Two Bold Little Boys
Gerrard Wilson
Copyright 2015 by Gerrard Wilson
Two Bold Little Boys
Two Bold Little Boys
Bonus Feature
Two Bold Little Boys
Once upon a time, there were two bold little boys called George and Fred. They were so bold – so incredibly naughty – they made the lives of everyone they came in to contact with unbearable. Their poor, bedraggled mother did try to tame them, though, to keep her sons on the straight and narrow, but she was at nothing against two little thugs hell-bent on causing the maximum amount of mischief and mayhem wherever they went. This was how it was; it went on for week after week, month after month, and year after year until one dark, cold winter’s evening when a stranger came knocking...
Knock, knock, knock, three raps sounded on the front door of the boys house. “Who’s there?” the eldest of the two boys, his name was George, called out from the sitting room. He was sting sitting comfortably on the settee, watching TV. Silence, there was a peculiar silence as he waited for a reply. Annoyed by the strange silence, he warned, “If you don’t answer me, I will open the door and kick you so hard in the shins it will bring tears to your eyes!”
Silence; the person who had knocked the door did not answer him – again.
“Who is it?” George barked defiantly, “If you don’t tell me who you are, I will give you the mother of all kicks, so I will! I am warning you!”
Silence; yet another period of silence followed George’s second threat.
“That’s it!” he yelled, “I am coming to get you! Getting up from the settee, George stomped his way down the dimly lit corridor, to the front door. Releasing the latch, he growled, “You asked for it – the mother of all kicks is coming your way!” However, when he opened the door, he saw no one there.
“Who is it?” Fred, George’s younger brother, asked, from the armchair he was sting in.
“I dunno…” George mumbled in reply.
“You don’t know? What do you mean, you don’t know?”
Without answering his brother, without telling him what he had seen – or not seen, George stepped out from the house, into the garden, where he began to inspect every bush, shrub and tree, in case the person who had rapped the door was hiding somewhere within them. However, despite searching them all, he found no one. Leaning over the garden gate, George stared along the dark, deserted road, hoping to see the elusive culprit, but he saw no one. Shivering, George returned inside. After warming his hands in front of the roaring log fire, he sat in the armchair adjacent it, pondering the mysterious raps on the door.
“You look as if you have seen a ghost,” Fred laughed. “George, the boy everyone fears, is afraid!” he said, laughing heartedly at him.
“I don’t fear anyone – not even you!” his brother growled. “And don’t you forget it!”
“All right keep your knickers on,” Fred chuckled. “I was only saying-”
“Well, don’t or I’ll give you a knuckle sandwich, so I will!”
Before Fred could answer his brother, to tell him where to go with himself, another rap on the door – even louder than the previous two, caught his attention. George, however, now ensconced in his armchair, ignored it. “Well?” Fred asked, addressing his elder brother.
“Well – what?”
“Are you going to answer it?”
George, however, offered him no reply.
“It seems to me as if you have lost your nerve, the boy fighter who is supposed to be afraid of nothing!” Fred quipped.
Sitting in his armchair, uncomfortably staring into the crackling log fire, George tried to convince himself that no one had rapped the front door, not once twice, or even thrice.
“Okay,” Fred said to his brother, “if you won’t answer it, I will. I’m not afraid of some practical joker.” Stepping up from his chair, Fred said, “No silly beggar playing hide and seek is going to spook me, let me tell you.”
When he reached the front door, Fred released the latch and then opened it slightly. Gazing outside, through the crack, he said, “Is anyone there?” Nobody answered him. Opening the door wider, he asked, “Is anyone there?”
A voice, a weak, frightened voice, said, “Yes, Fred, sir, I hope so. Me and my friend-”
His eyes narrowing, Fred cut him off, asking, “Me? Me who? Step into the light of the porch so I can see you,” he ordered.
Stepping into the light, the person, it was a small boy, showed himself. “My name is Livid, Fred, sir,” he told him. “I was playing football, in the street, and... my ball got kicked into your garden.”
“And are lived?” Fred enquired of him.
“Pardon?”
“I said are you livid?”
“No...” he answered uncertainly.
“Then it’s not a very good name for you, is it?” Fred quipped, laughing condescendingly at him.
Livid nodded, agreeing that it wasn’t a good name. Returning his attention to the offending ball, Fred said, “Why are you telling me that you ball has gone missing?”
“I – we wanted to ask for it back,” he apologetically told him.
Pressing him further, Fred said, “You were playing football – in the dark of the evening?”
“It wasn’t dark when we began…”
Eying the boy with some considerable disdain, Fred said, “Where exactly is it?”
Pointing upwards, the boy said, “It’s up there, in that old tree.”
Straining to see the through the darkness, let alone the web of tangled old branches, at the said ball, Fred said, “Nope, I can’t see it. It’s not there.” Then he slammed the door shut in the bothersome boy’s face.
“WAIT!” Livid cried out. “It’s new, it was a present! I MUST get it back!”
“That’s your problem, not mine,” Fred smugly replied from behind the closed door. Returning to the sitting room, Fred symbolically wiped his hands clean of the affair. “That’s how you sort things out,” he told George, “by being nasty, not by sulking in front of the fire.”
“Perhaps I did overeat, a bit...” George admitted.
“A bit? A whole lot would better describe it!” Fred told him.
“All right, a whole lot,” George agreed. “It was a blip, that’s all, just a blip. And to prove it, I am going outside this instant to get myself a new football!”
Cheering him on, Fred said, “That’s more like it. And if that little squirt is still at the door, biff him one for me.”
“I will, I’ll biff him, goodo,” George promised. Barrelling down the hallway, he soon arrived at the front door. Flinging it open, he stepped outside into the night garden, and then headed for the tree at the centre of the lawn.
George never reached that old tree. The instant he set foot on the lawn, a man appeared, blocking his path. This man, this tall and incredibly thin man, dressed entirely in black, with a face as white a freshly fallen snow, stood there, staring blankly at him.
“I say, that’s not cricket!” George grizzled.
Bursting out from the house, following his brother, Fred said, “Have you got it, the ball?” Then he saw the strange man. “OH MY GOD!” he shrieked. “Who on earth is THAT?”
Edging backwards, slowly away from the man, George and his brother regrouped close by the porch step.
Pointing shakily at the man in the garden, Fred asked his brother for a second time who it was.
“I don’t know!” he whispered in reply. “He appeared from nowhere,”
“Nowhere?”
“Yes, nowhere,” he insisted. “One moment I was alone in the garden, and then he was there, barring my way to the tree.”
Suddenly, the mustering figure began moving,
walking away from the boys. “Where’s he going?” Fred said to his brother. “Is he going away?” he dared ask.
“For a moment, a brief moment, the shadowy figure stopped dead in its tracks, as if it was annoyed that it was the subject of their conversation, and then it set off again, walking away from the boys. Seeing this, they breathed a huge sigh of relief.
Tugging at his brother’s jumper sleeve, far removed from the brave boy he was purported to be, Fred said, “What are we going to do, George?”
“Look,” George said to him, “he’s heading for the tree with the ball in it.”
Stopping at the tree, the incredibly thin man reached up high into its canopy. Grabbing hold of the ball he rescued it from the web of tangled branches.
“What does he want with that?” Fred whispered.
“That was supposed to be mine,” George grumbled, though ever so quietly in case the man heard.
Just then, the tall, sinewy man cast his eyes towards the two boys. Then he set about walking towards them.
“Run!” Fred hollered. “RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!”
“I AM RUNNING,” George answered, “BUT WHERE DO I RUN TO?”
“Inside – and quick,” Fred ordered.
Mounting the step,
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