2. A Third Stranger

Jack decided to go exploring in the forest

“Jack,” called Jerry as Angela busied herself with the breakfast things next morning, “I’m off to work.”

“More super-spying, dad?” grinned a cheeky-faced Jack.

“You might call it that. I call it keeping a weather eye on a group of rather unpleasant individuals who look as if they might want to start a civil war,” replied his father, “and in addition I’ve got some news about your twin. He was going to be coming this way today, but his father, your own grandad, reckons they might have to postpone it by at least a day. Sad, but people have lives of their own to live and we’ve moved so far away from them it’s a wonder they want to know us any more.”

“Then,” decided Jack, smiling, “If I won’t have a twin to play with I’m off to the woods to see if I can find a skellington of my own.”

“Best of luck, chap,” laughed Jerry, “but remember the rules. Don’t trespass on anyone else’s property and if you should chance to find a pile of old bones, report it tp the police before touching anything. That’s important, you know, son.”

“I know dad, so don’t you worry about me,” replied Jack, and he watched as Angela brushed her lips against his father’s cheek and he left for whatever it was he had to do when he was at work.

“You snogged my dad!” exclaimed Jack when his father was safely out of sight.

“It wasn’t a proper kiss, not the sort your dear mother would have given him,” replied Angela, and she tousled his hair affectionately.

“I wish I’d known her,” sighed the boy, “like my mates at school know their mothers.”

“You did know her, from inside, for quite a long time, Jack,” replied Angela.

“With a twin for company. Fancy that,” murmured Jack, shaking his head sadly.

“If you’re off ito the wilds on a search for skeletons, do you want to take a sandwich or two with you? In case you get hungry?” asked Angela.

”Nah. I’ll be home for lunch,” decided Jack, “and when I have a bag with bread in it something always seems to happen to make the bread go muddy!”

“Well, I suppose it’s because boys will be boys,” laughed Angela, “and if you really do want lunch make sure you’re home before one o’clock this afternoon or there won’t be any.”

“Will do,” he replied, and set out for the fringes of the forest that bordered Emerald Cottage. His father was rather proud of some of the things he’d done in the back garden, like laying a nice smooth green lawn and planting a few raspberry canes because raspberries were his favourite fruit. But they hadn’t been living in Emerald Cottage for long enough for his aspiring cluster of canes to be anything more than twigs, and Jack made sure he didn’t disturb them as he made his way cautiously through them and to the fence at the bottom of the garden. There had once been a gate in it, but the gate had long since rotted away and Jerry had woven a length of strong rope across the gap, hoping it would deter unwelcome visitors like the mangy old fox he’d seen sneaking around in the fringes of the forest.

He’d not been among the first spattering of trees for a few minutes and was looking around because he thought he heard the snapping of twigs, the sort of noise that might be made by the cautious tread of the old fox, when a voice, uncultured, rough, brutish almost, came to him from the shadowy depths of woodland.

“Hey, kid, I’ve a message for your old man,” it said, and paused as if waiting for a reply.

“Who are you?” asked Jack.

“Never mind who I am. Just tell your old man that someone’s going to suffer if he keeps showing interest in me and my mates. So skedaddle, and tell him that Barney says he’s looking for trouble…”

“Who are you?” Barney repeated the question, reluctant to sound too inquisitive because he knew full well that many of the men his father was interested in didn’t like the idea of anyone knowing anything about them.

“Just you tell him,” replied the other, and the footstep sounds and crackle of breaking twigs faded away. Jack thought he caught a glimpse of a figure between the young trees, but it vanished before he could really make it out.

“Well, well, well,” he muttered in what he thought was a seriously adult way, and after searching the fringes of the woodland with eyes alert for just about anything out of the ordinary, he continued, rather nervously, on his way.

It was to prove to be one of those days because here he was, an eleven year old boy in the sort of shorts that guaranteed his legs would be stung or scratched wherever he went, when he came upon another man, this time one carrying a pair of binoculars which he frequently raised to his eyes.

“Hush, kid!” the man hissed even though Jack had said nothing, “there’s a cuckoo somewhere near and I want to see it!”

“But I never…” began Jack.

“I said hush, kid!” snapped the man, “us birders need a bit of quiet once in a blue moon, for goodness’ sake. Do you want a piece of toffee, to keep that mouth of yours occupied? Here, kid, take this and for goodness’ sake keep schtum!” And the man swung round and held out something that looked like toffee.

“And don’t you go crunching on it! Birds have good hearing and are wise to the ways of kids eating toffee!”

Jack found himself taking the sweet. He couldn’t help himself because it was being waved under his nose as the man peered through his binoculars into the distance through the trees, and anyway he found toffee to be irresistible..

In the end the man relaxed and muttered something about they could take it easy, his quarry had flown off.

“You can call me Percival,” he said with a white-toothed smile, “or sir,” he added, “when we’re back at school. I teach at the grammar school and my special subject is ornithology.”

“Oh dear,” sighed Jack, “I start there after the holidays…”

“Jolly good!” smiled Percival, or sir. “though it’s not so much a grammar school any more but a comprehensive. But old names die hard, eh?”

“I suppose so, sir…”

“Now then! It’s the holidays, remember, and I’m Percival. And you are…?

“My name’s Jack, if that’s what you mean,” said the boy rather nervously, “and I’m looking for bones…”

“There are plenty of those in old woodlands,” smiled Percival, “well, lad, best of luck. Now hush! I do believe that old cuckoo’s come back…”

“Yes sir,” mumbled Jack, and he wandered off before the eccentric school teacher could offer him more toffee, which had already almost stuck his teeth together.

He made his way as swiftly as he could between a few small trees, little more than saplings growing where a giant tree had fallen, not so long ago, he thought, staring at it.

He then moved round it, and paused in almost complete and utter shock.

There, lying on a grassy knoll and looking still and as dead as the famed dodo, was a boy.

It was the same boy that he saw when he looked in the mirror every morning, wearing the same clothes as he was wearing now, and beyond all doubt in his mind he was staring at himself, prone and still and dead.

He turned and fled.

© Peter Rogerson 27.06.24