LITMIR.BIZ

       “Best Mate for ever”

      Part of Patrick’s walk to school, to St Thomas’ Junior School on Porthcressa Road was along the canal, past the brown sauce factory which somehow smelled both sweet and sour at the same time. That walk along the canal where the barges chugged by, where the ducks dipped and drank, was the only part of going to school that Patrick looked forward to at all. There was so much he was dreading. He sat there on his bed and thought about the school day ahead of him, wishing he didn’t have to live through it. The radio was burbling downstairs as it always was, and his dad had burnt the toast, again.

      Patrick thought of Mr Butterworth, his teacher and football coach, whose literacy homework – that stupid story about someone you meet standing in a shopping queue – he still hadn’t finished, and who this time was bound to make him stay in after lunch and finish it. That meant that the head teacher, Mrs Brightwell, would probably find him there, and so he’d be in double trouble. She was always on at Patrick about being untidy or running in the corridors, or daydreaming or using what she called ‘lazy words’, such as ‘cool’ or ‘wicked’, or worst of all, ‘whatever’.

      If she ever heard anyone saying ‘whatever’ she’d practically explode, especially if you shrugged your shoulders at the same time. The trouble was that just at the moment and for no good reason, ‘whatever’ happened to be Patrick’s favourite word. He knew it irritated his mum and dad as well, knew how much Mrs Brightwell hated it, but the word would just pop out as if it had a mind of its own, and with it came a shrug. There was nothing he could do to stop himself, and of course all too often Mrs Brightwell would be right there, and she’d blow up. After it was over, everyone would turn round and laugh at him. That was what Patrick dreaded most about school, being laughed at.

      He dreaded Jimmy Rington too, Jimbo to his friends, and Patrick wasn’t one of them, not since the day before when he’d let in that goal, the goal that had lost the cup final against Burbage School. It hadn’t been Patrick’s fault, not entirely. It was the kestrel’s fault as well. The thing was, he’d been watching for the kestrel on and off for days. The bird was roosting high up on the chimney of the brown sauce factory. Patrick loved to see him come swooping down and hover there over the long grass at the edge of the playing field. Patrick could have watched him all day and every day. Once he’d caught sight of the kestrel he couldn’t take his eyes off him. It wasn’t his fault that he came gliding over the football pitch at just the same moment the Burbage centre forward let fly with a speculative long range shot that Patrick should easily have saved.

      There was all the sudden shouting, as the ball rocketed past him into the net, and he was left diving after it despairingly, ending up flat on his face in the mud. When he looked up, there were Jimmy Rington and the others running towards him, yelling and screaming: “Loser! Loser!” Mr Butterworth said it wasn’t the end of the world, but to Patrick it certainly felt like it. So Patrick had a lot of worrying to do that morning.

      He was late down to breakfast as a result. He barely had time to feed Swimsy, his goldfish, and shovel down his Cocopops, before his mum was kissing him goodbye on top of his head as she passed by behind him, talking as she went, not to him at all, but to Patrick’s dad, about not forgetting to get the car serviced. Then she was out of the door and gone. Minutes later Patrick was being hustled into the car, and his dad was telling him to be careful crossing the road by the school, to wait until the lollipop man said he could cross – this was what he said every morning.

      Patrick was dropped off by the bridge as usual, and found himself alone at last and walking along the canal. Suddenly it didn’t matter any more about Jimmy Rington or the goal he’d let in, or saying ‘whatever’ or Mrs Brightwell’s volcanic temper tantrums. He breathed in the sweet and sour smell of the brown sauce factory. It was strange, he loved the smell, but hated the taste of the actual sauce. Shading his eyes against the sun, he looked up at the chimney to see if his kestrel was there. He wasn’t, but Patrick didn’t mind, because there were some ducks cruising past him, and another nearby with his bottom in the air, and that always made him smile. A moorhen scurried across the towpath in front of him and disappeared into the long grass.

      He hitched up his school bag and felt suddenly all bright and breezy, until he saw the swan some distance ahead of him, standing there on the towpath, looking at him, waiting for him. That worried him, because Patrick knew this swan, knew him all too well. They had met once before. It looked like the same one who had blocked his path on the way to school only a couple of weeks ago. He’d come running at Patrick wings outstretched, neck lowered to attack and hissing like a hundred snakes. Patrick had had to run into the undergrowth to escape him and had fallen into a patch of nettles. So Patrick did not like this swan, not one bit. Yet somehow he was going to have to get past him – it was the only way to get to school, and he had to get to school. The question was how to do it.

      Patrick stood there eyeing the swan, just hoping that sooner rather than later the swan would decide it was time to go back into the water. But the swan stayed steadfastly where he was, glaring darkly at him, his great black feet planted firmly on the towpath. He was showing no signs of moving anywhere.

      Patrick was still wondering what to do, when out of the corner of his eye he saw something floating out in the middle of the canal. It was bright green and looked plastic – a sack of some kind. He probably wouldn’t have paid it any more attention – a sack’s not that interesting, after all – if he hadn’t heard the squeaking. It sounded as if it was coming from the sack itself, and that didn’t make sense.

      Patrick thought at first it might have been the piping of ducklings or moorhen chicks – he’d heard them often enough on the canal. But then he remembered that there weren’t any chicks around, not any more, because it was autumn. The whole place was carpeted with yellow leaves, gold leaves, red leaves. They were all around his feet. Spring and summer were over. No, it really had to be the sack itself that was squeaking.

      It was still early in the morning and Patrick’s brain must have been working very slowly, because several moments passed before he realised that there was something alive inside the sack, and even then it wasn’t only the squeaking that convinced him. The sack, he noticed, wasn’t just drifting gently along like everything else, the leaves, the sticks, all the other flotsam in the canal.

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