The two willows on the baked grass verge by the tennis courts were a safe place to be alone. For a while, it was possible to pretend you were waiting for a gang of kids to turn up with a football or something (if you affected a bored air) while hanging around on bunched willow branches and swinging out over the steep bank. It was kind of exciting and not always easy to look bored but Sam had got used to it by now. Looking like he was waiting for a group of kids to turn up was just one of many clever ways Sam had invented to cover up for being alone. Being alone was something Sam had learned to do well. The only chink in his armour was other kids who would always find a way to let him know he was a 'loner' or a 'saddo'. If it weren't for this unwanted attention Sam might have been very happy being alone. But it seemed to be getting worse. At ten and going on eleven, 'Big School' was beckoning and for some reason everyone seemed a bit nervous about exactly who was who's friend. When Sam thought about the ways all these so called 'friends' had been treating each other over the last summer term, he felt relieved that he didn't really have any friends to worry about. Except for Maurice...
By the time he'd counted 14 different kids who'd passed through the park in the hour or so he'd been there, Sam was ready for what was about to happen. Nicola Howarth had been past nearly an hour ago. She was fetching shopping for her mum. Sam expected she'd be back. He hadn't necessarily expected her to bring her two sisters as they now approached from the park entrance at the top of the hill - so Sam could see them coming for nearly a mile. There was a choice - he'd seen them early, so he might just leave there and then... Or, he could stay and 'face the music', as his grandad liked to say.. By the time he'd thought about it two of the sisters were leaping down the hill and waving in his direction....
" Hey Frank - what you doin? Why are you playing with a TREE?" (laughter all round)
" Alright Howarth?" (second name terms always sounded a bit tougher)
"You don't call girls by their surname Sammy" He preferred Frank - a reference to his square head - or hair - and he'd lost on the toughness count straight away.
"Sorry Nicky" he ventured a bit of protective sarcasm
"oooooohhhhh!!!" all three together. It was often like this. His Grandad called it 'sparring', but Sam knew that was what boxers did and it was a much fairer and simpler kind of sport. He couldn't ever win this kind of sparring. Especially against three sisters. Ridicule trumps sarcasm by three to one.
"Wanna play a game?" She draws out the 'game' bit for dramatic effect....
"Not really"
"Good. Ok, here’s what you have to do - just come over here onto the grass..."
Sam holds his ground under the tree.
A sister has crouched down behind him unseen and Nicola pushes at just the right moment. He is down and they are on him. You can’t be seen to be fighting with girls and there are a few kids up by the keepers hut, so he just lies down and lets them do what they want to do... The eldest sister laughs a laugh that Sam has rarely heard before. He doesn't much care for it and rightly so as she pulls off one layer of her skirt and proceeds to wrap it around Sam's head until he is lying flat on his back with Nicola kneeling on each of his arms pinning him to the grass bank. It can't look good. He really hopes that nobody turns up with that football now. He lets his arms flop and counts on it being over quicker if he goes along with their - well, whatever...
Silence - just a feint hint of distant whispering - must be the other two girls.
Then, louder whispering. They are telling Nicola the upshot of their conversation:
"Right Sammy boy. We're going to play a game. We are going to lie down all around this here tree you are going to try to get past us. If you can get past us and climb to the top we'll let you go but if you touch one of us (giggling) you've got to give her a KISS (kiss screamed hysterically) OK?"
She didn't wait for an answer and Sam was swiftly pulled to his feet amid many giggles and after a bit of shuffling and mild argument instructed to:
"Go!".
Sam stood there thinking what a nice tree it was and how he'd climbed it so many times that it wouldn't be much trouble blindfolded - if it weren't for the fact that there were three highly excited and very insistent girls barring his way. He didn't expect them to stop at kissing either. Nicola Howarth was known for her excitable ways with boys and he'd been on the receiving end of her affections before. Preparing himself for the humiliation to come, Sam slowly poked one of his feet forward into the air hoping to get some magic sensation from his toes as to where exactly the lying girls were waiting for him. Flailing with his arms in the hope of catching a stray branch which might help him leap frog the girls to the sanctuary of the willow, he felt a dull thud under his toecaps and there was a small but fairly delighted shriek of: "Ow" and then "Oooh" and even "Aah".
It was big sister. Definitely the least kissable of the bunch. Just Sam’s luck that she was also by far the strongest and least likely to let him get away without coming up with the goods. There was nothing else to do. He fell down on to his knees and felt for her feet. There they were.. another little scream of delight. As he was about to guide himself to the other end of her waiting torso a very welcome and perfectly well timed voice, which he knew immediately, was heard over the sound of a rattling and unmistakable bike coming to a halt and being throw to the ground in usual style before:
"Frankyboy - wotcha doin?” then after a quick pause: “and why you doin' it with these Howarth witches man?"
Maurice always had a way with women. Sam was off the hook. Maurice pulled off Sam's blindfold and immediately started to put it around his own head at which point all three girls made a very loud exit leaving Maurice looking a bit bemused and still holding a girls skirt in his hands.
"Cool" he said, sounding a bit un-sure.
“Ha - nice one Palgrave”. That was Maurice’s surname. It was borrowed from his elderly foster parents. Maurice was a ‘foster kid’ and although Sam didn’t really know what that meant - he knew it was always said by adults with a mixture of sympathy and regret - so he thought it was probably bad (although he really liked Maurice’s foster mum and dad and they were very kind to him… adults sometimes did seem to get stuff wrong…).
“So, Sam…”
Maurice never called Sam ‘Sam’.
“Yeah?”
“Have you been at your Grandads today?”
“Nah - me mam’s off work”
“Oh, cool”
A pause as Maurice stared fairly stupidly at Sam.
“Why you ask?”
Maurice made a noise that sounded like an ‘errr’ then he made some more noises that sounded like a sentence or even a few sentences, but as they didn’t contain any words Sam couldn’t be sure.
“What?”
More drivelling - another one of his grandad’s words..
“Palgrave, WHAT are you trying to say?”
“What I just said”
“No, what you just said was”: (Sam makes an equally undecipherable set of noises in a very good impression of Maurice which makes the boy laugh until he remembers what he is trying to say and looks immediately like he is about to cry, which Sam finally understands as confirmation of something bad.
“What’s up Mozza?”
“I think yer Grandad might be dead”.
