wheelie bin several hundred yards down Cripsley Drive.’
There came a pause, during which I heard two sounds – teeth masticating cardboard, and something soft and squishy, up in my ears, drowning out rational thought: my heart. It just couldn’t seem to find its moorings today.
‘Now, boyyys , you may not know me, but I’m very dear friends with the club captain,’ declared the voice. ‘I know you’re in there, and though I might not know all of you, I certainly know one of you. Richard Coombs, can you hear me? I know you’re in there.’
At this, Trevor and the mystery pair of legs erupted into giggles. Richard Coombs was one of the junior section’s posh kids – he attended the local private school, seldom took advantage of his membership at Cripsley, probably thought ‘anarchy’ meant turning up with less than the regulation amount of spikes on his golf shoes, and would probably spontaneously transmogrify into a lemon meringue if the likes of Terry, Nick and Trevor so much as exhaled in his general direction. Moreover, he definitely wasn’t here.
She blabbered on. ‘… and you’ve got a choice, Richard. You can come right out here, pick my litter up off Cripsley Drive and return the wheelie bin, or I can tell the captain about your little game.’
Finally, we heard her retreating footsteps, followed shortly by Nick’s approaching ones. I picked myself up off the floor, inconspicuously, careful to be the last to do so, and properly identified Trevor, Terry, and the owner of the legs, a stick-like, blank-eyed girl with the translucent-yet-unremarkable complexion of an Addams Family extra.
‘What the fuck was all that about?’ asked Nick, as Trevor let him in.
What I had been witnessing, I discovered, was the aftermath of a game Nick had devised called Granny on Wheels. I listened as Nick, slightly miffed not to be included in his own invention, outlined the rules.
Granny on Wheels didn’t actually require a granny on wheels, or even a granny. In fact, I couldn’t really see where the granny bit came in at all, but I wasn’t going to tell Nick this. Granny on Wheels, he explained, could only be played on a Tuesday, when the residents of Cripsley Drive, the affluent road that ran parallel to the course, left their wheelie bins out for that week’s refuse collection. Wheelie bins, which had been introduced by the council the previous year as a fuss-free alternative to traditional, stationary bins, had already provided countless hours of revelry for the teenagers of the East Midlands, inspiring such games as Death Race 2000, Dalek Dodgems, and Drop the Local Sissy in the Wheelie Bin (Upside Down). Nick’s game was considerably more sophisticated, since it required the competitor to edge his Austin Allegro up the pavement until its front bumper was resting on the bin, then, more carefully and slowly still, use clutch control and subtle steering techniques to edge it out into the open road. The rules, after this, became more open-ended. In order to complete Granny on Wheels successfully, the competitor could choose from a number of equally tempting options, including finding a steep gradient down which to release the bin, nudging the bin into the path of an oncoming vehicle, shunting the bin into a drive several yards away from the one belonging to the original bin owner, and – simple but classic – stamping your foot down abruptly on the accelerator and sending the bin hurtling down the road ahead of you. The winner was the one who came up with the most innovative way of dispatching the bin, or made the most mess.
In this heat, it seemed, Trevor, as designated driver (from what I could gather, Trevor, Nick and Terry shared the Allegro – I can only assume they ‘acquired’ it together, each assuming equal responsibility, and thereafter agreeing upon joint ownership), had manoeuvred the Granny on Wheels into the path of an oncoming cement truck, which had duly dispatched it into a ditch
There came a pause, during which I heard two sounds – teeth masticating cardboard, and something soft and squishy, up in my ears, drowning out rational thought: my heart. It just couldn’t seem to find its moorings today.
‘Now, boyyys , you may not know me, but I’m very dear friends with the club captain,’ declared the voice. ‘I know you’re in there, and though I might not know all of you, I certainly know one of you. Richard Coombs, can you hear me? I know you’re in there.’
At this, Trevor and the mystery pair of legs erupted into giggles. Richard Coombs was one of the junior section’s posh kids – he attended the local private school, seldom took advantage of his membership at Cripsley, probably thought ‘anarchy’ meant turning up with less than the regulation amount of spikes on his golf shoes, and would probably spontaneously transmogrify into a lemon meringue if the likes of Terry, Nick and Trevor so much as exhaled in his general direction. Moreover, he definitely wasn’t here.
She blabbered on. ‘… and you’ve got a choice, Richard. You can come right out here, pick my litter up off Cripsley Drive and return the wheelie bin, or I can tell the captain about your little game.’
Finally, we heard her retreating footsteps, followed shortly by Nick’s approaching ones. I picked myself up off the floor, inconspicuously, careful to be the last to do so, and properly identified Trevor, Terry, and the owner of the legs, a stick-like, blank-eyed girl with the translucent-yet-unremarkable complexion of an Addams Family extra.
‘What the fuck was all that about?’ asked Nick, as Trevor let him in.
What I had been witnessing, I discovered, was the aftermath of a game Nick had devised called Granny on Wheels. I listened as Nick, slightly miffed not to be included in his own invention, outlined the rules.
Granny on Wheels didn’t actually require a granny on wheels, or even a granny. In fact, I couldn’t really see where the granny bit came in at all, but I wasn’t going to tell Nick this. Granny on Wheels, he explained, could only be played on a Tuesday, when the residents of Cripsley Drive, the affluent road that ran parallel to the course, left their wheelie bins out for that week’s refuse collection. Wheelie bins, which had been introduced by the council the previous year as a fuss-free alternative to traditional, stationary bins, had already provided countless hours of revelry for the teenagers of the East Midlands, inspiring such games as Death Race 2000, Dalek Dodgems, and Drop the Local Sissy in the Wheelie Bin (Upside Down). Nick’s game was considerably more sophisticated, since it required the competitor to edge his Austin Allegro up the pavement until its front bumper was resting on the bin, then, more carefully and slowly still, use clutch control and subtle steering techniques to edge it out into the open road. The rules, after this, became more open-ended. In order to complete Granny on Wheels successfully, the competitor could choose from a number of equally tempting options, including finding a steep gradient down which to release the bin, nudging the bin into the path of an oncoming vehicle, shunting the bin into a drive several yards away from the one belonging to the original bin owner, and – simple but classic – stamping your foot down abruptly on the accelerator and sending the bin hurtling down the road ahead of you. The winner was the one who came up with the most innovative way of dispatching the bin, or made the most mess.
In this heat, it seemed, Trevor, as designated driver (from what I could gather, Trevor, Nick and Terry shared the Allegro – I can only assume they ‘acquired’ it together, each assuming equal responsibility, and thereafter agreeing upon joint ownership), had manoeuvred the Granny on Wheels into the path of an oncoming cement truck, which had duly dispatched it into a ditch
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