See The Dark Looks

There was a shop right next to our house, on the pointed corner at the apex of the trolley bus roundabout. Where the buses turned around and headed back down the valley. Mr Skinner ran the store. A ‘Four Square’ franchise shop. A bit of range of general groceries, at fairly high prices (according to our mother). However he closed by 4:30pm and at a pinch (Fridays) he stayed open till 5pm. It was already past that. So he would be well shut up. To bike down to the next shop, was only a few kilometres. It was open till at least six pm. Unfortunately.

“My sister beat me to the excuse “My tyres are flat and I don’t have any lights on my bike.” Then the rest of the family looked at me. They knew I had a dynamo lighting system. For those modern people reading this, battery lights for bikes are still a fairly recent system. Mine was the metal dynamo mounted on the side of the rear fork. You would ‘flip’ the dynamo onto the top or side of the tyre and depending on how fast you pedalled as to how much illumination you could power the bike lights with. Pedal too slowly and it became a dim barely glowing bulb. Fly down a steep hill, like the Opoho Road, that ran down past the Dunedin botanic gardens and you could almost turn it incandescent. We also had the steepest street in the world halfway up the valley, Baldwin Street. According to the Guinness Book of Records© at some parts the gradient is 35%, but I was never game enough to try it there. I’d have to walk the bike up it first.

“It will have to be you then”. My mother said.

I looked to the large window, where apart from the sky already darkening (Winter below latitude 45 degrees South) at around 5:15pm, There was wind and definitely rain also blowing against the window.

‘It will only take you a few minutes”, my mother continued. “come on. Everyone’s hungry”.

I know I looked daggers at everyone else at the table. My older sister refused eye contact, but I could see she was smirking. I stood up. The smell of the dinner filled the kitchen. Well, at least they would have to wait till I got back, I thought.

“You kids make a start.” my mother said serving out the meal. “He’ll be back with the bread before you finish.” She concluded passing me a two dollar note. “Just bring me the change” (note that; It’s important).

Boy. I was furious. I went out to the porch and took down my oilskin (great waterproof coat, when new) and put on my gumboots. Even out of the wind it was a pretty cold evening. I tromped angrily down the stairs. That’s one thing you can do well in gumboots. Tromp. Tromp! Tromp! Tromp! I always thought trolls must have had gumboots. They seemed the sort who would tromp as well. I felt troll like. Ready to eat the first goat that got in my way.

(Continued tomorrow)