money they had, there. The old man, Mr Smith, knew every child by name. Jimmy oftentimes wondered how he was able to do this, to remember them all, considering he was so incredibly old – and hundreds of children shopped there. However, he did, he remembered every one of them. He even remembered those who visited his shop occasionally, and those who shopped there just the once. He also remembered the individual likes and dislikes of every child. He knew those who liked liquorice, those who liked aniseed balls, and those who hated them. He was a mine of information, Jimmy thought, most surely the world’s most wonderful man.
The bell over the door jingled and jangled as the two boys entered the shop. “So,” said Mr Smith, following them in, “no sweets, today?”
“Maybe after we have done our errand,” Jimmy replied, “when we have received our penny wages.”
“Okay, I see, a penny errand,” he said, laughing.
“If we are so lucky,” Eric grumbled under his breath.
“I’m sorry, Eric, did you say something?” the old man asked.
“No, nothing,” Eric lied.
In that case,” Mr Smith continued, “I am all ears.”
Withdrawing the note from his trouser pocket, Jimmy said, “We are here because of this.” He handed Mr Smith the note.
Taking it, Mr Smith put on his spectacles, a dusty old pair, and began reading it. When he had finished, he looked over the top of his spectacle lenses, studying the boys with some interest.
Sensing a change in the shopkeeper’s mood, Eric asked, “Is everything all right?”
Gazing at them, still over the top of his spectacles lenses, Mr Smith, strangely, said nothing. Finally, eventually, he began speaking, and when he did, he said, “Where did you get this?” he waved the piece of paper in front of the boys’ startled faces as if it was something they had stolen.
“We got it from an old woman, at the circus,” said Jimmy, in angst.
“The sister of the witch,” Eric added, just for good measure, to be sure Mr Smith understood the situation fully.
“We didn’t steal it!” Jimmy cried out, fearing he might call the police.
The old man’s appearance, demeanour, relaxing, he said, “It’s all right, Jimmy. I don’t for one minute think that you have stolen it.” He waved the note, though in a less articulated manner than before.
Rubbing his chin through his thick, snowy white beard, Mr Smith mulled over the situation some more. Pulling up a couple of biscuit tins, he asked the boys to sit down. Ambling across to the sweet counter, delving a hand in through the opening at the rear of it, the old man searched through the many offerings.
“What does he want?” Eric asked.
“I dunno,” Jimmy replied.
“Here,” said the shopkeeper, handing the boys some sweets. “Take these, they’re your favourites.”
“Wow!” said Jimmy, when he saw what Mr Smith was offering him – most surely, the biggest gobstopper he had ever seen. “Thanks, thanks a lot!” he said, hardly believing his luck. The gobstopper was so big Jimmy was unable to fit it inside his mouth. Holding it in his hands, he licked it like that.
“Crikey! Thanks, Mr Smith!” said Eric, accepting a huge liquorice shoelace. Holding it, guarding it jealously, Eric marvelled at its wondrous size, for it was most surely twice as big as the one their friend, George Rupniak, had brought to school the previous Christmas, the one that had amazed absolutely everyone.
Pulling up an empty crate, Mr Smith, stroking his beard, said, “Boys…I have something I want to tell you…”
Listening, watching, licking his giant gobstopper, Jimmy thought the old man, the shopkeeper, had an uncanny resemblance to Father Christmas, and he let out a small laugh.
Taking a bite from his giant shoelace, Eric said, “Shush, Mr Smith wants to tell us something.” With that, he took another juicy bite of liquorice.
“Thank you, Eric,” said Mr Smith. “Now where was I?”
“You wanted to tell us something,” said Eric, wiping away the liquorice dribbles from his chin.
Nodding, the old man said, “Yes, I do…” However, like before, he said nothing. He just sat there on his crate, silent, deep in his thoughts.
Munching away happily on the huge shoelace, Eric was unperturbed by this, but Jimmy, being Jimmy, wanted to know why the old man, who always had something to say, was suddenly reticent to speak. “Mr Smith,” he said. “What did you want to tell us?”
Settling his beard, the shopkeeper, brushing his thinning white hair back with the palm of his hand, took off his spectacles. After placing then carefully in his shop coat top pocket, he said, “Boys, this note is from a witch.”
“WHAT?” Jimmy cried out, almost falling off his tin, with fright.
“I told you so,” Eric chortled with delight, forgetting to be scared. “I told you she was a witch!”
“You said the first one was a witch, not the second!” Jimmy reminded him.
Lifting his hand, feigning surprise that he had said such a thing, Eric replied, “They are sisters. If one is a witch, so too is the other. Everyone knows that!”
“Everyone – everyone who?” asked Jimmy, confused by his friend’s logic, and where he had found it.
“Calm down, both of you,” said Mr Smith. “There’s nothing to be alarmed about. Witches are everywhere – and they’re good.”
“Everywhere?” Eric replied, confused.
“Good?” said Jimmy, confused and bewildered.
“Yes,” Mr Smith answered. “And before you say anything else, let me explain...”
By the time the old man had finished explaining, telling Jimmy and Eric all that he knew about witches, the boys’ minds were reeling, shocked to the core that witches, albeit good ones, were everywhere. They were even more shocked to hear that Mr Smith, the friendly, happy go lucky shopkeeper that everyone liked and respected, was one.
“You’re telling us…you want us to believe that all witches are good?” said Eric, still aghast by what he had heard.
Nodding, the old man replied, “Don’t forget warlocks.”
“That warlocks are bad?”
Smiling sanguinely, Mr Smith said, “Yes, that is unfortunately so.”
“But, but I thought witches were bad!” Eric confessed.
“What do you think I am? Good or bad, witch or warlock?” the old man asked.
“You are a good person, a very good person,” Eric professed. “Everyone knows you are, but…”
Folding his arms thoughtfully, Mr Smith said in reply, “But what?”
The Little Errand
“Okay,” said Eric, holding his hands up, in surrender, “Okay I accept that witches are good… But that old woman – both of those old women, at the circus – were bad!”
Mr Smith was a patient man, a tolerant man who knew only too well how peoples’ minds and opinions can be moulded, influenced by people less open – to other ways. He knew that children, even ones as young as Jimmy and Eric, can all too easily be influenced by such closed thinking, so folding his arms, having no intention of forcing the issue, he asked, “Why?”
That stumped them, for neither Jimmy nor Eric had any proof whatsoever as to why they had labelled the two women as witches. Yes, they tried to make excuses such as they were ugly, thin, old, had evil eyes, creaky voices, and other such nonsense (including at least one of them owning a black cat). In the end, however, they had to admit they had no idea whatsoever why they had labelled the two women, so.
“Thank you,” Mr Smith said to Jimmy and Eric, “that was a huge step you have taken.”
Having overcome the hurdle of their own ignorance, the boys found it plain sailing from there on, and the more they talked with the wise old man, the more they embraced what he said, what he believed in, including the notion that witches were good. As the conversation progressed, they came to see how their beliefs, the beliefs imposed upon them by others, had blinded them to the true, full reality of life, a life far different from anything the
y had ever imagined.
Finishing the last vestiges of his liquorice shoelace, though still looking somewhat puzzled, Eric said, “I still don’t understand why she gave me that note, why she wanted us to do the errand…”
Smiling sagely, the old man said, “You will understand, Eric, but only when you are ready.”
“Hmm,” said Eric, following Jimmy out from the shop. “You don’t happen to know what he meant by that, when he said, I’ll know when I’m ready.”
“If you don’t mind, can I pass on that?” said Jimmy, struggling under the weight of the large sack of flour perched upon his shoulder. “I’ve got a lot on my plate right now.”
Laughing, Eric said, “Yes, including a whole lot of flour, because that sack has a hole in it!”
“What!” Jimmy yelled, making a beeline back into the shop.
“What took you so long?” Eric asked when Jimmy finally exited the shop with a new sack of flour.
“Shifting the sack, trying to make it more comfortable, Jimmy said, “No reason, really…”
“No reason?” said Eric, an eyebrow rising, with interest.
“Well, it’s just that...when I went back there, to his shop, Mr Smith said, he warned me that I must be on my guard, lest I fall into disrepair…”
“Lest you fall into disrepair?” Eric asked. “What on earth is that supposed to mean? We’re not cars, you know!”
“I KNOW! I’m as confused as you!”
“Did you ask him what it means?”
“Yes, I did, but he said the same thing that he said to you, ‘I will understand when I am ready…”
“Oh.”
Shifting the sack, trying to place
Jimmy, The Glue Factory and Mad Mr Viscous Page 6
