Running the Gauntlet
“Hi, Tommy, are you coming to play?”
Milly ran down the lane to where her friend was coming out of his gate. Tommy was in the same class at school, and as Milly was something of a ‘tomboy’ they enjoyed similar activities.
“Yes, if you like. Where are we going?”
Tommy was quite happy for Milly to take the lead in their adventures, as she often had good ideas – although these sometimes led to trouble.
“Let’s go down to Frank’s farm. I may be able to borrow a few apples for my Mum to make a pie. I know she is really hard up since she lost her job with the Covid lockdown.”
“Milly, you can’t borrow apples. You won’t be able to give them back when they have been eaten.”
“I know that, Tommy, but perhaps I can repay later in some way. They’d only be fallers, anyway.”
Tommy was exasperated, but, hoping to distract his impetuous friend, suggested, “Why don’t we go through the woods and check on our den on the way?”
They set off eagerly through the trees, shrubs and spiky grasses. It was late summer and everything was flourishing.
When they slithered down the little bank and scrambled into the thicket where they had cleverly pulled the thinner branches together to create a sort of wigwam, they were surprised to find, in the den, among the squashed down grasses, some goggles, a big blank dice like a mini rubic cube, a beautiful chalice and, strangest of all, a pack of cards, topped by the joker.
“Blimey. Who’s been here? What a cheek—in our den.”
Milly was starting to search around but Tommy, more cautious, said, “I think we should tell somebody about this.”
Milly, never one to miss an opportunity, seized on the idea.
“We can cut through to Frank’s and tell someone.”
Agreeing that Frank would be the nearest contact, Tommy led the way out of the den.
It had been a lovely, sunny day but the sky was darkening and they both shivered with the sudden change in temperature. There appeared to be a mist in front of them and Milly said, “It’s a spirit, Tommy. I hope it is a good one that will help us.” She was whispering now and she held up a card, the joker. “It could be connected to him.”
“Sorry, Milly, but, for a quite clever person, you can be a bit dim. Throw the card away. “
In her unusually subdued state, Milly obeyed, but the joker seemed to drift a long way before disappearing into the mist.
When they came out of the trees the sky lightened and the spirit shape drifted upwards.
Running across the field leading to Frank’s farm they saw Bramble, the New Forest pony getting near a gap in the fence. This had been broken by a coach, which appeared to have gone into a ditch and was tipped halfway over. There were several people around and an ambulance had just arrived. The coach driver was still inside clinging to the steering wheel.
“I don’t think he’s dead,” whispered Milly. “Nobody is bothering about Bramble. He’ll get out in a minute.”
With that pearl she dashed off towards the orchard. She returned with an apple in her hand and one in her pocket. Tommy was aghast.
“What—er… oh, Milly, not now!”
Milly was already climbing through the hole in the fence and walking gently towards Bramble, who scraped the ground and blew hard. Milly crept forward extending the apple.
“There, Bramble. It’s OK.”
She approached ever so slowly, shushing gently, so that she was in his peripheral vision until she could get right up to his head. She breathed up into his nose and he snorted, spraying her in return.
He was wearing a head collar and Milly took the belt from her dress and tied it to his collar. She walked in front of him to the other end of the field where there was an open shelter. There was a rail of collars and lead reins there, so she tied him to the fence and brought him some hay.
In the meantime, after several rebuffs, Tommy managed to talk to somebody who had descended safely from the coach. Apparently, a strange person had appeared in the road in front of the coach, which was trying to follow a fork in the road. The driver had swerved and missed the dishevelled character who, it transpired, had stolen something from the Church.
Fortunately nobody was seriously injured. Frank appeared and came over to the two friends.
“Well done, Milly. I saw what you did with Bramble. You averted a disaster. Is there anything I can do for you?”
Milly smiled and said, “Can I have some apples for my Mum to make a pie, please?”
“Get as many as you like, Milly. You can have some eggs as well.”
Milly’s eyes were shining. “Thank you. My Mum will love you!”
Frank laughed and winked at Tommy, who, aged ten and a half, appreciated the ‘man to man’ gesture.
Later, the friends were ambling home, loaded with apples and eggs, singing ‘One man went to mow’, when Tommy saw the joker card on the ground. He picked it up gingerly.
Milly just said, “There you are. I told you.”
Tommy could think of nothing to say.
Linda Dalzell 15/05/21
Unexpected
After a morning of exercising our horses Alan and I rest up.
Usually this meant a game of cards with a pint of beer or a cup of coffee. For some unknown reason I always managed to pick the joker or the Jack. I did wonder if Alan cheated at cards, as this never varied.
We were the best of friends, and it didn’t matter that much if he did cheat, because there was no money involved.
We managed to get ourselves involved with the mock jousting at Downton. Oh, it was the real thing, except that no one died in these battles. It was simply good clean fun, and we loved it when the crowds roared for the side they’d picked. The roar grew louder when a Knight threw down the gauntlet and the battle commenced. It was a reality thing for us, as we felt quite a lot like the old Knights must have, with an anxious excitement or a little bit of fear. Of course, the fear would have been amplified greatly by Knights of old, for fear of death, or terrible injuries.
Sometimes Alan or I would take a turn on sitting on horseback, dressed as Knights, and pose outside of the tiny post office at Downton. Folk would come with their cameras and take pictures of us. The horses were great and I’m sure they loved having their photos taken as they would stand dead still all the time we were there. The costumes were splendid and we felt great.
I’m not without money, and quite well off, I suppose.
I own an Aston Martin and I was at my happiest driving the car and feeling the steering wheel in my hands. I have to confess, though, I really do show off, more to the annoyance of neighbours, as the engine’s really noisy, and I drive fast.
I took a day off from my other hobbies and went out in the car. It was a nice day, and so I thought I’d go on an adventure by going somewhere completely different. On my travels I came across a road sign that I didn’t understand. It was like a dual lane merging into a single lane with an arrow pointing one way. I became hesitant as to which way I should go, and folk began beeping their horns.
I got angry, and got out of my car, shouting, “Are you expecting someone to hand you a winners’ cup for the loudest and longest horn- blowing?”
I won’t repeat the abusive answers I received, and one man started his engine and tried to run me over. It’s just a good job I have good reflexes and I’m fast on my feet. I’ve got to admit this shook me up quite a lot, as I wasn’t prepared for that. I got back into my car shaking and took a drink of water from the water bottle I’d brought with me.
A bus unexpectedly came rushing around the corner and crashed into a lorry. This was quite nasty as there were five other cars involved. There were three people dead and lots of injuries. Ambulances made their way to the location in a hurry. The drivers of those ambulances reported that they didn’t know what the sign meant, therefore they weren’t too sure which way to go. This also increased the time needed to get to those injured. I have heard the council have changed that sign now; I wonder what lunatic sign they have replaced it with!
Returning home, I really had had enough for one day, and I was tired. I decided to pull into a lay- by and shut my eyes for a while.
I must have dozed off quite quickly, but when I opened my eyes I was unsure of where I was.
I couldn’t move my legs or my arms or my head. ‘I can’t move my head,’ I said out loud.
It was locked into a gadget, like a helmet. There were tubes and some kind of wires that seemed to be setting some kind of tech in motion. I wasn’t laid flat, but placed semi-upright so that I could see around me. The lines on the monitor were erratic, not just going along gradually, but whizzing around and around. I didn’t feel at all well, or at ease.
Then tremendous fear gripped me as I saw shadowy figures moving around. They seemed to be in a haze and far away.
One bent down over me and he was wearing what resembled goggles. The face, I will never forget the look of that face. It reminded me of the age-old image of the devil.
”Oh God!” someone screamed – and then I realised it was me. They tortured me in different ways and with various instruments. I’m not sure how long I was there, just too long.
Then darkness came over me and the next thing I remember is waking up in the lay-by.
Shaking my head, and trying to make sense of all of this, and wondering if I had dreamt it all.
I would have settled for the dream until, looking out of my car window, I saw what looked like a large cube hovering in the air, with various coloured lights all over it. It stayed in the same place for what seemed like aeons, but there was no sound of engines.
It was totally unexpected to have been abducted by aliens on my adventure. I felt sore all over my body, and when I checked I’m covered in injuries.
I quickly got myself to the hospital and when the blood checks came back doctors said I was covered in strange injuries, and that my blood is poisoned. I told the police about my day’s adventure, but not sure that they believed me. However, I am informed that the hospital will keep a check on me in case of cancer developing.
These days when I open my eyes and hear the dawn chorus, be it rain or shine, I thank the good Lord for my blessings. I think very carefully before I go out on any adventures now. I hope and pray I don’t get abducted by those shadowy creatures again, the thought of the awful instruments they used on my body makes me feel really ill and try as I may I can’t get it out of my head.
Josie Smith
DIVERSION
Do you believe somebody actually controls everything that happens? Well, if not somebody, then something? And would that be an algorithm, or a set of laws? I mean, laws we could actually agree on, such as up is up and down is down, that apply in most of the places we’d be likely to find ourselves – which is going to rule out the inside of black holes, naturally.
But suppose the laws conflict with each other? Or – which might be even worse, because the consequences would be less predictable, suppose the rules coincide with one another, in really weird and unexpected ways? Not all the time, of course, but just for a while, a shared bit of the route, like those traffic schemes where, for technical reasons, vehicles that are heading in completely opposite directions find themselves driving along side by side, pointing the same way – until they get to the next traffic sign or turn-off, which separates them, and sends them on their otherwise utterly different journeys.
Long trips on unfamiliar roads, featureless freeways through the flat Mid-West, in a coach that’s almost, but not quite, full, induce, if not simply and immediately sleep, at least a kind of parallel state. You can’t call it classically disorientation because, if the sun’s shining, you definitely know which side it is, and you’ll probably want to sit on the other, since the air-conditioning is noisy, and works by blowing cold air in your face through a nozzle that’s too stiff to move, except to push it back in and turn it off, and the draught makes your eyes water.
That was why Art had got the swim-goggles out of Gwen’s pack and put them on, before he’d decided he couldn’t stand the noise anyway. He hadn’t asked Gwen whether he could, because she wasn’t sitting beside him. Her pack was there, with the rest of her swimgear in it, but she was sitting three rows back, on the sunny side of the coach, with Lance, and just running his fingers over the shiny black cloth of her still damp swimsuit, and thinking about what had been inside it, wasn’t going to compensate Art for her absence.
Only to be expected, of course. Lance was a winner. He had the trophy to prove it. Only he didn’t, because that, too, had been dumped on the empty seat beside Art, snuggling up to Gwen’s pack the way Gwen was snuggling up to Lance right now, without any obstacles like a pack, or an old-fashioned cup with handles – How uncool is that old piece of tin? Gwen had said – Except of course that you won it!
So Art, uncool loser Art, had been left to mind the baggage, while the Cool Couple did whatever cool couples think they can get away with on a school-bus that’s taking the 11th grade back home from a swimming gala that had to be held miles and miles and miles away, because the lame school’s lame pool had a leak…
Art puts his hand up, to pull on the air-conditioning, and pulls the goggles down over his eyes again to keep out the draught. It’s not the heat. It’s the noises he can hear from three rows back, and he wants to shut them out. To take his mind off things, he starts looking out the window. There’s nothing to see except traffic, of course, and fields that are all the same. The traffic’s all the same, too, family sedans, no up-to-date models, haulage rigs, mostly rusty and slow, nothing interesting.
He notices, though, that the goggles are actually polarised, so he’s not blinded by flash reflections from polished chrome. Must be to do with the properties of water, he thinks. He doesn’t swim himself. Not good at physical things. More of a thinker. Geek is the word that the voice at the back of his head hisses into his inner ear. He shakes his head, to get it to shut up – and that’s when he notices the white sports car, out of the corner of his eye.
It’s coming up fast. Of course, everything can overtake the school-bus, but they take their time about it, don’t want to exceed the limit – though you don’t usually get speed-cops out here – but then, you don’t get fashionably fast sports cars out here, either.
Art sits up properly, to see what’s happening. He even twists himself round, to get a proper view. Which he doesn’t believe. Because what’s overhauling the school-bus isn’t a sports-car at all. It’s a white horse. Shouldn’t be happening. Can’t be happening. But it is.
Has nobody else noticed? No, they haven’t – and that’s because they aren’t there. Nobody else is there. The rest of the bus – the vehicle, not just its passengers – is missing. Of course, Art knows it must be some kind of optical illusion, caused by the polarised goggles – but he doesn’t take them off, in order to restore normality, because it’s kinda fun! And he decides to enjoy it.
It isn’t an ordinary horse, either, he can see that very clearly. It’s considerably chunkier. And it’s caparisoned. That’s to say, it’s wearing a coat. Not because it’s cold, but to show who it belongs to – and to show off his taste and wealth and noble identity… Art regrets for a moment not being nerdish enough to have learnt all the armorial bearings of the Knights of the Round Table – but he knows that a geek who is also a nerd is definitely a dork, and if he were a dork he wouldn’t even be given Gwen’s pack to keep him company.
He’d been one of the few kids in school who’d enjoyed Tom Sawyer, and gone on to read a lot more Mark Twain, including A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur’s Court – which he found both pompous and a bit cheap and snide in its wisecracks – and from there he’d got into the whole Round Table shtick, but had never gone as far as the video-games…
The horse, he knew, was a destrier, a heavy warhorse, pounding along right beside him – goodness knew what he was on or in! He can hear its panting, and the clatter of its hooves, smell its horsiness, feel the foam-flecks coming off its muzzle as it overtakes him…
And here’s the knight, white surcoat with three red stripes across it, just like the horse – only the pattern’s repeated on the horse, because it’s bigger – and he’s leaning out of his saddle, stretching his hand out across Art – what’s he reaching for, with that huge armoured gauntlet?
Art looks over to his right. It’s the cup! Of course it’s the cup! Art knows very well what the knight must think it is, with that old-fashioned ceremonial shape! Cool modern trophies look like dolphins, or the Speedo trademark, or whatever shape can be most cheaply and easily injection-moulded and mass-produced in acrylic…
Can I stop this? thinks Art. Should I bother? Hell, Lance won it fair and square. Revenge would be petty! Might as well try to do the right thing.
So Art brings both of his hands down on the armoured arm, just above the gauntlet, trying to pull it off – he has some idea that the joint there must be vulnerable, that it won’t move as naturally as flesh and bone. There’s also the probability that the knight’s so far out of his saddle that he’s off-balance. Faced with resistance, he’ll have to pull back, or risk being unseated – an unhorsed knight in the middle of a busy freeway isn’t going to survive too long.
At the same time, Art thinks that a sudden change of direction or speed by the school-bus could also help, and make the knight give up his hazardous undertaking. A loud noise should do it – just enough to make the driver slow down a little, and look round to see what’s happening.
He’s not sure what kind of noise he’s actually made, because everything comes together. The bus does slow, and jerks off to the right, because it’s the exit for home, and Art jerks round to his left, to look back and see what’s become of his pursuer, but he catches the goggles on the head-rest and pushes them up by accident… and the white sports car charges past and away, as he swings his head back round to follow it, but it vanishes, because the bus is going down the exit-slope…
And Barney’s voice calls out from behind him, “Hey! Don’t wake up the rest of us with your wet dreams!” and there’s general laughter.
Art is so used to getting laughed at, that he usually tries to have an answer ready, in order to claim some of the laughter for himself. He thinks he may have some of that answer in his hands right now, because he can feel something heavy and bulky there… but when he looks down, he sees that he’s holding – not an armoured gauntlet, but Barney’s catcher’s mitt, which the school’s first choice as backstop must have thrown at him, to wake him up…
They’re all beginning to stand up now, and get their stuff together, even though the driver’s telling them to sit down, but it’s only another three corners before they’ll pull up in the schoolyard.
Art doesn’t bother to move. He just stuffs the goggles back in Gwen’s pack, and puts the catcher’s mitt ready for Barney to pick up as he goes by. He does, and tries to hit Art with it, but Art’s ready and gets his arm up in time, and the rest are pushing Barney too hard from the back for him to have another go.
Gwen notices that things in her pack aren’t quite as they were when she left it and says, “You haven’t been messing with my stuff, have you?” And Art has at least mastered the skill of looking genuinely innocent, so when she hears his sheepish denial, “It fell down, and I picked it up,” she lets him off with a deep breath and a dismissive silence, because she’s eager to get off the bus and carry on with Lance where they had to leave off. Lance just picks up his trophy, with a wink at Art, and a “Thanks, buddy!” which patronisingly covers everything.
The driver is impatient to empty the bus and get home, so Art has to get off and do the rest of his thinking in a quiet corner of the schoolyard, while all the other kids depart in their various ways. At least it’s sunny, and not too hot.
He mulls over everything that’s just happened, from various perspectives, and concludes that he isn’t, by any means, the only person who’s gone after something that, if he’d got it, he would’ve found wasn’t what he wanted at all.
Then he sees Muriel, from 10th grade, in the far corner of the schoolyard, not looking at him, well, not looking at him when he’s looking at her, and so he walks across, and, as she hears his footsteps coming closer, she does look at him, and he smiles at her, and she smiles at him, and…
… and somewhere or other, there’s a knight having his horse rubbed down and fed and watered, and a fresh caparison made ready for his next ride out on quest…
Mike Rogers
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