Chichester Greenway

by Alton Saunders

  Chapter 8:

  THE CHASE

  Andrew and Vicky’s class and two others finished school half an hour before the older ones. Andrew always enjoyed the feeling of leaving school on Friday afternoons. There was homework to be done, of course, but ahead of him were two days of freedom. And today this meant, especially, freedom from the menacing advances of J, Cart and Paulus. All through the IT lesson he had been thinking about whether they could really know where he lived. They had never seen him going home and he did not think there was any way they could have found out, unless, of course, they had looked up Canadine in the phone book. On the whole he did not think this likely but it might occur to them some day if they really persisted. What was it they wanted from him? He wished he knew, but maybe it was better not to know.

  He was feeling quite a lot calmer as he walked across the playground to the gates. Mum usually read to him on a Friday night and sometimes Vicky came round. She had never been read to like that by her mum or by anybody else, and it was a real treat for her. Andrew knew that they were really a bit too old to be read to, but he still enjoyed it, and Mum seemed to enjoy it too.

  He was feeling happy again as he walked out of the gate, but then a boy stepped out from behind the big plane tree that grew out of the pavement on the other side of the road. It was Cart. A shudder went through him. Cart shouldn’t be there. He should still be in school with the rest of his class.

  Cart, though, had simply walked out of school at the end of the first afternoon lesson and had been waiting for Andrew to appear. His dad had told him that the best way to get away with something was to “act confident.” Cart had practised this advice on many occasions and found it usually worked.

  Andrew started to run towards the main road. Cart set off at a steady lope, keeping to the other side of the road. He had long legs and he knew he could easily keep up with Andrew.

  At the main road Andrew turned right instead of left, leading Cart away from home. Away from safety, too. His one thought was that Cart must not find out where he lived. He was so agitated he could hardly think, and his breathing was already starting to hurt in the middle of his chest. Apart from trotting round the gym at the beginning of P.E. lessons he hardly ever did any running. He hoped he could give Cart the slip some way or other and then find his way back home. He glanced round. Cart was tailing him from several yards back, trying not to look as if he was chasing the younger boy.

  Andrew had already gone half a mile down the main road, crossing several side streets, when he saw a bookshop on his right. He felt at home in bookshops because he and his mum sometimes went into them to browse around, looking for interesting books that they might be able to borrow later from the library. He darted in and banged the door shut behind him. “Steady on, young man!” said the man behind the counter. Andrew, who was already red from running, went redder still. “Sorry!” he mumbled.

  He was glad to find that there were two lines of high shelves in the bookshop. He went to the far side of the one over on his right, where the man could not see him. The nice smell of new books helped him to relax a bit and he began to get his breath back. He glanced out of the window. There was Cart, standing on the pavement outside, trying to look as if he was waiting for somebody. Not too hard, Andrew thought, he’s waiting for me.

  The books in front of him were cookery books. He wondered how long he could stay there before the man came over to see what he was doing. At least he was getting a chance to get his breath back properly and give his legs a rest. They were feeling quite painful and wobbly. Would Cart get tired of waiting after a while? He wondered if he could tell the man what was happening, but he knew he had made a bad impression already. He would probably just tell him to clear out.

  Andrew peeped out of the window again. To his relief there was no sign of Cart. He went over to the door and out into the noise of the traffic. He knew the man was watching him. He closed the door gently behind him, and there was Cart just a few paces down the road with a big grin on his face. Not a kindly grin. Andrew started to run again, in outright panic. There was no one else around for the moment and Cart felt safe to call out: “I just want to know where you live, that’s all!” So they don’t know, Andrew thought. Somehow he must put Cart off the scent.

  He was coming up to another side road on his right. He turned into it and saw a sort of gateway or entrance a little way down on the other side of the road. If only he could get in there before Cart rounded the corner. He darted across the road. Even in his haste he noticed that there was an ornate iron arch over the entrance. Some narrow stone steps led down to the canal. He clattered down them as fast as he could without tripping over. To his horror he could hear Cart coming down right behind him.

  Fortunately Andrew had a good sense of direction. He realised that if he turned right along the canal towpath it would eventually lead to the part of the canal that was close to his home. Without thinking he set off in that direction, forgetting that he had to lead Cart away from home. The sky had been broken as he left school, with faint gleams of sunshine, but now it had clouded over to a dull uniform grey. The canal towpath seemed to stretch ahead of him endlessly, crossed by occasional road bridges. Cart could easily catch up with him and do whatever he wanted, because there was no one else in sight. Luckily he was too stupid to realise that this was a place where he could force Andrew to divulge his address in a way that he could never do in the school playground. He had planned to follow Andrew home to see for himself where he lived, and that was what he was going to do.

  Andrew stumbled on, feeling more and more desperate. Some way ahead a man was fishing from the towpath. Andrew thought of calling out to him, but he would probably take no notice and if he slowed down Cart would catch up with him. In fact, Cart was quite content to trail along six or seven paces behind him, matching his own pace to Andrew’s, waiting for him to make for home, as he was sure to do eventually. It didn’t matter how long it took. There was no one who cared what time Cart got in and he was enjoying the feeling of hunting somebody.

  As Andrew and then Cart passed the fisherman he did not even look round. He might just have well have been a statue, casting no shadow in the fading light. Streetlights flickered on in the nearby roads. They were now on a section of the canal that looked more familiar to Andrew. Yes, there was the iron skeleton of an old factory or warehouse and a block of flats on the other side of the water. It must be fairly near the block Vicky lived in. He could hear Cart’s scuffling footsteps on the rough gravel. Was he beginning to close the gap?

  Now at last the canal was curving round to the left with high buildings on either side. The little piece of lawn should be just round the bend with an iron gate that led out onto a road parallel to Andrew’s. A plan was beginning to form in his mind, not a very good plan, but with luck it might be a way out of this chase that was becoming more and more like a nightmare.

  There was the lawn. Andrew dashed across and banged the gate shut behind him, sliding the bolt across as he did so. It might delay Cart a vital moment or so. He sprinted up the road using his last reserves of strength, turned right at the top, past the pub, the launderette and the betting shop, then right again at the newsagent’s into Chichester Greenway.

  He darted into the little front garden of the first house in the row. He had no time to look back and see if Cart had spotted him. Thank goodness, the wooden door at the side was unfastened. He went through and reached up and bolted it. He should be safe now. He stood still, trying to restrain his heaving breath, and listened. Someone was walking along the pavement outside. Was it Cart? Had he seen him? The footsteps stopped. Now they were going back towards the main road. Even if Cart had seen him go in, it was not too bad, because this was not Andrew’s house.

  He was standing in a little passageway, one of several that led through to the alleyway at the back of the long line of narrow houses. This house belonged
to an old man called Mr Handley. It was Mr V. Handley, but everyone called him Tommy. Andrew did not know why. He was a nice old man and Andrew and his mum sometimes stopped for a chat with him if they saw him out in the street. Once he had asked them in for a cup of tea and had shown Andrew how to play draughts and then he had taken them up the narrow uncarpeted stairs to look at his workroom.

  Andrew went round into the back yard with its little wooden shed. The sky was beginning to get dark and there was a comforting yellow glow from the light in Mr Handley’s kitchen. Andrew stood on tiptoe and looked in. There was Mr Handley rinsing a plate at the sink.

  Andrew reached up and tapped on the window. He saw Mr Handley look up in surprise, put the plate down on the draining board and move away from the sink. In a moment the back door to the yard cautiously opened and Mr Handley peered out. “It’s all right, Tommy, it’s only me – Andrew, from down the road.” It still felt funny calling the old man Tommy instead of Mr Handley, but that was what Tommy liked.

  “Andrew, what a nice surprise! Come in. Why, whatever is the matter?” He could see that Andrew was in a state of distress, red in the face, his breath coming in short gasps and tears on his cheeks. “No, don’t tell me now, just come and sit down and get your breath back.”

  It was such a relief to be safe in Tommy’s house and to know that his own house was just a short walk along the road and that Mum would be there waiting for him. Mum! She must be worried sick! “Tommy, please, what’s the time?”

  “Four forty five.”

  As his breathing subsided Andrew began to think more clearly. He often strolled home quite slowly, particularly if he had arranged to meet up with Vicky at some point on the way back. Yesterday they had spent quite some time looking at that skip and pulling out the old pram and dragging it home and making the wheels spin round. Perhaps it was about this time that they had finally gone in to Andrew’s house, and his mum had not seemed worried. Yes, it was probably all right after all.

  Tommy could see that Andrew was not quite ready to tell him his troubles. “How about a cup of tea and a game of draughts, young Andrew?” he suggested.

  “Oh, yes please, but I think Mum might get worried if I don’t get home soon. I haven’t been back yet, you see.”

  “Well how about me phoning her and telling her I’ll bring you round after our game? And if she wants you back right away, well, we can always play draughts another day. I won’t tell her you’ve been in some sort of scrape, unless you’d like me to?”

  “Oh, thank you, Tommy. No, I’d rather Mum didn’t know, if you don’t mind.”

  Andrew told him the number, then remained in the kitchen, listening to Tommy’s end of the conversation. The phone was in the little hallway just outside. From the way it went he could tell that Mum had not been anxious about him. What a relief!

  Tommy came back in and sat down at the other side of the table. “Yes, that’s all right, but she would like you back by five thirty. Just time for one game, I reckon, so let’s get the kettle on.” He dealt with the kettle, the old sort that boiled on a gas ring, and then reached up to the shelf for the draughts board and the box of draughtsmen. Andrew opened out the board and began to lay out the pieces.

  He knew Tommy was expecting some sort of explanation as to what had been going on. He decided to keep it as simple as possible. “One of the big boys was chasing me and I got frightened. I gave him the slip and hid in your yard.”

  “Well done! Gave him the slip, did you? Are you going to tell your mum?”

  “No, I don’t want her to get worried.”

  “Hmm. Well, I daresay you’re right. If it happens again, though, I think you should tell her. It’s not right if one of the big boys is making your life a misery. It’s bullying, that’s what it is.”

  They settled down for their game and their cup of tea. Andrew was amazed how quickly Tommy captured his pieces and turned his own pieces into kings. The game was over well before five thirty.

  “Would you like to see how my latest house is coming on?” Andrew had been hoping to see Tommy’s work again, ever since that first glimpse of his workshop several months ago. He made beautiful wooden dolls’ houses and every one he made was bought by big shops in the West End. It was Tommy’s own little business, bringing in enough to pay for the rent and the Council Tax and his various modest expenses.

  By the time they had walked down the road, Andrew’s colour and his breathing had returned to normal and he could see that his mum had no inkling that anything untoward had happened.

  Shortly after his return the front door bell rang and Vicky came through into the kitchen.

  “Hallo, Vicky!” said Andrew cheerfully. Now the weekend was starting properly. It would be two whole days before he had to face school again. He didn’t think he would tell Vicky about the scare he had had. He wanted to keep all that part of his life as separate from home and friendship as possible.

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