noticed my hands; they were perfectly clean. My clothes were also clean. “Wow!” I whooped again. Turning round, I raced along the platform, to tell Joe what had just happened. “Joe, Joe!” I called into the cab. “Are you there?” The driver’s cab, however, was silent and empty. “Where is he?” I grizzled, confused by his sudden disappearance. “Perhaps he is inside the train, having a rest,” I said hopefully. I boarded the train and searched it from one end to the other, but never found Joe.
“Did you have a good time?” the ticket collector enquired, as I exited the platform.
“I did. I had a very good time, thank you,” I told him. “Do you know where Joe is?” I asked him.
“Joe? Joe who?”
“Joe Bloggs, of course,” I told him. “He is the engine driver. He drives the Mallard.”
“Joe Bloggs, you say?”
“Yes, he made me some tea then let me sit on his seat…”
“That’s mighty peculiar,” the ticket collector said, as he gazed peculiarly along the platform, toward the Mallard.
“Why is it strange?” I asked him.
“You see,” he said slowly, thoughtfully, “Joe Bloggs is dead.”
“He can’t be dead!” I answered. “I was just talking to him!”
“I’m afraid that he is,” he instituted. “He died a year ago, to this very day. I don’t know if I should be telling you this, you being a young kid, and all…”
“Tell me, tell me!” I implored.
“He – Joe – died right there, where he worked, seated in the cab of his beloved Mallard…”
As I made my way back to our train I was in a daze. I was confused and bewildered by what I had seen. My friend, my new friend Joe Bloggs had died a year before I met him. Suddenly remembering my socks, and how they had changed colour, I said, “Magic; it was magic that helped me to meet Joe, and my socks changing colour are proof that it really did happen.”
I caught up with Maria, where she was standing outside the cafeteria. “You were supposed to stay with me!” she growled. “Where have you been?”
“I was talking to Joe,” I told her.
She ignored what I had just said; she was far more interested in telling me about dad. “Do you know where dad is?” she asked me, her annoyance with him only too evident in her voice. “I will tell you where he is,” she continued. “He is inside that, that cafeteria – drinking his fourth cup of tea, no less!” Fuming, she said, “Look at the time! We’ve only got five minute until our train leaves!”
She was right; there were only five minutes before the train pulled out from the station.
“Go into the cafeteria and get him out of there!” she ordered me. “I’ve tried it four times already without any success.”
Entering the cafeteria, I approached dad. He was standing at the counter, where he was drinking his beloved tea. “Dad – dad!” I called out to him.
“What is it?” he answered.
“Dad, the train leaves in less than five minutes! You have got to come with Maria and me – now!”
“I will leave when I am ready,” he told me. “Why aren’t you on it?” he enquired.
“I, we…”
“Go, go get on the train!” he told me. “Your mother will be sick with worry, wondering where you have got to.”
“But...”
“Go – now!” he barked. “Hurry!”
We ran; Maria and I ran as fast as our legs would carry us, to our train.
“Where on earth have you been all this time?” mum asked, as we slid open the door and entered our compartment
We stared; we stared at a Chinese man sitting in the sixth seat. He smiled at us.
“Stop staring at the man,” mum told us.
“Dad’s still in the cafeteria!” I told mum. “He said he was going to get you some tea.”
“He would,” mum answered. “It’s not for my benefit, though, but his...” The carriage moved; it shuddered and jolted back and forwards for a few seconds. “They’re getting ready to go!” mum cried out in alarm. “Where is dad?”
The train shuddered again, and then it began moving.
“Dad, dad!” mum cried out, worried for him. She opened the window and poked her head through it. “Where are you, dad?” she asked.
Then we saw him, we saw dad running alongside the train, carrying two beakers of tea.
“Open the door, before he runs out of platform!” mum roared.
On hearing this, the Chinese man leapt up from his seat and ran out of the compartment. Opening the carriage door, he invited dad in.
“Thanks,” dad said gratefully as he clambered aboard. “It’s leaving a bit early, isn’t it?” The Chinese man smiled in reply. Coughing nervously, dad entered our compartment. “There you are, my dear,” he said, handing mum one of teas, “a nice beaker of tea for you.”
Sliding the compartment door closed, dad returned to his seat, where he began drinking his tea. Finishing his tea, dad rested his feet on the empty seat opposite him. “I need some shuteye, he said to us. “Running along the platform has played havoc with my feet, so it has.” The compartment door suddenly slid open, revealing the Chinese man who had helped dad onto the train.
“I am sorry, but this compartment is taken,” dad advised him.
“Yes,” the Chinese answered. “I am in it.”
“No, no, you don’t understand!” dad told him. “There is only one empty seat!”
“Smiling at dad, the Chinese man said, “I am only the one person.”
“But no one travels alone!” dad insisted.
“I do,” he admitted, smiling again.
“But, but...” dad spluttered, “where is your wife?”
“In china,” he answered. “You like to see picture?”
“No thank you.”
“Can I come in now?”
“Yes, I suppose so,” dad answered, accepting defeat.
after taking his bag down from the overhead luggage rack, the Chinese man sat on his seat with it.
“How did that get up there?” dad asked.
“It’s mine,” the Chinese man told him. Opening the bag, he produced some bowls and plates from within it. “You like some curry?” he asked dad.
Eyeballing the curry with a growing disdain, dad answered, “Curry is from ‘out foreign’, is it not?”
“It’s from Luton, where I live,” he told dad.
“But, but you are Chinese,” dad insisted. “So your curry must be Chinese, also!”
Smiling yet again, the Chinese man produced a boiled egg from one of his containers. “You like a boiled egg, instead?” he enquired.
Accepting the egg, dad answered. “That’s more like it! You wouldn’t happen to have any tea in that bag of yours, would you?”
That was how my first holiday to Ireland began. Regarding my socks, well, no one believed they actually changed colour. They paid no attention to me, either, when I told them about my hands and clothes miraculously getting cleaned. Despite what they thought, these things really did happen. Moreover, Joe Bloggs, the man who had the best job in the world, had been a part of this magic, despite being dead.
THE END
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