Chapter Text
John Hamish Watson darted out the front door of his family’s detached one-storey soft-grey aluminium prefabricated bungalow and, crossing the street, scampered down Taylor Avenue, the street that the blond-haired nine-year-old boy lived on in Chelmsford, Essex. Passing Cowell Avenue on the left, and then Spalding Avenue on the right, Johnny continued onward until he came to the final junction. There, he turned to his right onto Langston Avenue, the route that he and the other children who lived on that street took to go to school, and hurried on; in the process, he crossed the junction that divided Langston Avenue from West Avenue. At that point, he trotted up West Avenue until he turned left onto Kings Road.
Once he had arrived on that street, Johnny scampered towards the YMCA centre# near his school, Kings Road Junior School, where its program for kids was held. The program was for children from low-income families, kids whose parents didn’t make much money, like his own; like the school and his home street, Taylor Avenue, the Y was in the Melbourne Estate. It was mid-July, 1990, and school was out for the summer holiday. The sun beat down on Johnny’s bare head, but fortunately, a cool breeze from the east kept the little boy’s face from sweating.
The entire walk took approximately 11 minutes to complete. During the school terms, the YMCA program was held after school; during summer break, it was held every morning, from eight-thirty till twelve. On Saturday mornings, both during school and during the summer holiday, Johnny and the other children took a bus to another YMCA centre in London, where they took other classes, a two-hour class for each child. Johnny took archery in London on Saturday mornings; it was taught by a kind man, Mr. Knight. Johnny loved it, and he also liked it that Mr. Knight had long since taken quite a liking to him.
As he reached the grounds where the YMCA centre was, the little boy paused to look back, brushing his light sandy-blond hair out of his eyes. The previous winter, his Wolf Cub Scout leader had suggested to his mummy, Jean Watson, that she enrol him in the YMCA afterschool-and-Saturday morning program for low-income children, and she had accepted. At first, Johnny hadn’t been at all sure that he would enjoy the program’s activities, but to his delight, he had. And he still did.
Pain welled up in the nine-year-old’s heart at a sudden sad memory. *A few months after he had first entered the program, shortly after spring had begun, his mummy had been killed when a speeding car had struck her as she had been crossing the street, and immediately had sped off—a hit-and-run, the constables had called it. Jean had been killed instantly. How he still missed her!
Johnny bit his lower lip. The previous summer, when he’d been eight, before his mummy had died, his daddy, Hamish Watson, had thrown his older sister, Harriet Jane Watson (whose nickname was Harry), out of their home, and had told her to never come back; Harry had been 14 years old at the time.
She had spent the night with Mrs. Alice Templeton, Johnny’s godmother and their across-the-street neighbour, and the following morning, Harry had used the money that she’d earned by walking the dog that belonged to another neighbour, Mrs. Thompson, to take a train north to Penrith, Cumbria, where their Scottish nan, Aileen Leekey, lived. Mrs. Templeton had driven her to the train station to buy a train ticket, and Harry had lived in Penrith with Granny Leekey ever since. And now, with Mummy dead, Johnny lived alone with Daddy, and it was awful. Whenever Daddy was away from their prefab bungalow, Johnny was alone there, except when he stayed with Mrs. Templeton, or spent the night or the weekend with his best friend next door; when Daddy was home, too often, Johnny had to stay in the garden shed or go across the street to stay with Mrs. Templeton. Because she was a surrogate relative even though she wasn’t related to his family by blood, he and Harry had always called her Aunt Alice, and they had always been welcome to visit her whenever they wanted, especially when things were bad at home. They had never had to ask their parents’ permission to go there (which was just as well, under the circumstances), and Johnny still didn’t have to.
The truth was, if it wasn’t for Mrs. Templeton, Johnny wouldn’t be able to stand it at home. In fact, if it hadn’t been for her stern warning to Hamish that he could be in serious trouble with the law for child neglect—and if the YMCA director hadn’t pointed out to him that some people would frown on leaving such a little lad alone all day, and that it would be a shame if Children’s Services heard about it—he most likely wouldn’t have allowed Johnny to remain in any of the YMCA programs after his mummy had died.
*At least, I get to play with David next door and visit Aunt Alice. When David’s home, that is! he thought with a scowl, gazing at his reflection in the glass door up ahead, with the big ‘YMCA’ letters on it. David Pitman, who lived next door in his family’s own detached aluminium prefab, was Johnny’s best friend; they were in the same year at school, and in the same classroom. In fact, they got to share the same table in class with two other children, which was to both boys’ liking.
If only David could come to the program, too! Because David’s family was blue-collar instead of low-income like Johnny’s (David’s father was a welder, whereas Hamish Watson was an assembly-line factory worker at Britvic, the factory that made fizzy drinks), David had not been able to enter the YMCA program with his friend, much to Johnny’s disappointment; it would have been more fun with David than it was alone. And since David’s family had gone to the beach to spend the week, Johnny had to play by himself when he was at home (which he could only do, as a rule, when his work was finished, since he had to keep house and mow the lawn) until David’s family came back.
Johnny took a deep breath. It was almost time for his puppet class and the other YMCA activities that he was enrolled in to start, and he didn’t want to be late. Straightening his shoulders, he took hold of the doorknob, pushed the glass door open, and scampered down the hall toward the room where his class was taught, pausing on the way to get a drink at the water fountain. When he had quenched his thirst with the good cool water that gushed out as he pressed the lever, he wiped his mouth dry with his bare left arm and hurried on down the hall toward his room, his threadbare plimsolls clicking on the linoleum.
In addition to the local Y classes that Johnny and the other children were taking, they also engaged in team-building activities, games, and indoor sports. Right now, they were working on an egg drop plan: finding a way to drop a raw egg from a high spot outside and keeping it from breaking when it landed on the pavement in the egg drop contest. Johnny was really hoping that his team could come up with the winning idea. It had been his idea that they cover their egg up with blown-up balloons, gluing the balloons to the egg in the hope that the balloons would keep it from cracking when it landed on the hard pavement.
First, though, Johnny and his classmates had to attend their puppetry class, and then, following the egg drop project, they would take part in the sports activity that they had chosen to participate in. In the puppetry class, they were all learning to make puppets out of socks. (When the sock puppets were finished, the children and their teacher would build a theatre, and then they’d create and rehearse a puppet show to perform for younger children in the neighbourhood; that would come later that summer. When the puppet show was over, they would be allowed to take their sock puppets home to keep.) Meanwhile, when they finished their activities that day, the children would have lunch in the common room before heading home.
Johnny entered the room where the puppet class was taught. The other boys and girls had already arrived. The bright July sunshine poured through the windows on the other side of the room, forming large rectangles of reflected light on the linoleum floor. “Hi, Johnny!” one of the boys, a brown-haired lad, greeted him from the other end of the room from the front, waving.
“Hi, Jackie!” Smiling, Johnny waved his hand in greeting. He glanced at their instructor; he was about to start the class. Looks like I got here just in time! He went over and stood next to Jackie, inserting his hands in the pockets of his faded, threadbare blue jeans, and waited for the teacher to call them to attention.
Before their teacher had a chance to do so, though, the YMCA director, Mr. Jackson, entered the room. “Hello, class.” He smiled. “I have an announcement to make to everyone, and rather than call everyone into the common room and risk disrupting the first class of the day, I’ve decided to visit each class to make the announcement separately. Yours is the first.”
The children exchanged glances, wondering what was going on.
“Early next month, children, the YMCA’s going to host a residential camp at a primary school south of London. It will last a full week, and there’s going to be a long list of exciting sports and classes to try, some of which will be taught by your own Y teachers here and in London. The school where it’s going to be held will be converted into a camp for our stay there. For those of you who would like to attend, there will be forms to fill out in the common room at lunchtime, to take home to your parents.” With a smile at the boys and girls, he left the room, and the teacher then called them to attention. It was time for class.
Johnny bit his lower lip as, on his teacher’s instructions, he took the materials that he was using for making his sock puppet out of his cubby, including his plain white cotton sock that he was using for the body. John’s tummy started to hurt, thinking about camp and how much he wanted to go there—and how very unlikely it was that his daddy would let him. He would so love to go to the camp! He had read stories about summer camps, and he felt that it would be such fun to go to one.
And why do I even want to go there? he scolded himself. I don’t even know if I’d want to take part in the stuff they’ll be doing at that camp! How do I know it’d be fun?! Try as he did to convince himself that it would be better if he stayed home, he couldn’t stop wanting to go to that Y camp. Trouble was, he couldn’t ask his daddy, and his mother was dead.
I do want to go; I may as well admit it. And if I did go, at least, I’d get to be away from Daddy for a week, he told himself with a sigh, shaking his head. Too bad I can’t ask Aunt Alice. Though she’s my godmother, she’s not my guardian, so she can’t say yes. I wish she was!
Johnny bit his lower lip. I really wish Mummy had asked her to become my guardian if anything ever happened to her! Then I could live with her, not Daddy. I know Daddy would have preferred that, anyway! He scowled.
With a sigh, Johnny pushed all thoughts of the impending Y camp out of his mind. For the moment, he had work to do. With his left hand, he picked up the soft cotton puppet that he was making. He had finished making its black felt mouth the day before; now he needed to add the pieces of felt to make the rest of its face. When he had finished that job, he would decorate the sock puppet, and then it would be ready for the puppet show, which he and his classmates would have to create, rehearse, prepare for, and perform with their teacher’s help. It would be fun to have another toy to play with when the puppet show was over.
If Daddy don’t destroy it, that is!
For the next 45 minutes, Johnny carefully cut little pieces out of some soft black felt to create the eyes, ears, and tongue, and then he just as carefully glued them to the sock above the mouth. The day before, he had cut four pieces out of some pink and blue sheets of felt into long, pointed pink and blue shapes, and now he glued the blue shapes to the pink ones; they were going to be rabbit ears. They would go on top of the bunny’s head.
When Johnny had finished, he gazed down at his handiwork with satisfaction and smiled. His new puppet looked just like a rabbit! Once the glue had dried, all that remained was to decorate the sock puppet and make it look pretty, and then it would be all set! And I can do that tomorrow. He smiled at the prospect.
“Class?” The teacher’s voice broke into his thoughts. “Time now to put your sock puppets and your supplies away. Leave your puppets on the table by the wall; I’ve placed name tags there to lay your puppets by. Put everything else back in your cubbies.” Nodding as he brushed his sandy-blond hair out of his face, Johnny did as he was told, as did the other children. In a few minutes, everything was placed where it belonged. The children were ready to go to their egg drop activity in the next room.
The eggs that they were preparing for the egg drop contest were kept in a refrigerator in that room so they wouldn’t spoil. Johnny carefully took his team’s egg out of the bowl that they kept it stored in when they weren’t working on it and carried it to the table; its fragile white shell felt cold to the touch. Two of his team members got the balloons that they were going to glue to the egg and started blowing a few of them up.
“Careful!” Johnny warned Tom, as the latter picked up the glue. “We don’t want the egg to crack when we glue the balloons to it.”
“No, we sure don’t,” Tom agreed, nodding. As Allison held the egg still for him, Tom carefully squeezed a dab of glue onto one side of the egg and another dab onto the first blown-up balloon that he was going to attach to it, and then he gently pressed the balloon against the egg, making sure the two dabs of glue came together. For a moment, Tom held the balloon in place, and then he and Allison lifted their hands. To Johnny’s relief, the balloon stayed in place.
“We’ve just got a few balloons left to glue on, and then our egg’ll be ready to drop!” Jackie said, grinning.
“Yeah!” Allison agreed.
Johnny grinned back. “I can’t wait!”
“Well, it won’t be today, that’s for sure, so you will have to wait,” their teacher said. Johnny shot up; he hadn’t heard the teacher approaching them. “All right, children, it’s time to put your eggs back in the fridge and go to the gym for your game of footie.” “Footie” was the children’s slang term for five-a-side, a form of mini-football** that was played with five players on each team instead of the usual eleven, and which could be played inside a gym as well as outside on a football pitch. As one of the field players, Johnny took turns kicking the soft, round, white ball towards the net, hoping to score for his team. Even though he was one of the shorter players, he scored as many points for his team as his taller teammates.
When it was time to quit, Johnny’s face was sweating, his hair was damp, and he was breathing hard. But he had had much fun playing the game, and so had his classmates; best of all, their team had won. After changing back into his threadbare yellow T-shirt and his worn-out blue jeans, and then putting his plimsolls back on, he trotted with the other boys into the common room, where lunch was ready. Other children were already gathering in there, getting their food.
After placing a chicken sandwich and a package of crisps onto a paper plate, and then getting himself a single-serving carton of milk and a paper napkin, Johnny placed the plate, the milk, and the napkin on a smooth plastic tray and sat down on a sofa with two other boys and, leaning against the soft cushioned back of the sofa, began to eat. For the next several minutes, he concentrated on his food until it was gone, and then he wiped his mouth with the napkin and threw away the paper plate and the napkin. He laid the tray on the nearby metal trolley with the other used trays.
As Johnny turned around, he saw a stack of paper forms on a white rectangular table near the entrance door. Biting his lower lip, he approached the table and, after scratching his right arm, picked up the crisp white form on the top. For the next few minutes, he read it carefully.
At last, with a sigh, he laid it back down. Daddy’ll never let me go, he thought miserably. Taking a deep breath, he told himself silently, Oh, well, it’s better this way. I don’t need to be doing a lot of stuff I’m not used to doing, anyway. Telling himself that did not take away the misery he felt at not getting to go to the camp. With a sigh, he laid the paper back on the stack.
“What’s the matter, Johnny?” A familiar male voice startled Johnny; whirling around, he saw Mr. Jackson standing behind him.
Johnny bit his lower lip. “It’s, uh—it’s nothing.” He cleared his throat. It wouldn’t do to tell the YMCA director, he knew. Daddy would get so angry if Johnny told anyone.
Mr. Jackson glanced down at the forms and then back at Johnny. “Doesn’t look like ‘nothing’ to me. Why don’t you tell me, and if I can help you, I’ll tell you so? And if I can’t, I’ll be honest and say so.”
Fidgeting, Johnny chewed his lip. Maybe it couldn’t hurt. If the director couldn’t help him, he’d tell him he couldn’t, Johnny knew, in which case he wouldn’t have to worry about doing things he had never done before. Gazing down at the stack of forms, he said in a low voice, “I—I want to go to that camp. The one you told us about.” Clearing his throat, he turned back to the director. “Trouble is, Daddy’s not gonna let me.”
“Are you sure about that, Johnny?”
With a sigh, Johnny nodded. “I’m sure. I don’t think my daddy can afford it.” He’d much rather spend his money on beer and vodka, he thought resentfully.
“Well, for children whose parents can’t afford to send them, we offer a voucher that’ll pay for their stay there. How about if I come by later, and speak with your dad when he gets off work? I can bring the forms with me for him to fill out while I’m there.”
With a shrug, Johnny nodded. It couldn’t hurt. Trouble was, Daddy might not come home when he got off work later that day. And even if he did, if he was drunk, it would be impossible to convince him to let Johnny go there.
And even if he’s not, it may still be impossible to convince him, he thought morosely. Though this really is so stupid of me, even wanting to go there, to begin with! Out loud, with a wan smile, he said, “Thanks, Mr. Jackson.”
Mr. Jackson smiled. “You’re welcome, Johnny.” He patted the little boy’s shoulder and then glanced at his watch. “And now, I do believe it’s time for you to go home.”
“Yes, sir.” With a nod, Johnny smiled again. “Bye, Mr. Jackson. See you later.”
Turning, he plodded out the entrance door and slowly trudged home, gazing down at the weeds growing up through the cracks in the pavement as he headed back toward Taylor Avenue. He wasn’t at all sure that Mr. Jackson’s visit would do any good. Looking up, he saw that some clouds had moved in; one of them had covered up the sun, making the sky look darker. It didn’t look as if it was going to rain, though, which was good.
Before Johnny turned onto West Avenue, he passed the corner shop that he sometimes stopped at, to run errands; it was owned by Mrs. Templeton’s daughter and son-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Russell. It was located by the junction he crossed before reaching the West Avenue junction. That time, though, Johnny didn’t stop there, but picked up his pace as he hurried towards the next junction. There, he turned onto West Avenue and then, minutes afterwards, crossing the junction onto Langston Avenue in the process, he trotted onward towards the Taylor Avenue junction, his shoes clicking on the pavement; he had no errands to run that day, and he did have work to do when he got home. Before it was time for Daddy to get off work, Johnny still had to clean the prefab and see about warming up the food that Mrs. Templeton had brought over the day before in the microwave oven that his mummy had bought at the nearby charity shop several years ago; fortunately, he didn’t have to mow the lawn that day. If he could finish soon enough, he would have time to visit Mrs. Templeton before it was time to get started on supper. He would have to wait until David was home the following week before they could play together again.
At last, Johnny came to the three-way junction and turned onto Taylor Avenue, where he trotted past the two-storey council houses and the few one-storey brick houses until he came to the few one-storey aluminium prefabricated bungalows that also lined both sides of that part of that road. All the prefabs and one of the brick houses on that street stood on pier-and-beam foundations, making porches necessary; the rest stood on flat concrete foundations. Mrs. Templeton lived in one-half of a semi-detached bungalow directly across the street from his home. In a short time, he arrived at his own prefab bungalow on 9 Taylor Avenue, which was a detached bungalow; it was painted a soft grey. With a sigh, he darted up the steps onto the sagging wooden front porch, opened the front door, and stepped into the front room, where he leaned against the wood-panelled door after he had shut it and brushed his sandy-blond hair out of his face. After clearing his throat, he went to the kitchen to get a drink of water, and then he got to work.