Just Kids Playing

Part Four of a longer story written for the summer challenge

David woke up at just after 7am and immediately started to wrestle with the notion of getting up and going to school or to make an attempt at feigning illness so that he didn't have to. His mother had seen most of his illness attempts and was wise to them but David had been reading a lot recently and had a few more that needed to be tried out. One of the latest was that he was coming down with Malaria, an illness that he had read about without understanding properly just last week. Apparently, it was passed to humans by little insects called Mosquitos and could be quite deadly if left untreated. David had tried to convince his mother only two weeks ago that he had tuberculosis after befriending a badger in the garden but this had been dismissed out of hand and punished by an earlier bedtime than normal. In the end, David started to think about the abandoned old barn in the woods and its very strange window and decided that that was more intriguing than any attempted illness.

He arrived at school at 8:40 and was met by Scott, Charlie and Myself. We all knew that today would be David's turn to try and go through the window and have his own little mini-adventure. Charlie had arrived clutching a small box that was wrapped in brown paper and tied with white string. We were all intrigued because Charlie had refused to open the box yesterday afternoon after he had returned to the barn from his own little trip, saying that he wanted to wait until today to open it. He had said, and we all agreed, that the opening of the box would take place at lunchtime and none of us could really wait.

David knew the same as all of us in that his trip was going to be the most challenging because he saw a vision through the window that was not local. He would, in theory anyway, be teleporting nearly 150 miles to his old stomping ground, just outside Taunton in Somerset. Of course, he was nervous about the whole thing but he also wanted to see Jack again. Jack was his bestest friend in the whole world, they had known each other pretty much from birth and were as close to unbreakable as any 8-year-old kids could've been. When David's parents had announced that they were upping sticks and relocating to West Cornwall, David had cried for hours and had been inconsolable. Him and Jack had spent their last afternoon playing in their favourite place, a large hayfield about a half a mile from where they lived. When it had been time to go, they had shared a huge hug and both had had tears welling in their eyes. They had made solemn promises to stay in touch and even visit each other once they were old enough to travel on their own.

Charlie had opened his box as promised at lunchtime and was not surprised to find that it contained a small glass bottle. The liquid inside was clear and looked much like water but also in the box was four brand new cloths which caused us to look at each other with perplexed looks. Charlie had put everything back inside and re-sealed the box without comment and that was that. The subject seemed over and there was no further talk about what the fluid was or what it could be used for.

At just after 3:30pm on this warm Tuesday afternoon, the four of us had once again re-entered Godolphin Woods and made our way to the old barn. Our trips were made easier as the days had passed because we had now worn a narrow track through the undergrowth so it didn't take as long as before to get there. Once we were outside the main door, we gathered together in a little huddle and I spoke.

"OK, so we know that today is David's turn to go through the window and then it's mine tomorrow. After that, I really don't know."

"I know what to do," Charlie said quietly. "I know what the glass bottle is for."

We all looked at him and waited for him to continue with a further explanation but he simply walked into the barn without adding anything. I sighed, Scott added his favourite cuss word and then we followed David into the barn because he had taken off after Charlie. When we re-grouped underneath the mysterious window, David had simply said a convivial "Wish me luck!" and had jumped on the hay-bales to get to the window. Within seconds of doing that he had closed his eyes and wrestled his way through the window, disappearing as he went, which still intrigued the remaining three of us. I was the only one who was yet to have that sensation but the other two had said earnestly that they didn’t feel a thing apart from a momentary blackness before their own visions kicked in.

David stood in the hay field and looked around with a little uncertainty. This looked like the field that he and Jack had played in but it was a lot smaller. He walked forward towards some houses that he didn’t recognize and it dawned on him that these were new. Some of the field had been taken by this development and that sort of disappointed him because it felt like his past was being encroached upon. David walked on and through the new housing estate until he found a road that he recognized, his thinking was that he would go and find Jack’s house and invite him out to play for a while before heading back. He wasn’t sure how he was going to do that because he had forgotten to check behind him for any boundaries but the thought of seeing Jack again made this a minor consideration for him. Jack lived on Upcott Road and David found this road easily, mainly because it was a long road that ran right into the heart of Taunton town centre itself, and set about locating exactly where he was and how far from Jacks he was.

Before too long he arrived at his friend’s house and walked up the path to the front door. A few moments after he had pressed the doorbell an elderly lady answered who didn’t know Jack and certainly didn’t know David. All in all, she seemed rather confused by the whole affair but was happy to invite David into her living room. David opted for a glass of orange when offered and remained seated, feeling a mixture of wonderment and concern. The old lady came into the living room clutching a mug of tea and sat opposite looking kindly and also concerned on David’s behalf.

“Did you say that you were looking for Jack?” she enquired gently

“I am,” David replied courteously. “I moved from here a few years ago and he was my best friend.”

The lady looked on sympathetically and sipped her hot tea. David continued but stopped short of telling her how he had actually arrived here because that would’ve probably induced a stroke. Instead, he told her that he was visiting with his parents and that he had convinced them to let him come here and see his friend whilst they were shopping. When he had finished telling her this, he looked at her expectantly. What she told him was a bombshell.

“I moved into this house about 18 months ago. It was empty before I moved in because I remember it being advertised as vacant. When I did move in, I remember thinking that this place hasn’t been lived in for a fair while but there were a few things left behind that I’ve kept. I’ll go and grab them.”

She got up tenderly and disappeared into another room before returning with a carrier bag that looked as though it contained some framed photographs. She sat carefully and handed the bag to David who took it cautiously. He opened the bag and pulled out a total of five photos and his eyes welled up instantly when he saw that one of them was of Jack, his old school friend. The old lady saw his distress and grabbed a tissue from the box on the coffee table which David took gladly and began wiping his eyes.

“I’m sorry!” he sobbed. “It’s my friend in this photo, but you said the house was empty. So where is Jack, where is my friend?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know.” She replied, “I really don’t. But you can keep the bag and the photos if you want to search for him.”

Shortly after declining another glass of orange, David left the house and set off back towards the field that he had entered via the window. He clutched the bag containing the photos but his hands felt numb and his head felt full of questions. In the end though common sense had prevailed because he didn’t know anything about how to go about finding somebody who was missing (was he missing?) or locating someone who had moved. He also knew nothing of any timescale with regards to the window, did it have a cut off time where it would not longer open? David had decided to head back to the field and back through the window and hoped that he could bring the photos back with him, it had worked for Charlie with his brown paper box and also for Scott with his chocolate cake. He walked into the field and towards the far end, waiting for the feeling of black and then the soft hay.

Like the other two before him he landed in the upstairs area of the old barn feeling that he was grasping a carrier bag. He sat up and peered inside and was delighted to see that the photos had come back with him. David clambered down to join the others, who were waiting expectantly. For the next half an hour or so the four us sat on hay-bales looking at the photographs that David had brought back with him. The photograph that David had taken a keen interest in was one that had his friend Jack in the foreground and a field of Marigold flowers in the background. He thought hard about all the times that he had spent with Jack and couldn’t for the life of him remember a Marigold Field. When we all left the woods and went home that evening, David had already decided that he was going to ask his parents to help him find Jack.

That evening David’s father sat with his son and tried his best to answer the questions that his son was throwing at him. David had showed his father the one photograph of Jack in the Marigold Field, claiming that he had brought it with him when they moved but he knew that his father had not really believed this little nugget. His father had promised to do a little research and to tell him what he had found out in the next few days. David slept very uneasily that night.

It was three days later that David’s father had dropped the bombshell to his son. He had found some newspaper reports from the local Taunton Echo about an 8-year-old boy going missing from the area two years ago and it went on to say that a body had been found in a field full of Marigolds. The body had been identified as that of John Edward Hampson, known to everyone as ‘Jack’. David cried hard in his father’s arms on receiving the news and later on just stared at the photo of Jack. He pulled the photo out of the photo-frame and held it close to him, thinking that maybe it would bring him closer, or even bring him back. He turned the photo over in his hands and it was then that he noticed the single word written on the back of the photo.

It simply said. ‘Forever.’