See The Treat

The back of the gumboots were slapping against the back of my calves, as I stomped over to the shed to get my bike. Maybe I too would have a flat tyre I hoped briefly, then thought, no. I wanted to be able to bike to school tomorrow. I took out my bike and looking up to the heat fogged up rain splattered window, I went down the path in the rain to the road. They were all inside, warm and eating dinner. I was having to get on a bike, in the dark and cold evening, just to go and get some bread, so they could have it with the stew and for lunches tomorrow (I was forgetting, due to my suffering, that I would be wanting lunch tomorrow as well). I was out in the cold and the rain. I was like a boy version of Cinderella. With an ugly sister who told fibs, just so she didn’t have to go (wasn’t I just a wee bit melodramatic?).

Anyway. I rode down to the shop, yes it probably took around no more than five or ten minutes. But! It was cold. It was wet. I was dripping as I went in and brought the bread. Then as I stood at the counter of the small shop, the rain dripping off my coat and onto the floor, I looked at the rows of lollies arranged enticingly in front of me as I waited for the dollar thirty-five cents change from the two dollars (yes, a large loaf of bread being around sixty five cents only, back then). Then I did something. I knew it was wrong, but I did something I shouldn’t have. No. I did not steal a lolly from the shop. As I got the change, I paused and my eyes fell on a chocolate marshmallow fish. There right in front of me. A single treat that cost five whole cents. You could get a small bag of mixed lollies for ten cents. So a chocolate marshmallow fish was a pretty special treat. There I was, driven out into the night. To get bread for all the others. While they sat at home in the warm kitchen. Eating dinner. In the warm hot dinner scented kitchen. In the warm light. And I was out in the wind and cold. The cold dark and rainy night and….. “I’ll have a chocolate fish as well please” I said confidently.

The shopkeeper, I can recall his name, paused. Looked at me in surprise. “Are you sure?” he asked. Knowing he knew who I was, and knowing our families spending habits, this was probably not the smartest thing to have done. “Yes.” I said not quite as confidently. He looked at me, then shrugged. A little shrug with his shoulders and he gave me the dollar thirty cents in change and rang up the five cents for the chocolate fish on his till. Then reaching for a paper lolly bag (you got a paper bag with a chocolate fish, even though the tail just stuck out of the end of the white paper bag), he lifted it out of the box with tongs, placed it in the bag, flipped it closed and passed it to me.

(Continued tomorrow)