The Levels Read Free Page B

me over; I never knew why we were doing it, other than to see animals die.
    We went to school, and sat next to each other in Mrs Freeman’s class. We thought when we went we would be smart, but there were other, smarter boys, who knew how to make bombs from eggs and mustard. I liked school, but Dick hated going for the lessons, though in the playground he found boys to thump. He was the boy I knew who pinched girls and then they wanted him to do it again. He was the one who looked after the school tadpoles when they got too big, and kept them until their legs were long enough to pull off. He was the one who tied Mrs Freeman’s dog to the bus stop. He was the one who said Africa was in Wales.
    We didn’t only throw stones at Chedzoy’s cows but at Albert Sweet’s and even walked beyond Langport to Aller Moor and threw them at some cows we didn’t know. On the way home we waited for a train over the bridge, but none came. My father said he went to the pub at Aller with a bag of fish and someone asked how he got such a bag. He said he and a mate went to a bridge and he held his mate’s feet so he was hanging upside down waiting for fish to swim by. When one did, he picked it out of the water. So the person from Aller got a mate and they went fishing. The person from Aller’s mate was over the side of the bridge, the person asked ‘Caught anything yet?’ his mate said ‘No’. Ten minutes passed and still they hadn’t caught anything, until the mate shouted ‘Pull me up! Pull me up!’ The person from Aller asked ‘You caught something?’ and the mate said ‘No, but there’s a train coming’.
    Dick was big. From when he was small he led me into trouble I had planned. Our mothers were friends, and went shopping in Langport together. We went too. R. E. Frazer ran a newsagents on his own. We asked our mothers if we could go, and meet them later by the bus stop, and if we were there at half past we could. They gave us each a penny.
    I had a plan, Dick the fearless head. I could do anything so long as it was behind the scenes or in a phone box. There was one opposite R. E. Frazer’s. I said to Dick, ‘I’ll go in the phone box’, but there was a woman in it, with a dog, waving her arms around. People were coming and going out of the shop. The vicar walked by, carrying a basket. He looked as if he’d just heard something but didn’t quite catch what. His head was pushed forward and cocked to one side. He wore wire-framed glasses. His eyes squinted out from behind them at the shop. He had a big basket and was going to fill it. We didn’t need people in the shop as part of the plan, the woman carried on on the phone forever.
    We went down to the bridge and sat over the river watching for ducks and throwing stones. Suddenly, she came round the corner with her dog; I got up and ran, the sun went behind the clouds, I looked around for our mothers. I told Dick what to do. I spoke slowly — though he’s not stupid, I wanted to make him think he was — but he said, ‘Why you talking like that?’ I only wanted him to understand I was the one with the plan.
    I told him to go over to the shop and see if there was anyone in it. I stood by the phone box. He crossed the road and went into R. E. Frazer’s. I waited. I couldn’t see him through the shop window, and he was there longer than necessary. I was worried in case someone came for the phone and got in front of me. When Dick appeared, and crossed the road without looking, and said, ‘There’s someone in it’, I said, ‘You took ages. You only had to look.’ ‘It’s not my fault, Billy.’ I asked him who was in it. ‘R.E.,’ he said. We were going to miss our chance, the telephone box was empty, R. E. Frazer on his own in the empty shop, I said, ‘Quickly! Get back in the shop!’ ‘Why?’ ‘That’s the