Horrible Horace

by Gerrard Wllson

with us testing Invincible.”

  “Pardon? Did you say something?” Horace asked, from the far side of the kite.

  “It’s nothing that can’t wait,” Tommy answered. Scanning the area he looked for signs of intruders other than themselves.

  Arriving at the top of the hill, Horrible Horace was gobsmacked when he saw Cheeky Charlie and Meddling Maurice already there. Ensconced in the prime position, they watched their rivals approach. “What are you doing here?” Horace asked them.

  “It’s a free world, at least it was the last time I looked,” Cheeky Charlie replied. “Why are you here?” he cheekily asked.

  “What is it to you, anyway,” asked Meddling Maurice.

  Neither Horrible Horace nor Tinkering Tommy replied; they were far too shocked to say anything, because they had just noticed the enormous kite resting on the ground.

  “How did you make it so big?” Tinkering Tommy asked them.

  Tapping the side of his nose, Meddling Maurice said, “That’s for us to know and for you to find out, creeps.”

  “I’ll knock your block off,” Tinkering Tommy growled.

  “Haw, haw!” their antagonists guffawed. “Haw, haw, losers!”

  Fifteen minutes later, when the two rival camps had calmed down enough to act half decently, the kite testing was ready to begin.

  “We should be there, in the best position at the top of the hill,” grumbled Horrible Horace.

  “I’m not so sure about that,” Tinkering Tommy said to him. “There’s more than enough wind to launch a kite from where we are.”

  He was right, although the day had started out fine, it had deteriorated from there.

  Licking a finger, testing for wind, Horrible Horace said, “Good, there is wind.”

  Guffawing loudly, Cheeky Charlie and Meddling Maurice lifted their kite, the father of all kites, proudly above them. It posed a formidable site, at least two feet longer and a foot wider than their opponents’ affair.

  “This is what you call a kite,” Cheeky Charlie proclaimed.

  “It’s the father of all kites,” Meddling Maurice said proudly.

  To add insult to injury, when Horrible Horace and Tinkering Tommy lifted Invincible, their rivals guffawed even louder. “A kite with no tail? That’s a new one, haw, haw!” they laughed.

  They were right, in their excitement, their rush to complete it, Horrible Horace and Tinkering Tommy had forgotten to give Invincible a tail.

  Withdrawing a distance away from them, Horrible Horace and Tinkering Tommy thanked their lucky stars that they had the foresight to bring extra supplies along with them. Delving a hand into one of the boxes, Tinkering Tommy searched for something they could use as a tail. “Aha!” he said, hardly daring to believe that he had found what he needed so quickly. Withdrawing his hand from the bag, he produced a piece of pink material.

  “Pink?” said Horrible Horace. “Not pink!”

  “Beggars can’t be choosers,” Tinkering Tommy replied. “Where is the scissors?”

  “It’s in the green bag,” he told him.

  “Thanks, now all that we need is some string,” his Tinkeringly intelligent friend said.

  However, after searching though all of the boxes and bags they had with them, they were unable to find any string.

  “Where is it, the string?” Tinkering Tommy asked.

  “I thought you were bringing it,” his Horrible friend replied.

  “But I thought you were bringing it,” Tommy said to him.

  It’s still there, in the air raid shelter, isn’t it?” Horrible Horace said despondently to him.

  “Yes,” Tommy answered, “I suppose it is.”

  “We will have to call off the test,” Tommy said dejectedly.

  “Not if we use some of the control string attached to Invincible,” Horrible Horace suggested.

  “No, that too dangerous,” Tommy protested. “The control string is guaranteed unbreakable, but only if it is not interfered with. We can’t risk interfering with it!”

  “Do you have a better suggestion?” the Horrible child asked.

  “No, he admitted, “I don’t.” Tinkering Tommy set about constructing the tail with the pink coloured material and control string.

  When the tail was finished, Tinkering Tommy attached it to the mother of all kites. Horrible Horace was in two minds as to how he felt about it; he was happy that she now had a tail, but embarrassed that it was pink. Returning to the hill, and their rivals, the friends knew they were in for a rollicking.

  “Haw, haw, look at its tail!” Cheeky Charlie guffawed the moment he saw it.

  “Are you sure that you haven’t forgotten something?” Meddling Maurice asked teasingly. “Like your DOLL?”

  “I’ll knock your block off, so I will!” Tinkering Tommy barked.

  “Calm down, Tinkering,” said Horrible Horace. “That’s what he’s trying to do, to get your goat up. Even though Invincible’s smaller than theirs, they have a fight on their hands – and well they know it.” Pointing at it, he said, “It’s inferior to our kite. Look at their workmanship!”

  “What’s wrong with our workmanship?” Cheeky Charlie asked, the smile fading from his face as he spoke.

  “It’s a mess, that’s what’ wrong with it!”

  If you are casting aspersions as to the quality of my workmanship,” bellowed Meddling Maurice, the smile having disappeared from his face, “I will knock your block off!”

  Realising what his rivals were at, playing them at their own game, Cheeky Charlie, said, “Ignore them, they’re braggarts. Come on, Meddling, we have the father of all kites to launch. And when he’s up there, flying high above their pathetic, pink tailed effort they will see who the best kite makers really are!”

  The Mother of all Storms

  Several minutes later, the rival teams were standing adjacent each other, ready for the off. However, much of the confidence they had enjoyed earlier had gone. The wind was blowing a gale, and the boys struggled to control their kites while still on the ground. They dreaded to think what it would be like once they were airborne.

  By mutual consent (though, not very mutual, considering the level of animosity between the two teams), they decided to wait for a while before launching their kites, to see if the wind eased. They waited and they waited and they waited some more, and although the wind eased somewhat, it was still too strong to launch kites.

  Tired of waiting, Horrible Horace lay down on the grass, then, closing his eyes, he fell asleep.

  Awakening from his slumbers a few minutes later, Horrible Horace heard Cheeky Charlie whispering to his friend. “Come On, Meddling,” he said, “I’m tired of waiting. Let’s get this kite of ours airborne. And once she’s up there, Eileen will show them who’s best!”

  Laughing hysterically, Horrible Horace said, “You think our kite is sissy, with its pink tail. At least we called ours something manly, not a girly name like Eileen!”

  “What on earth were you thinking of?” Tinkering Tommy asked them.

  “If you must know,” Cheeky Charlie said very un-cheekily, “it’s named after my mum.”

  On hearing this, Horrible Horace and Tinkering Tommy laughed even more.

  “Why didn’t you bring her along?” their Horrible rival teased. “She could have waved her namesake aloft!”

  “Why did you name her, so, anyhow?” Meddling Maurice asked his teammate.

  “Mum made me do it,” Cheeky Charlie admitted. “She wouldn’t give me her old frocks, the ones we used for our kite, if I didn’t promise to name it after her.”

  After hearing his explanation, Horrible Horace and Tinkering Tommy were at a loss for anything more horrible to say. They felt it was impossible to say anything more derisory about their rivals’ kite than Cheeky Charlie had already done.

  “Hurry up,” said Horrible Horace. “They’re about to launch Eileen!”

  “Come on!” said Cheeky Charlie, “I think they’re about to launch Invincible.” Then
he whispered to himself, “I wish we could have called our kite something like that.”

  Amidst an enormously strong gust of wind, the two kites rose fast into the air, up up they went, higher and higher.

  “I shouldn’t have launched Eileen,” Cheeky Charlie bemoaned. “The wind is too strong!” Struggling to keep hold of her, he said, “I can’t do it!”

  Although Horrible Horace was suffering from the same wind related problems, he gritted his teeth defiantly and fed out some more string to the already highflying kite.

  “You’re letting it go too high!” said his Tinkeringly worried friend. “Bring it lower,” he advised, “lest the string breaks and we lose it!”

  Grinning confidently, Horrible Horace said, “This string won’t break, it’s the best I could buy, one hundred per cent nylon, guaranteed unbreakable – remember?”

  Invincible’s string was unbreakable. Eileen’s string, however, was not. Made entirely of leftover bits and pieces of green twine that Meddling Maurice had found in his father’s potting shed, strength was most definitely not one of its good points.

  “I’m bringing her down,” Cheeky Charlie told Maurice. “She can’t take any more!”

  “Nor can you, by the look of your face!” gloated Horrible Horace, as he eased the unbreakable string a bit further out.

  As the father of all kites began its ignominious descent, the mother of all kites soared higher. “I told you she was Invincible!” Horrible Horace laughed. “Invincible by name and invincible by nature!”

  “You have proven enough,” Tinkering Tommy said to him. “The wind is far too strong to fly it safely. He was right; Invincible was flying all over the place.

  Admitting