Down By The Pond

   I can't remember how Dan and I became friends. He was a full year and a head taller than myself. From the age of eight he wore band shirts and had a ponytail, and was the first one amongst us to get a girlfriend.

He made friends with lower years by performing the "roller coaster", swinging them round and round by their wrists until finally allowing gravity shoot them several feet. Sounds painful, but we loved it. He was the clear choice for Baloo in our school production of The Jungle Book. My parents didn't want to see it. I didn't get a part, and the idea of two hours of children's amateur dramatics didn't thrill them. I locked myself in my room until they promised we would go.

  He was the only reason I had attended the school fete that day. I had grown tired of the same old wheeled out stalls. The coconut shy that needed of a new coat of paint. The Punch and Judy man showing more of his wrist each year. But this was one of the few chances to explore on our own, without a watchful parental eye. With Dan.

  We arrived at midday. The school's name and the current year was painted on a sugar paper sign at the fete's entrance. I scanned the playground for Dan. Maybe he changed his mind. Maybe he was ill.

  The truth was much worse.

   Dan stood near the raffle with Lewis. Lewis wore his usual grey hoodie and beige trousers. Lewis's mouth moved, and though I could not see the words, I knew they tone was squeaky, with breaths peppering the sentence structure. Lewis was in my year. He was somehow my friend as well.

  Mum checked out the terracotta plant stall, something beyond my comprehension as a source of enjoyment. I made my feelings known. She gave me a fiver, and I slipped it into my Felix the Cat wallet. Soon I was on my way.

  'Dan!'

  Dan turned his head and waved, and all my doubts and fears washed away.  my voice came in his direction. Lewis waved as well. I didn't wave back.

  'Love Mr. Bryant's jacket,' Dan said, smirking, and  pointed at our headmaster's canary yellow Old Navy zip-up top. Mr Bryant leant over the jam jar booth, his elbow about to knock one onto the floor. I laughed. A wheezy laughed followed after.

"It's like the one he wore when he took us for P.E. that time! You know, it had those blue patterns on it.." Lewis began another tiresome anecdote. Mr Bryant scooping up jam and glass off the grass was much more amusing.

  "Yeah, just like that." Dan glanced towards the path that led round the school building, long past the last of the stalls. 'I'm going to check out something. Want to come?'

  'My Mum won't be pleased.' Lewis said. He had put on his sunglasses, or as he insisted on calling them, "shades."
Looking back, this must have been very sweet, if a little tiresome, from an eight year old.

'Ok Dan, but not too long eh?' I said. 'My Mum will probably be looking out for me too." She definitely would.

'Cool.'  Dan was already heading off, Lewis tagging behind him. My place was on his left.

Soon we were in the other playground reserved for the older years. The paint on the swings and play sets were chipped, and grass poked through the concrete. Beyond this a wooden fence, lichen dusting the boards.

  'In there.' Dan pointed towards the fence.

'Sounds cool to me.' Lewis said, his voice increasing in pitch with every word.

  What's inside?' I said. I guessed broken glass and telling off.

  'The old pond. You can see it through the fence.'