Jimmy, The Glue Factory and Mad Mr Viscous, Page 2

at the base of the largest of its many slagheaps, where the best bits of coal tended to fall and collect, silence and subterfuge were paramount. The only problem, however, was that the owners of the coalmine also knew this, and men, guards, patrolled it day and night, to stop the likes of them taking even one small piece of coal.

  This was a bone of contention for Jimmy, because the owners of the coalmine ignored the slagheaps, allowing them to grow bigger and bigger. In his young mind, he could see no problem, nothing at all wrong with collecting the pieces of coal that gathered there.

  “Hurry up, Eric,” said Jimmy, who had already half filled his battered old bucket.

  “I’m going as fast as I can,” Eric replied. Stopping, cocking his head to one side, he asked, “Did you hear something?”

  Holding a lump of shiny black coal in his hand, Jimmy froze with fright. However, he heard nothing, not a thing. Finally, picking up enough courage to speak, he said, “It must have been a piece of coal falling down the slagheap.” Relieved, the two boys resumed their coal collecting duties…

  When their buckets were full, Jimmy and Eric began the long, torturous return journey back up the slippery slagheap. It would have been a hard enough task for an adult to try, but for two small children encumbered by buckets filled to the top with heavy coal it was a slow, painful, torturous process that took them a full thirty minutes to do. Their fingers ached from the frost and their toes were numb. It was going to be a very slow climb indeed.

  After climbing for thirty minutes, the two boys were barely thirty feet higher from where they had started. It was beginning to get bright; the weak watery moon gone, replaced by a golden globe rising slowly above the eastern horizon. Although its rays were weak, they were warm enough to begin melting the frost. It was a double-edged sword. As their fingers and toes began to defrost, so too did the slagheap, making it all the more slippery underfoot.

  Again thinking he heard something, Eric looked down over his shoulder. At the base of the slagheap, he saw a man, a guard staring up at them. “Oi! You two!” the man hollered. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  Hearing this, the boys stopped dead in their tracks, hoping they might blend into the slagheap and thus disappear from sight.

  Shouting up at them, the guard said, “You’re trespassing! You do know that, don’t you?” Receiving no reply, he said angrily, “Trespassers get shot!”

  Well, that certainly did it, on hearing those words Jimmy and Eric dropped their buckets, coal and all, and scorched their way up the remainder of the slagheap so fast the guard was left speechless. He was also left hurt, as the two buckets came tumbling down the slagheap, smashing into him, knocking him for six.

  Eric had no problem passing under the fence, this time. He shot through the gap as if he had lost several pounds in weight, and he kept on running, way ahead of Jimmy, all the way home. It was only when he entered the safety of their own street did he slow down, allowing his friend to catch up.

  Puffing and panting, the two boys struggled to catch their breath. People were beginning to stir, people with questioning faces, wondering why Jimmy and Eric had coal dust all over them, but no coal in evidence to see. Embarrassed to have returned empty-handed, Eric suggested, “Same time tomorrow?”

  Smiling, Jimmy replied, “You bet!”

  “But we have no buckets!” Eric bemoaned.

  With a mischievous grin, Jimmy replied, “That guard has another thing coming if he thinks he’s keeping my bucket! Don’t worry, Eric. We will retrieve our buckets, and he will get his comeuppance! See you tomorrow, bye.”

  Retribution

  Next day, Jimmy and Eric returned to the coalmine, close to the base of the slagheap from which the guard had chased them from the previous morning. Jimmy, true to his word, retrieved his bucket…

  Skirting furtively behind the guards’ hut, Jimmy spied their two buckets, nestled amongst a huge pile of so many others. ‘Had they no idea,’ Jimmy thought, ‘what they were depriving the poor, unfortunate people of? Heat, that’s what!’ Thinking about this, Jimmy became angry, so angry.

  Grabbing hold of Eric’s bucket from the top of the pile, and then handing it to him, Jimmy whispered, “Listen, Eric.” Furtively peering through the grimy, frost-coated window of the guards’ hut, he said, “I have an idea how we can teach these two,” he pointed to the guards inside, ensconced in front of a potbelly stove, drinking cups of piping hot tea, “a good lesson.”

  Frowning, Eric whispered, “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” Jimmy nodded a yes. Unconvinced, Eric added, “It could get nasty – even dangerous!”

  “With a mischievous grin, Jimmy replied, “Danger is my middle name.” With that, the he tapped three times on the windowpane.

  “What on earth are you doing?” Eric bellowed, running around like a headless chicken, panicking.

  Still grinning, Jimmy said, “Watch and find out…”

  Eric watched all right, from behind the corner of the hut around which he beat a hasty retreat. Crouching low beneath the window, Jimmy listened.

  A man’s face appearing in the window, tried to see through the grimy, frost coated glass. Having no wish to end his tea beak so abruptly, seeing no one, he returned to his comfortable seat in front of the stove.

  “What was it, Joe?” the second man asked.

  “Dunno,” he replied, “Couldn’t see a thing, Fred.”

  “Bats,” said Fred, with a sniff of his nose, “They’re all over the place, out there. Smelly beggars, I tell you, the whole lot of them…”

  “Hmm, could be,” said Joe, retrieving his cup from the top of the stove, taking another gulp of tea. “Ah, that’s better.”

  The matter of the tapping having been resolved, the men settled down, enjoying their tea and the warmth of the stove.

  Feeling braver, Eric crept out from behind the corner. “What was all the about?” he asked.

  “To allay their fears.”

  “To allay their fears?” he asked, exasperated, thinking his friend had lost some marbles.

  “Yes, of course,” Jimmy replied. “If they happen to hear any other little noises, they will think it’s just more bats. That will open a window of opportunity for us…”

  “It will?”

  Jimmy nodded a yes.

  “Are you sure it will be safe up there?” Eric asked, giving Jimmy a hitch up the side of the hut, onto its roof. “It looks awfully slippery!”

  “Shush!” he replied. “Now hand me that bucket.”

  Eric passed him the bucket. It was not either of theirs, but another, smaller one that Jimmy had decided was perfect for the job in hand. Offering its handle to his awaiting, open mouth, Jimmy held it tightly between his chattering teeth. The metal was incredibly cold. Shimmying his way up the wooden shingled roof, Jimmy advanced inch by inch towards to his objective – the chimneypot. All of a sudden, one of the shingles broke loose, sliding noisily down the frosty incline. Jimmy froze with fright. Eric darted around the corner. The renegade shingle’s downward decent suddenly stopped – caught, captured by the gutter.

  “Did you hear that?” said Joe, staring up at the ceiling.

  “Yeh, more bats I’d hazard a guess,” Fred replied. “Put some more coal in the stove. Make plenty of smoke, that’ll sort out the smelly beggars.”

  Returning to his previous position, Eric whispered to his accomplice, “Phew! That was close!”

  Offering no reply, Jimmy continued his perilous ascent, where, thankfully, no more shingles broke loose.

  Sitting, straddled across the roof apex, Jimmy shuffled the last few inches towards the chimneystack. When he reached it, his objective, holding onto it for dear life, he stood up and inspected the chimney pot. It was smoky up there, incredibly smoky, the extra coal doing its job wonderfully. Jimmy began coughing.

  “Don’t cough, Jim,” Eric whispered, fearing for him.

  Holding his breath, trying to avoid inhaling the acrid black smoke, Jimmy relaxed h
is jaw, offering the bucket to his free hand. Placing it promptly inside the chimney pot, he smiled. It was a perfect fit, an airtight fit, a smoke-tight fit. He breathed again.

  Seeing this, Eric called up, (and it was a bit more than a whisper this time), “Come on, let us be away from here!”

  His attention distracted, Jimmy, losing his balance, slid down the frost-covered roof.

  Seeing this, Eric almost fainted with fright.

  The gutter; at the very last second Jimmy caught hold of the gutter, saving him from a nasty fall on the hard, frozen ground. With a swing and a twist of his body, he let go of the gutter, jumping the last few feet and toughing down safely of dear mother earth.

  “Don’t ever do anything like that again!” Eric chided. “I almost died with fright!”

  “Did you hear that?” Joe asked, looking towards the ceiling.

  “I already told you,” Fred tersely replied, annoyed with the string of interruptions to his beloved tea break, “it’s those bats.” Then he added, “Put some more coal in the stove, sort them out once and for all!”

  Squatting in front of the stove, Joe fiddled with its door, but it remained stubbornly shut. “It’s stuck,” he complained. “I can’t open it!”

  “Do I have to do everything myself?” Fred bemoaned, striding across, pushing him away. It opened; Fred opened the stove’s door all too easily, offering the smoke, which had been accumulating inside, free reign into their hut. It went everywhere. Billowing out from the stove, the thick, acrid smoke