Blue Flowers Part 5, final part

 

By the time we had finished laughing my over active imagination had come up with another story.

‘I know what it is it’s a crystal palace,’ I’d heard about one somewhere, ‘disguised as an old greenhouse to stop anyone going inside and exploring. Rob you and Jo stand guard and give us the whistle if you see anyone coming. The rest of us will go inside and find the treasure.’ We’d perfected this whistle, which we used to contact other members of the gang. Rob and Jo looked a bit upset by this but didn’t argue.

We got down onto our bellies and crawled through the long grass towards the greenhouse. The hot summer had made the ground very hard but we didn’t notice, our aim was the crystal palace. Bees and flies buzzed around our faces but did not stop our journey. I could hear the sound of our breathing and our legs rubbing along the ground. Even now if I close my eyes I can smell the grass and the soil and even the heat of the sun seemed to have a smell of its own. But above all I felt tremendously excited, it was the most adventurous thing I had ever done, I just knew that we would find real treasure.

‘Keep low,’ I whispered. ‘We don’t know who or what might be in there.’

I could almost feel the shiver of anticipation that ran through the gang.

We had reached the side of the greenhouse, its panes cracked and green with algae. We crawled round to where we thought the front would be.

‘Be on your guard men, we do not know what fate awaits us! We must be strong and resolute.’ I wasn’t sure what ‘resolute’ meant but I had read it somewhere and it sounded right.

We stood up carefully as we reached the door, our eyes were blinded by the sunlight and it took a few moments for them to acclimatise to the darkness inside. Of course it wasn’t dark, just dim the contrast between outside and in.

I was the leader so it was my job to go in first, to face any dangers that might be there.

‘I’ll suss it out. Any danger lads take care of yourselves. Stay here I’ll let you know when it’s safe.’ Of course in our past adventures there had never been any ‘real’ danger. We’d got shouted at, told to clear off, warned that our parents would be informed. We’d never done anything illegal or really stupid but this was something different. The closest we’d been to danger was when Keith had persuaded us to go to the old house. We’d squeezed through the fence but in spite of all his boasting about the tricks his dad had taught him he couldn’t manage to break in. I was rather pleased and I think the rest of the gang lost their trust in him.

I went in, squinting slightly. The first thing I noticed was the heat, sweat began to trickle down my back and on my forehead. It was almost unbearable, breathing was difficult. The next thing was the smell, not unpleasant but strange, a sort of damp, hot, sweetly rotting smell.

‘Neil! Is it safe to come in?’ once again that excited but slightly scared undertone to the voice.

‘Just give me a minute to look round, make sure it’s safe.’ I wanted this minute to myself, wanted to be the one to discover the ‘treasure’. I was convinced that I would find something, something that was deeply important. It was very dim but I could make out lots of pots and bags of soil and right at the end a sort of blue glow. I was fascinated; I just stood still and stared. It was as if a bit of the sky had fallen into the greenhouse. I smiled, it reminded me of that Chicken Licken story from nursery school. I didn’t have chance to discover more because the others had lost patience and had piled in behind me.

‘What have you found then?’ Keith putting on his bored and sarcastic voice.

‘Haven’t had chance to look properly yet. You lot look down here and I’ll go to the other end.’ I was intrigued by that blue glow. When I finally saw what it was I was captivated. There was a row of pots containing the strangest blue flowers I had ever seen. They were the colour of the sky and deep inside they had purple and deep red markings. They almost looked like living creatures and seemed to breathe in the slight breeze that wafted around. For a moment I thought that they were strange exotic beings watching me and waiting.

By this time the others had come and were crowding around me.

‘A load of old boring plants. Is that your treasure?’ Keith sounding quite gleeful at this.

Thinking quite quickly and not wanting to let the rest of the gang down, or lose face I suppose, I said,

‘These flowers will give whoever owns them long life and happiness.’

‘But that’s not treasure!’

‘Course it is. They will lead us to where treasure is and that will make us happy.’

That shut Keith up for a while. I looked round at my ‘men’ noticing that Rob and Jo were there.

‘Why aren’t you on guard?’

‘We got fed up and wanted to find out what you’d found.’

Just then a shadow darkened the door.

‘What you lot doing here? Get out, you’re trespassing. I’ll call the police.

An angry, quavery, old voice shouted at us. We all turned round and stared at the figure in the doorway. It was difficult to make out who, or what, it was. A scared whisper came from Jo; ‘It’s the madman!’ I think we all heard that and a slight ripple of fear ran through us. The shadow in the doorway moved forward waving a stick at us. ‘Get out of here you vandals, I’ve called the police. They’ll be here at any minute.’

I looked round trying to find the best escape route and in doing this my elbow caught one of the strange blue plants, which fell to the floor. It seemed to fall in slow motion and then explode into a hundred pieces. The noise it made was tremendous in that confined space. As a group we all seemed to draw in a breath, except for the figure in the doorway who let out a shriek.

I found it difficult to breathe, all the oxygen seemed to have been sucked out of that confined space. I looked at the ground where the blue flower lay and then back at the bench, I was sure that the remaining flowers were stretching their blue heads out towards us.

We ran, Keith pushing Jo in his haste to get away from the madman, all his bravado having evaporated. Jo fell, falling onto the shards of crock and completely destroying what was left of the blue plant. Another shriek from the madman. I struggled to pick up Jo who’d gone all limp like a rag doll. Partly dragging and partly carrying him I managed to scramble past the figure who continued shaking his stick, leaning against the fragile seeming glass wall. As I passed him I managed to say a quick ‘Sorry,’ and to catch a glimpse of a very angry face. We all ran to where we had left our bikes, Keith was nowhere to be seen.

When we stopped for breath Jo, who seemed to be slightly recovered, said, ‘It was the madman. Did you see his face? It was all twisted and there was froth coming out of his mouth!’ I took a quick look at Jo who didn’t seem much better himself, at the time I didn’t think much of it. We all had our different stories, each of us trying to make out that we weren’t scared of an old man.

It was late when we got back, ‘We’ve got to keep this secret,’ I said. ‘If anyone finds out that’s it. No more adventures.’

Jo didn’t look too good, he was very pale and he had a big cut on his hand and a graze on his cheek. ‘You’d better tell your mum that you fell off your bike. She’ll believe that you know how clumsy you are!’

He managed a halfhearted smile.

Next morning I called round to see how Jo was. There was no answer. The nosy neighbour poked her head out of the window, ‘They’ve had to take their Jo to hospital, he was taken poorly during the night.’

I stood and stared at her open mouthed.

Later that day the gang met up in the shed and I told them about Jo. I relayed what my mother had told me.

‘My mum said that when Jo fell off his bike, that’s what we told him to say, he banged his head and it made him have con.., I can’t remember the word, but its something wrong with his head and he’s got to stay in hospital. My mum looked worried but she said he’ll be OK.’

‘It’s your fault Keith, you pushed him trying to get away. You were scared!’ Bob shouted at him.

‘I was not scared. I’m not scared of anything. I wasn’t going to take the blame; it was Neil’s idea. It’s his fault not mine! Anyway this is a rubbish gang. Only came here ’cause I’d nothing better to do.’ He left the shed banging the door behind him.

‘I’m glad he’s gone, I hope he doesn’t come back.’

Keith did hang around a bit for the next few days, we didn’t make him feel very welcome but I think he did feel responsible for Jo, wanted to find out how he was. He usually leant on the doorframe and seemed immune to our dirty looks.

A couple of days after our ‘adventure’ my mum sat me down and tried to explain what had happened to Jo.

‘It wasn’t your fault,’ she could see I was close to tears. ‘When Jo fell of his bike he banged his head and that made a sort of swelling inside, a bit like when you banged your forehead and you had that great big lump. But this lump was inside his skull and it was pressing on his brain. They had to do an operation to make it better and we’ve got to wait to see how things go.’ I could feel the tears sliding down my cheeks now. She held me in her arms but it didn’t take away my feelings of guilt. I very nearly told her about what had really happened but I couldn’t bear to see the look of shock and disappointment that would have been on her face.

Jo had to stay in hospital for a while after that and he was never quite the same when he came home, quieter and somehow a bit slower. We tried to cheer him up but he was never the same Jo. Soon after his dad got a job in Manchester and they moved away, he didn’t even come and say goodbye.

 

‘The greenhouse…, can’t say I do.’

He had a puzzled expression on his face but I could tell that he did remember.

‘Wait a minute! It’s coming back to me,’ he laughed. ‘It was the madman wasn’t it? You said there would be treasure and we believed you and all there was were some crappy old blue flowers!’

He’d remembered that they were blue!

‘We ran so fast you couldn’t see us for dust. Don’t remember us having more adventures after that. The good old days eh!’

His body language told me more than his words ever could. He knew that we were responsible for Jo’s brain damage. I just hope that he is haunted by blue flowers just as I am.

‘Is that the time? I must get on. People to see places to go. You know how it is!

Here’s my card. Give me a ring when you’re next in my neck of the woods and we can have a really good chat about old times.’

He picked up his case and left without a backward glance. We both knew we’d never arrange to see each other again.