible flicker of a smile signalled intrigue.

  “Let’s go for a bike ride tomorrow,” I suggested, leaving him ‘hanging in the air’.

  The following day, down by the lake Richard joked, “I feel like the escape officer at Colditz Castle who is about to listen to some hare-brained plan from one of the prisoners.”

  I began my pitch by saying, “We are agreed that there is no-one at Maplehurst who beat Mark in a foot race?”

  “Correct.”

  “Well this won’t be a foot race,” I continued, smiling wryly while nodding in the direction of our bikes. “Well not entirely.” Richard was now well and truly on the hook. I took out a stopwatch and explained that we were going to record some times and strategically place two bikes in the bushes near to the path around the lake. His expression remained deadpan and he was obviously unconvinced, so I picked up a long twig and drew a map on a patch of dry dirt.

  “This is the lake, this is the perimeter path, and here is the starting line of the race,” I explained, using my twig as a pointer as if briefing the ‘Dam Busters’ in a black and white war film. “And here, here and here are the watch-towers with search lights and German soldiers with machine-gu-”

  “Get on with it!” interrupted Richard impatiently.

  “Once the runners are out of sight there are ‘blind-spots’ before and after they pass each other on the other side of the lake, and before they come back into the view of the spectators.”

  “Go on,” nodded Richard, gradually gaining interest.

  “That is where the bikes come into play.”

  “Oh, I see,” he said, leaning forward conspiratorially and adding, “You crafty git.”

  Over the next couple of days we went on trial runs to time distances. We took measurements with the precision of a team of surveyors, and eventually we worked out exactly where the bikes could be hidden. The plot was hatched, and now it was time to set the trap. We couldn’t just blunder in with an outright challenge. What was required was subtlety as we decided to sow the seeds of an idea and draw Mark into the race.

  At every opportunity, over breakfast, dinner, or game
s of table-tennis, we would engage Mark and his friends in conversation, and always brought up the subject of his running prowess. He had a massive ego which got bigger the more it was massaged, as it were. Gradually Richard made up stories about me as I would act coyly and pretend to be modest and embarrassed. He lied that he had seen a copy of my application form as he gradually disclosed that I had won some cross-country races in England. He was so plausible that I started to believe it myself. One of Mark’s friends began to take the bait.

  “John, why don’t you challenge for the Round-the-Lake race,” he suggested. Up to that point Mark hadn’t spoken, but had just sat there exuding the air of some sort of sports hero holding court amongst adoring fans. He looked at me contemptuously. Richard picked up on this and suggested enthusiastically that it could be billed as England versus the USA.

  “I don’t think so. I wouldn’t have much of a chance against a great athlete like Mark,” I conceded.

  “Much of a chance?” exclaimed Mark arrogantly. “You wouldn’t have any chance.” He then added superciliously, “But I could always give you a start.”

  This was the opening I was waiting for.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t need a start,” I retorted.

  “Okay, that’s agreed. We will race next Saturday,” he said with a satisfied smirk as if he had shamed me into running.

  After they had left Richard just looked at me, smiled, and whispered, “Come into my parlour said the spider to the fly.”

  The art department was a hive of activity during the days leading up to the race, with American-themed banners, posters, T-shirts and flags in mass production. Bob and the boys in our cabin were happy to be traitors for the day and support England. Bruce also temporarily switched his national allegiance, because he was as keen as anyone to see Mark beaten.

  “I will coach them to be like English football supporters,” Richard enthused.

  “Do you mean they will go on a rampage and smash everything up?”

  “No! ... We will be singing, chanting and clapping and giving all these American cheerleaders a run for their money.”

  On the day of the race the bikes were hidden in their designated places, and I felt confident that I was fit enough to do myself justice and run well. But, nevertheless, I was very nervous.

  “What if he still beats me?” I whispered to Richard.

  “So what?” he replied reassuringly. “No-one will be any the wiser. But don’t worry, you will win.” His final statement calmed me down, mainly because Richard had been in charge of all our measurements and stop-watch timings. After all, he was going up to Oxford University in October to study maths.

  The day of the race was even more of a carnival atmosphere than a couple of weeks earlier. Although my supporters were greatly outnumbered, they cheered enthusiastically. Mark and I were called to the starting line by Moose, and we took up our positions. He tried to psych me out with a fixed stare, but I just concentrated on the path ahead, anti-clockwise through the cherry orchard.

  “Take your marks, get set, bang.”

  I sprinted off with the sound of the starter-pistol ringing in my ears as the cheers of the supporters quickly faded into the distance. If it had been a genuine two-mile run it would have been suicidal of me to set off at such a speed. But I was running just over one hundred yards to reach the first bike, hidden just round the first bend. I grabbed it out of the shrubbery and did a flying mount, practised regularly of course, to maintain the smooth transition of a tri-athlete. I pedalled as if my life depended on it. Rising up out of the saddle I hurtled along the path for about 800 yards, trying to avoid decapitation by over-hanging branches. I looked out for the broken branch which marked my jumping-off point, and I rolled the bike out of sight into the undergrowth. I ran for about 50 yards when Mark came into view round the bend up ahead. A little earlier than we had anticipated, but if I had stayed on the bike for only another ten seconds I would have been rumbled. ‘Well done Richard,’ I thought. As we passed each other on the path, I could see that Mark was surprised. He thought I was smiling at him, but it was actually a disguised grimace. I had another one hundred and fifty yards to run as fast as I could and then I was on to the second bike. Another flying mount, I landed on the saddle from a great height, oblivious to the risk of testicular trauma and impervious to pain. A burst of adrenalin coursed through my veins in my quest for glory. I cycled furiously for another 800 yards to my final change-over point. This time I just threw the bike into the bushes with the swinging style of a hammer thrower, no time to carefully roll it away, and I started my final run. I rounded the bend into the home straight and the crowd came into view. At first there was silence, and then a murmur, and then my supporters began to cheer. They were the only ones looking in my direction, as all the rest were looking the other way for Mark’s appearance.

  I felt as though I was wading through treacle, so I concentrated on pumping my arms as fast as I could in the hope that my legs would follow. My head was starting to roll about uncontrollably like a nodding dog on the parcel shelf of a car. As I stepped up the pace, I saw, to my horror, Mark coming into view. I don’t know who was the most shocked to see each other, but, by my calculations, (Richard’s actually) I had about 20 yards lead on him; so I sprinted as fast as I possibly could. The cheers of the crowd became deafening as we approached the finishing line, and I could see that he was rapidly gaining on me. My lungs were on fire, but, after a final supreme, eye-balls-out effort, I broke the tape. I had won, but only by about five yards, which shows just how good an athlete he really was. We were both hunched over gasping for breath as my supporters (our cabin) surrounded me chanting, “England. England.” Richard had taught them well. Moose came over and congratulated me with a handshake, and, to give him his due, so did Mark. I had this strange ambivalent feeling of victorious satisfaction tinged with guilt. Richard just grinned and gave me a thumb-up and a wink. Bob and Bruce and all our lads, Terry, Ben, Ronnie and even Robert, mobbed me with high fives and backslaps. I lapped up all this undeserved adulation and I noticed for the first time how much effort they had made on my behalf. With their Union Jack T-shirts and flags, they looked as though they had just been to the ‘Last Night of the Proms’ at the Albert Hall.

  As we made our way across the field, Minichello sidled up to me and said, “Well done, Meadows. I didn’t know you could run that fast.”

  “Thanks Robert, but I’m still not as fast as you with your pants round your ankles.” He gave me his now customary, signature response... the finger. This time though he did it with a jokey smile. Was it now a term of endearment in the same way as an Australian’s ‘G’day you Pommie bastard’?

  Earlier I wrote that magnanimous was not a word I would use to describe Mark. Well his attitude over subsequent weeks following his ‘defeat’ made me change my mind. His transformation of character was almost Ebenezer Scrooge-like as he became friendlier and more approachable. He and his friends started to spend more time with Richard and me, and he even invited us to go with them to a baseball game in Detroit at the end of the season. As we approached the final week of term Richard asked me if I was going to come clean and admit our little scam. It was more of a suggestion than a question, and I agreed with him. I had been awarded the Round-the-Lake Trophy, but I had kept it hidden to avoid my name being engraved on the roll-of-honour (or should I say dishonour). One lunch time, I took the trophy to the dining hall and Richard and I sat at the same table as Mark. During the meal I tapped on the trophy with a spoon and asked for attention. I was more nervous than before the race. How would everyone react? I hadn’t rehearsed anything; I just simply announced that I had a confession to make. Richard bowed his head and put his hands to his forehead. He was as nervous as I was.

  I turned to Mark and said, “Thank you for being so generous in defeat, but I have to tell you that you actually won the race. I cheated. I rode a bike.”

&nbs
p; I then handed him the trophy and shook his hand. There was a stunned silence as I stood there feeling vulnerable and exposed, as I waited for the flak. To my great relief there was an explosion of uproarious laughter followed by a spontaneous round of applause, and Mark took the whole thing good-naturedly as the victim of a practical joke. Taking him ‘down a peg or two’ was our original intention, and we felt that it was mission accomplished. No-one laughed more than Minichello, who seemed to look at me with newly-found admiration. He realised that I was a lying, devious, conniving cheat: someone he could really look up to. He gave me a thumbs-up. No finger this time.

  Courting Disaster

  “Six one, six love... six bloody love,” sighed Richard forlornly.

  I had asked him cheerily how he had got on in his tennis match, and the tone of his answer rendered it unnecessary to inquire further if he had won or lost. It was sunset and we had met in the middle of a field as I was on my way to the laundry. Richard was returning from a tennis tournament in Traverse City. Moose had entered him, so to speak, and Richard had willingly agreed.

  “So you were a little out of your depth, never mind, at least it was an experience,” I said, trying to be up-beat to lift him from his gloom.

  “You can say that again.”

  He put his sports bag down on the grass, and I did likewise with my laundry, sensing that Richard needed someone to talk to. Having suffered a crushing defeat in his chosen sport, his ego must have been at a very low ebb, so I thought that I should try to masquerade as a sports psychologist; my expertise in that particular field being about the same as in fencing.