Cricket

Mary Brooks

Description

Another entertaining collection of short stories by author Mary Brooks.

Informations

• Publié par: Book Venture Publishing LLC
• Date de parution: 15 octobre 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781643480978
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

CRICKET

AND OTHER SHORT STORIES

MARY BROOKS
Copyright © 2018 by Mary Brooks.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
BookVenture Publishing LLC 1000 Country Lane Ste 300 Ishpeming MI 49849 www.bookventure.com Hotline: [phone] Fax: [phone]
Ordering Information: Quantity sales. Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address above.
Printed in the United States of America ISBN-13: Softcover 978-1-64348-095-4 Pdf 978-1-64348-096-1 ePub 978-1-64348-097-8 Kindle 978-1-64348-098-5
Rev. date: 06/07/2018
Contents
Flying
13/11/2013
Welcome
02/04/2014
Holidaying in Vietnam
27/06/2013
Circle of Friends
01/11/2013
Shoes
02/04/2014
Jesus and Tony
03/11/2013
Disaster
29/09/2013
The Burglar
31/03/2014
Plane Ride
10/09/2013
Cricket
24/06/2013
The Semis
31/03/2014
Pregnant Pain
02/07/2013
Giggles
22/09/2013
Nightmare
01/11/2013
The Visitors
19/10/2013
What a Pity
27/06/2013
Nemo
28/09/2013
The Last Laugh
15/10/2013
Machete Guy
02/04/2014
The Sausage Roll
Flying
F lying in and out of the electricity pylons was probably the most exhilarating experience. Others would watch in wonder and envy. I could see their faces staring up into the sky and following my loops and dives. It was the one time I could acknowledge that people were jealous and at the same time feel proud and satisfied with my own achievement; it was the one time I could show off.
Normally, I felt guilty and reticent about own my achievements, but when flying, I felt I could flaunt my ability ostentatiously. No one else has ever been able to do it, at least no one I had come ac ross.
I wonder if you know what I mean by flying. Not flying in an aeroplane or glider. I would literally leap up into the air and fly, not flapping my wings like a bird but just flying with outstretched arms. Sometimes to go just that bit higher, I would give one or two flaps downwards with my arms to launch myself up past where I usually flew.
I started to fly when I was about four years old or possibly earlier. It was in the house where I grew up in Wilson Street. I wouldn’t fly into the lounge room in case my parents were watching, so starting in the bedroom, I would fly close to the decorations on the ceiling, duck under the bedroom doorjamb, and out into the corridor leading from the front door to the lounge room. Not only were there decorated panels on the ceiling, but there were columns and graceful curls of fluted plaster. I would run my fingers over them, marvelling at the patt erns.
In the later years, flying was so easy and so thrilling- just jump up and away. Sometimes, I would fly around the high ceilings of a gymnasium, with people gawking, eyes wide open in amazement. They followed my every move as I soared and dived and soared up again, around and around the rafters. However, it was the electric wires that intrigued me most. I would fly up and down, in and out, beside the stanchions, up and over the wires again, weaving and looping, like a stunt plane. Sometimes, I would fly so far that people could no longer see me until I turned and came back into view.
One of the places where I would fly repeatedly was the Sydney Town Hall, with its front wall taken up by huge organ pipes. I would especially love to fly up to the vaulted ceiling when the hallelujah chorus was being sung. This was when mischievous boys were earthy no longer and became ethereal and angelic. I too felt as though I was in he aven.
Somewhere in my thirties, I stopped flying. I guess it really was, as I suspected, a tale similar to Peter Pan and. I was too grown-up to fly any more.
I can no longer imagine being light enough to take off into the air, and this was the first requisite. However, about the same time as I could fly, my car could also fly, I think. I can’t remember anyone watching and can’t remember the rush of cool air around me, but I do remember looking down on the terrain beneath me and skirting around mountains and cliffs where roads were impossible to build. I would be at one curve and approach another cliff face and sail around to the next curve. This way, I would find myself over and over at the same cliffs or following the same roads out along the freeway and into the country side.
At one place, there was a caravan park where I would definitely walk about on the solid ground. I would stay in one of the cabins. Unfortunately, the cabins would morph into locked bedrooms of school dormitories, and of course, I would be the one who always lost my key. Inside the bedrooms, some people had doors which opened onto lovely balconies but mine did not. Nor did I join the study groups of other pupils working hard for their exams. In fact, I would wander on foot towards an underground railway station and down onto another level where I could catch my train. It would travel ever so quickly to a big building, where the inside was like one of Escher’s drawings, with impossible floors becoming the same floor, and I would forever be hurrying around the corridors, trying to get out. I would climb up ladders along walls lined with books and out along a staircase over the middle of nothing. I would be trapped here, going round, up ladders, along the staircase, and getting nowhere. Occasionally, I would manage to find a door into a gymnasium, where there was a swimming pool. I entered the water reluctantly and the coach forced me to swim up and down and around under walls under water, and I had so much trouble coordinating my breathing. After the swim ended, eventually, I was exhausted and would stagger outside the pool to where there was a fish-and-chip shop. I would eat some chips, which always tasted of saltwater and oil, and I was so hungry that I would guzzle them down and burn my throat and make myself so sick that I would thro w up.
Then I would start walking home and then to school, back where I had lost the keys to my locker and could not find the English or Latin books. The long walk was along the coast, past a big round swimming area in the sea. It was fenced-off from the sea, and we were forced to swim out to the far side, in the rolling waves, fighting against my failing strength. Again, I ended up swallowing lots of salty water because I couldn’t breathe prop erly.
After a long walk through the suburbs, past the movie theatre, past the Catholic school and past the huge sports ground, I would arrive at school, with my wet bathers and towel. Because I was often late for assembly, I had to go to the principal’s office and explain myself. When I finally found the vice principal, she would open the locker, where I would place my wet things and search for my books. At the end of the year, I could never find some of my English books to hand in. But most times, the poetry book and novels were missing, and yet that didn’t seem to matter because I had missed out attending most of the lessons. In the one or two I did get to, I knew nothing about the novel they were discussing. At exam time, I was unable to answer the questions and made up something. The strange thing was I always did so well with my marks, yet I can remember feeling terrified and deficient in the exam room it self.
In fact, the fear of exams became so great that I would find my way to the principal’s office and beg her to let me be excused from the exams. Sometimes, it would be maths that terrified me most. I would realise I had missed several chapters of maths and knew nothing about those chapters in the examinat ions.
At the major end of school exams I tried to attend, I walked into the room, took up my place as the lists on the wall indicated, tried to sit down, and then ran terrified from the room. I would run and run and find myself in a big field with no gate. I would explore every fence I came to and walked until the sun went down, absolutely exhausted and star ving.
I had missed so much school because I was home in bed, under the covers, too ill to stand and too weak and sick to attend school. I remember I was so ill that when the Beatles came to Australia, Dad took the three of us down to the airport to watch them drive by, and I lay curled up in the back of the car, unable to si t up.
Despite that, despite the being so ill, I spent weeks at Christian camps, hiding away at mealtimes, questioning myself guiltily about whether I could actually say I was a Christian, whether my faith was strong enough, and whether I had paid enough penance. At the end of the camp, my parents would come for me, and they would have to drive through muddy fields where the roads had disappeared. I hated their coming to get me. Sometimes, in spite, I would stay for another few weeks, for the next camp, and force them to leave without me and come back a gain.
No wonder I missed so much school and forgot my school timetable. I never knew which subject was next, and several times, I went to the vice principal’s office to get a new timet able.
I looked through all the university timetables in her office and tried to decide what subjects I would do. I went to several lectures but couldn’t stay there either, and one science lecturer was very,