Insinuations, Chapter One

Joe was proceeding to Boston Park with Mini-Flash Robin, via the little leafy roads that wound round the back of the burger-bar.

“Still can’t make out how this is supposed to help,” declared the wide-mouthed one.

They passed through the park gates. “I have no desire to watch my friend undergo self-tortures over some netball tournament, when action might instead be taken,” replied Joe.

“Lessons, though?” Robin persisted. “Chap can’t win against Presh as it is. Not sure what another girl can teach me, except other ways to lose. Hope at least she’s good-looking?”

As it happened, Joe wasn’t in any position to comment on that. This meeting had been arranged by Morag at his request, after Robin’s frets had come up in their conversation and she’d mentioned she knew a girl. Still, the sunny boughs overhead were even now parting before the public courts, so Joe guessed Mini-Flash Robin was about to find out.

There his new instructor was practicing, light and quick and fair as the morning beams themselves, in and out of which she and her netball darted.

Joe reassured himself this was a good idea.

Even though it was suddenly more than he could do to so much as look at Robin.

The girl was wearing a powder-pale membrane which ended in the tiniest of shorts, and it had to be said that from certain angles, she was mostly shorts. Not that her tonnage seemed wont to slow her down as she ran, fusing what looked like ballet-hops and dance-steps into her game while never once putting a hand wrong. Then all at once she slowed, daring imaginary boys. One of these evidently fancied his chances, for the girl smoothly seat-dropped to the court in an audacious evasive manoeuvre which owed most to trampolining.

That was an impact you felt through the soles of your boots. Joe risked a glance at Robin, and his fears were confirmed.

She rolled upright again, the ball in both hands, and seemed not to draw a breath before her toes were scaling empty space as if they found footholds there. Mid-ascent the girl shot, giving no indication she needed to check where the basket was beforehand, and touched down two points the better. Joe decided now might be a good time for introductions.

“Mini-Flash Robin, meet Mini-Flash Juniper,” said he, with passing interest, for it hadn’t thus far struck him how alike their names were.

As soon as she saw she wasn’t alone, Mini-Flash Juniper left her ball where it was and ran over to the observers.

“I presume I am addressing Joe,” said she, so formally our hero felt as if he was the teacher. “And this must be…”

Her eye fell on Robin, and the clear ringing tones dwindled and died.

A blush was creeping fast all over Mini-Flash Juniper. Even her alabaster-white legs were starting to turn pink.

“When,” she began helplessly, “when Miss Constable talked about your friend Robin who needed help with netball, I…I just assumed…”

At last Joe intuited the source of her distress.

“It can be a girls’ name,” said he, with understanding.

Had she never met any boys before? Joe couldn’t help but wonder where Morag in turn had met this Mini-Flash Juniper. Nevertheless, he was thankful for Robin’s sake. Watching Juniper play could only have set her on such a pedestal for him that Joe had had doubts he’d even be able to look her in the face. Discovering she was twice as shy as he was would be a huge help for Robin. It meant they were going to start on equal footing after all.

“All the more reason chap could totes do with a hand,” Robin said to her kindly.

“Embarrassing enough to the only boy, without coming last on top of that,” agreed Mini-Flash Juniper, and through her blushes beamed Robin a huge cheesy grin.

Which Joe, once again, chose not to interpret as trouble brewing.

He’d talked himself through the arguments a good many times already, but there was no harm in quickly rehashing them now. This wasn’t interfering. Mini-Flash Robin’s happiness was very much his business – that was what friendship was. If he, Joe, was undermining Presh, who only ever wanted to win all the time anyway, then Presh could stand to be undermined. Besides, it would make the tournament more exciting, and so treat the Boston townsfolk to a thrilling day of netball.

And if none of the above quite satisfied Joe as to the real reason he was doing this, he was sure that if he waited he’d figure that out later.

Our hero had another wait in store ahead of that, and it was a lengthy one. Nothing Joe saw in his first stint as a netball spectator filled him with confidence Mini-Flash Juniper had worked the least improvement on Robin’s skills, but certainly hours passed before he was able pry the pair out of their mutually hot and sweaty world. This at long last achieved, Joe announced it was all he could do to treat them both at the burger-bar in thanks for Juniper’s tireless work above and beyond the call of duty.

So, after that one had gone into the girls’ changing room to put on a different but identical membrane, and Mini-Flash Robin had fished ten pence out from where he kept his change in order to use the payphone, the three of them walked round the corner together. All Mini-Flash Juniper wanted was a small plain ice-cream, which she set before her in great contentment.

“I always used to have one of these after Brownies,” explained the girl.

“Brownies?” repeated Robin. “Erm, was that when a lot of us were doing activities and learning about things? I think I must have been in the Brownies too.”

“You were,” said Mini-Flash Juniper knowledgeably, “because you’re wearing the uniform right now. A kind of browny-beige with yellow, and a little short skirt like yours. I’m sure that was Brownies. Anyway I’ve got one of those too, so it must be.”

“You should totes wear it for the tournament,” suggested Robin, and seldom had Boston seen so wide-mouthed a smile.

“If I remember to put any clothes on at all,” was Juniper’s conversational reply.

Joe had a chicken nugget and wished he’d sat at a separate table.

The glass doors swished open to admit Presh. Only then did our hero gather what Robin’s telephone call had been in aid of, and he felt for him, guessing at the agonies of guilt with which he must have wrestled. Sometimes that boy was a little too decent for his own good.

Presh slipped into the seat beside Robin’s and helped herself to some of his fries. Right away Joe made sure to introduce Mini-Flash Juniper as a friend of a friend.

“Oh, do you know who you look like?” were the first words Presh spoke to her.

Juniper didn’t, and nor did anyone else.

“But you must get it all the time!” cried Presh. “The girl who was in that film. Did the rest of you not see it when it was on at the cinema?”

“The Regal on West Street?” ventured Joe.

“No, it wasn’t there,” Presh replied vaguely. “But the place was packed, that’s why I’m amazed you don’t know which film I mean. Wish I could remember what it was called.”

Joe knew the feeling. Indeed, thinking also of Robin and Juniper a minute ago straining to recall whether they’d ever been to Brownies, there seemed to be a lot of it about. No doubt the memory was a funny thing these days.

“What happened in the film?” Mini-Flash Juniper asked Presh politely.

“I’m sure you’ll know it when I tell you,” Presh maintained. “It was the one about a leader.”

“Chap can totes see why you liked it then!” joked Mini-Flash Robin.

“A leader on a mission to bring back great good for his people,” continued Presh, ignoring him. “It was an epic, with a sad ending, because he didn’t succeed. Beset on all sides by enemies and traitors, the most he could do was live to fight another day. Stirring stuff. Bitter tragedy and the path of thorns. But the leader held true to his goals, and the director made that the point. Masterfully,” Presh added, and sighed.

“So…where did the girl who looked like me come into it?” hinted Juniper.

“Oh, well, if you’ve really not seen the film, I’m not sure if I should say now!” Presh declared with a laugh. “I’m afraid she was one of the traitors. And poetic justice was served.”

“Then it doesn’t sound like a very nice sort of film to me, Presh,” Robin remarked.

“You didn’t see it either, Robin,” returned Presh patiently, patting his hand. “Trust me, you wouldn’t have liked the girl. She wasn’t a girl any boy could like. The director did a great job of avoiding just the kind of one-dimensional femme fatale cliché you’re thinking of. No, I can hear the cheering now when she got what was coming to her. Everyone was joining in. The leader showed her, at any rate.”

Presh looked about the silent table. Cheeks far less prone to colouring than Mini-Flash Juniper’s would by now have been doing so.

“Seriously!” exclaimed Presh. “The whole cinema cheered. Especially the boys. I’m not making it up!”

Joe saw as much. Presh was only too plainly in the throes of that foggy casting-round after half-recollected details which he himself had of late come to know so well.

That she wasn’t making it up was what made it worse.

Our hero pushed over to Presh the hot pie with flaky pastry he’d been saving for after his nuggets. “Please,” he invited. “You are partial to apples, are you not?”

Presh beamed brightly to him in thanks for this kindness, which Joe guessed would have seemed less of a one if he’d added he’d just lost his appetite.

Not that he hadn’t gained something too at the same time.

Earlier on Joe had been wondering what was the real reason he wanted Presh taken down a peg or two in the netball tournament, and now he knew.

END OF CHAPTER ONE