The Game of Shepherd and Dawse

by William Shepherd

  It didn’t take her long to find Nettie’s book. It was the one with the scruffy cover and three matchstick people on the front. There were two large matchstick figures with big smiles on their faces and they were both holding the hand of a smaller matchstick figure, who also had a smile on her face. There was a house in the background and a smiling sun in the sky.

  Mrs Dot looked at the picture and could see what Nettie had really yearned for all of her life, and that was just to be in a happy family. As Mrs Dot slowly made her way through every page of Nettie’s work, she could see something that she had never seen before. It was like there were lots of little messages to Mrs Dot hidden in her work, the kind of messages that we miss when we don't take time to smell the roses. Nettie didn’t have the neatest of hand writings, so whenever Mrs Dot marked her work she would just skim over it briefly and just write some encouraging comments.

  What she had never noticed were the little comments that Nettie herself had left for Mrs Dot. There were comments like, “I love my teacher.” “She is the best teacher in the whole wide world”. “Mrs Dot is the prettiest teacher ever”. And, “My best friend is Mrs Dot”.

  As Mrs Dot read each and every lovely little comment, the tears that needed to go just fell down her face. It was as though Nettie somehow wanted Mrs Dot to let go of any negativity she was holding on to. As Mrs Dot turned the final page, a folded piece of paper fell out. On it was one last gift that Nettie wanted Mrs Dot to have - a poem that Nettie had written. Mrs Dot read the poem, but instead of crying more tears she found herself with a very warm glow inside.

  “What an amazing little child,” Mrs Dot thought to herself.

  It was a short but very beautiful poem and Mrs Dot decided that she would read it to the whole class the next day.

  The next day at school would be the very last day that each child would spend with their current teacher, as it was the end of term. Mrs Dot's class would be moving up to the nearby comprehensive.

  The last day at school was always an enjoyable one. No one did any work as there was no need. Coming in off the playground, Mrs Dot came into the classroom with a line of children in tow. There was a buzz of excitement at it being the last day. Mrs Dot put down the two large boxes she was carrying which made the children even more excited as to what was in the boxes.

  Mrs Dot started off the day with telling all of the children how much she had enjoyed teaching them and shared a little memory with each and every child from the year they had spent together. She also had each child share a memory with her that stuck out in their mind as an enjoyable moment. Some children had the same memories and some children remembered something that no one else had. After the last person had shared their treasured memory, Mrs Dot announced that she wanted one last person to share something too. Mrs Dot proceeded in a very soft and gentle voice.

  “Ok then, class. As we all know, because of the events of the last week, very sadly and unfortunately we have one member of our class who can no longer be with us”. She paused and then continued. “But there is something I would like to share with everyone, as I’m sure the author would have liked to have shared it with you. This is a short poem Nettie wrote and it goes like this”.

  Why I Love Hate

  I don’t hate anyone, but I love Hate.

  Hate is not my mate and I don’t have many mates

  Hate is not my mate but I still love Hate.

  Hate is hurtful and unkind. Hate hurts the body and Hate hurts the mind.

  My mommy hates but she doesn’t love Hate.

  She hates me sometimes and she hates my dad

  But I don’t hate my Mommy

  Even when she is being bad.

  My class mates hate me sometimes

  But that is only because Hate is their mate

  But I don’t care because my heart is full of Love and Love loves Hate.

  As soon as Mrs Dot finished reading the last word this time, she would cry. But instead of hiding her face in her hands like most people do, she held her head high and proud so all of the class could see, which naturally allowed some of the more sensitive children to start crying too. Mrs Dot went around to every child and gently touched them in a motherly way on the top of their heads. Those who were not yet crying, started to after Mrs Dot had given them her farewell kiss. It was as though she gave each child a permission slip to let go of any hate and anger they were holding onto. Some children sobbed into their arms and some held their heads high just as Mrs Dot did. But they all cried. Every single one of them.

  Something very magical happened that day which none of the children would ever forget - how very powerful and empowering it felt when they allowed themselves to really feel their emotions and cry. Because everyone was crying, no one felt the usual awkwardness in letting the emotions go that didn’t serve them. Once everyone had finished their little release, a lighter, brighter more happy energy filled the classroom and each child was ready to put the tragic events of the last week behind them.

  The rest of the day was spent drinking tea and eating the fancy cakes Mrs Dot had brought with her in the two boxes and also making a memorial to their absent classmate, Nettie. Each child took a few words of the poem and drew the letters how they wanted to draw them on a big poster. When completed, the poster would hang in Mrs Dot’s class room until the day she retired and would be the topic of many a conversation over the years. Some people would get what the poem was saying instantly and some people would understand it later on in life, but the poem seemed to have an effect on all who read it.

  Little did anyone know at the time, but the events taking place that fateful day would start a ball rolling that would to prove unstoppable. One of the Dawse’s strongest weapons in spreading their Dark energy throughout the world had finally started to come to an end. When this special little child was taken, not even King Dawse himself could have imagined the awakening effect it would have - first on the community, then the rest of the country and then the rest of the world. Paedophiles who were hiding in every corner of society began being unmasked for the monsters they truly were. There was no hiding place left for these Dark beings.

  It started on a very local level - children’s clubs, schools, religious organisations, children’s homes and basically anywhere that children had once been and been abused. As more brave people came forward and told what had happened to them, sometimes many years prior, then others too would feel brave enough to name their abusers and start the healing. It didn’t just stop at a local level. As momentum grew, celebrities would be ousted, television corporations and even members of parliament. Oh yes, this disease went right up to big house itself. It seemed there was no institution or organisation that hadn’t been corrupted in some way or protected by those in power.

  Tracey Furnella never did fully recover from the tragedy of what happened to her only child. Wracked with guilt and in a state of constant mourning, she would end up in and out psychiatric institutions for the rest of her life. The dark forces hadn’t managed to destroy Tracey directly so it had gone via the ‘back door’ by getting at her family which eventually got to her. It was two points in one for team Dawse. The only comfort that Tracey would get would be the occasional apparition of Nettie standing at the end of her bed saying the words, “Please don’t worry mummy, everything is ok”.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  SALLY SOUR RIDES AGAIN

  “When a loved one dies, we can either choose to mourn them or celebrate their life. One of those is a wasted opportunity”. ~ Mrs Bottal

  “Cooee! Home Help”! Sally Sour called through Joe’s letter box. Sally had missed the dramas that had occurred in the area since she had been away, so she made a start on her new plan of coaxing people to become financial donors to her ramshackle little church.

  Frustrated by getting no answer at the door, she decided to try the back. Sally deduced that Joe had been arrested and charged, and that people now hated him. He would have no option but to move into an old people’s h
ome away from the area to a place where no one knew him and he would have to hand all of his assets over to Sally to look after…or at least that’s what Sally hoped was going to happen.

  She managed to undo the latch on Joe’s gate and made her way into the garden. Sally was too busy looking out for neighbours to notice Joe sitting there, tucked behind the coal bunker, until she almost tripped over him. It gave her quite a fright to find him but not as much as the fright it gave her to see his pale, lifeless face smiling up at her.

  “Aaaah”! She screamed, with papers from her clipboard flying everywhere while she screamed and shouted. “Oh, my God! Oh my God! Oh my God”! She had never seen a dead person before and especially not one with such a bright smile on his face.

  Sally left as quickly as her shaking legs could carry her, while urinating herself a little at the shock of it all. Walking down the road holding one hand over her wailing gob and the other over the freshly made damp patch, she scurried her way over to Mrs Bottal’s house.

  The way Sally Sour knocked on the door, you would have thought the whole street was about to burn down. Betty had already heard the commotion and when she saw out the window what looked like Joe’s legs poking out from the wall, she quickly put two and two together.

  Joe had often talked to Betty about his intent of not going into a home as his life neared its end and had often said how he would like Mother Nature to be the one who took his final breath. Now everything fitted together.

  “Goodbye, my dear friend”, Mrs B whispered, as she silently blew a kiss in Joe’s direction.

  Betty sat on the end of the bed and cried a little. As each tear fell gently down her face, she enjoyed the moment and hoped that Sour Sally would give up knocking and go away. But Sally persisted. Once Betty had finished her cry, her mood changed to her usual no nonsense approach but with a bit a fire added too, due mainly to the pathetic little creature trying to wear her front door out with her relentless knocking. Betty opened the door and stood there with her arms folded and just glared at sour Sally.

  “What”!? Said Betty in an uncompromising way.

  “Oh Mrs Bottal, Mrs Bottal, Mrs Bottal. Ooooh, Mrs Bottal”! Cried Sally, in a newly found drama queen voice. She would have kept it up for ages if Betty hadn’t told her to stop being such a stupid cow and to spit it out.

  “Something awful has happened”, Sally cried in her newly found voice. “It’s Joe, next door, and I don’t think he’s alive”!

  With that, Betty stood there as calm as the night, rolled up her right sleeve and gave Sally Sour the biggest wallop around the face she could muster. Sally looked at her in shock and disbelief.

  “It’s quite all right dear”, Mrs Bottal told her. “We used to do that to people during the war when they got hysterical. You were freaking out. Do you think you need another one”?

  Betty was rolling up her left sleeve in anticipation. Sally took a big step back. She could still feel the outline of Mrs Bottal’s hand on her face.

  “No. Actually, I feel much better now. Thank you, Mrs Bottal”, Sally replied in a much calmer voice. She decided to ditch her new way of speaking, as it didn’t seem to be having the desired effect she had hoped for.

  “Well, I guess you'd better come in for a cup of tea then”, Betty said in a slightly more sympathetic manner. ‘Don’t be thinking you’ll be getting any cake, though’, Betty thought to herself.

  Joe had shown Betty the letter from the council, and Betty would have bet good money that sour Sally had something to do with it. The only reason why Betty invited Sally in was because she wanted to see if she could preen any new information from unwitting Sally about her little exploits.

  Betty made Sally a cup of tea, then fished out her best blanket from the Welsh dresser in the next room. She then took the black Panama hat that used to belong to her husband, Frank, off the peg hanging on the wall and made her way for the back door.

  “Oh, no! You mustn’t, Mrs Bottal. It’s a horribly dreadful si...”

  Betty interrupted her saying, “Don’t be so ridiculous, child. I’ve seen things in my life you couldn’t possibly imagine. Now sit there and drink your tea. I’ll be back in a jiffy”.

  Betty respectfully made her way into Joe's garden and walked toward where he had propped himself up behind the coal bunker. She placed the blanket around Joe's shoulders and fastened it securely with a safety pin from her apron. She kissed Joe on the top of his head and placed the Panama on his head. If you were looking directly down on Joe, you would have thought he was asleep. Betty didn’t need to do this for him, but out of respect she wanted him looking nice when they came to take him away.

  As Betty started to leave the garden, she noticed the pieces of paper scattered about and stooped to pick them up. It was then she saw what Sally Sour had been up to. One paper was an application for a nursing home called Nazareth House and another was an application for Power of Attorney. Betty was fuming, and if Joe hadn’t just died she probably would have belted Sally Sour around the face more than the once.

  Betty folded up the pieces of paper and put them in her apron, reasoning with herself that there wasn’t much point getting too worked up about it seeing that it didn’t matter anymore.

  As Betty walked back into the house, Sally stupidly asked in a fake voice of concern, “How is he”?

  Betty sat down across the kitchen table from Sally. “How do you think he is, you stupid woman. He’s dead”!

  It was going to take a fair bit of work to worm her way into the affections of Mrs Bottal, but this didn’t stop Sally Sour from saying what she said next, as one of Sally’s favourite things to do was to exaggerate her own importance.

  “I suppose that since I’m the home help, it will end up being me sorting out the probate side of things”, Sally sighed, her face expressing an ‘Oh, the burden of it all’ emotion. It was the stupidest of things to say and was totally the wrong person to say it to, but Sally Sour just couldn’t help herself.

  “Oh, it’s all right, Sally”, Betty countered while gently patting the back of Sally's hand. “Everything's already been taken care of, dear. You needn’t worry yourself about it another minute”.

  Betty went to the kitchen drawer and pulled out an envelope.

  A somewhat unnerved Sally stammered, “B-b-but I didn’t think Joe had any family left, Mrs B”.

  “It’s Mrs Bottal, if you don’t mind”, replied Betty in a way that said ‘don’t even think about trying to worm your way into my affections after what you’ve been up to, missy.’ “And yes, you’re quite right. Joe didn’t have anyone left, which is why he asked me to be the executor of his will”.

  Mrs Bottal tapped her finger on the envelope and watched Sally almost frothing at the mouth with her desire to see what was inside.

  “It’s okay”, Mrs Bottal said, knowing full well what Sally was thinking. “You needn’t concern yourself. There’s only one beneficiary”. She was becoming more irritated with Sally by the minute so Betty decided to get her out of the house pronto - telling her she had work to do, phone calls to make and that she should just go, though she stopped short of actually throwing the rotten woman out.

  Sally Sour put Betty’s tone down to the fact that Sally herself must be the beneficiary and that Betty must be jealous. She told herself this as she walked down to the road, getting more excited by the minute thinking of all the money she was about to inherit.

  Meanwhile, Betty made her way over to Angela and Charlie's house to tell them the bad news, and the good news. When they’d gotten over the initial shock and upset, and all had a good cry, Betty handed them the envelope.

  “Joe wanted you both to have this”, Betty said calmly.

  The hand writing was beautiful and so was the letter. It read:

  “To Angela, my Angel with an ‘A’,

  “I am leaving you and Charlie my house with the only stipulation being that you don’t sell it and spend the money on other things, as this way you will always have a roof ov
er your heads, no matter what. I hope you enjoy as many fond memories as I’ve had while living here. Take good care of yourself and Charlie, as the world’s a much more beautiful place with you both in it”.

  He signed it, “All my love Joe”.

  A second page read:

  “My dearest Charlie boy,

  It has been a pleasure and an honour spending so much time with you. I hope you have learned as much from me as I have from you. Please don’t be sad about me not being here anymore. Life is a one big wheel and people get on and off at different times. This was simply my time to get off.