THE MAN AT FLETCHER’S CROSS

a simple lesson simpy learned

 “The old man told me,” whispered an excited Daniel, “that if we walk down this path forever we’ll come on a cave loaded with all sorts of treasures and goodies. He even mentioned the next generation of X-Boxes lying about with nobody wanting them.”

“Tell me again what we have to do to find these goodies?” asked Jenny.

“It’s easy, Jen: walk down this path forever. That’s what the man said, and that can’t be hard, can it?”

“And how far is forever?” asked Jenny in her most cynical voice.

“It’s, oh, I don’t know, maybe a couple of miles?” suggested Daniel, who really wanted a new X-Box because all he had to play on was an old Amstrad, and that was nearly fifty years old with dead old fashioned games.

“Forever, cuckoo, isn’t a number of miles but a measure of time,” Jenny told him in a voice that suggested that, being a girl, she knew stuff a lot better than any boy did.

Daniel frowned. “Are you sure of that?” he asked.

“Just think about it, Dan,” she said, her voice softening when she saw his frown struggling. “Forever means until there isn’t any more time anywhere. Until days and nights, years and decades, even centuries, have run out and there’s no more time. That’s how long we’d have to walk for.”

“I can’t keep walking for that long,” decided Daniel, “my legs wouldn’t be able to manage such a lot of walking.”

“And you’d die of old age long before you reached your magical cave, Dan,” she soothed him gently, “and then there’s be no point in you having a brand new X-Box would there? Dead boys can’t play games!”

“Then why did that old man tell me such stuff if it doesn’t mean anything?” asked Daniel, peeved, “and why would anyone want a cave filled with treasures and X-Boxes?”

“What old man was it?” asked Jenny, struggling to remember seeing any old man in their part of the estate because mostly it was families with kids like her and Daniel, and even if they had a granddad he wasn’t ever quite that old.

“I dunno,” replied Daniel, frowning. “He was wearing old men’s shorts and a bright green hat, and he did a lot of smiling, and he smelled a bit horrible.”

“Was he smiling because he was having you on?” asked Jenny.

“And,” remembered Daniel, “he said it we made it to the cave we could be home in time for dinner!”

“Not if you walked forever you wouldn’t! And what was all that we business? I don’t go to places I don’t know, especially if I’m told to by a stranger. Mum and dad are both very firm on that. Strangers can mean to hurt you.”

“My old man wouldn’t hurt a soul,” insisted Daniel, “he told me so himself!”

“That does it then,” decided Jenny, “he was obviously lying.”

“He also said you’d say that!” snorted the boy. “Anyway, I’m going to walk as far as Fletcher’s Cross and see if I can spot his cave. And if I can find all the riches he told me about, they will be mine for the taking.”

“And an X-Box,” almost sneered Jenny.

“And an X-Box,” he nodded, and he set off towards Fletcher’s Cross, which was where in the long ago of the estate two roads had crossed each other. And a stone cross had been erected there to mark where once upon a time a man called Fletcher had lived, guarding the roads from bandits and highwaymen, or so the story went. Since then one of the roads had gone out of use and actually disappeared leaving just a weathered stone cross to mark where once it had been.

Daniel walked along, humming and then singing as he went because it was the sort of day that makes a boy want to sing, especially when the sun was shining like it was that day. He would have liked it if Jenny had come with him, but, well, she was a girl and girls don’t like adventures. All they did at his school was do handstands against the school hall wall, and that was no fun at all. At least, not to an adventurous boy like him.

He’d never walked as far as Fletcher’s Cross before, but being bold and resolute and desperately in need of an X-Box he did that day, and much to his dismay, when he got there all he could see was a row of new houses and the old stone cross which probably said something about someone called Fletcher engraved on it, but if it did it was so worn he couldn’t make out a single word.

“So you’ve come for your treasure,” remarked a voice from behind the old stone cross. “That makes you either a very good boy or a very greedy boy!”

“It’s you!” gasped Daniel when he saw the old man who had first mentioned the marvels he might find on this walk. And he noticed the slightly unpleasant smell, sort of smokey and cigaretty, and wrinkled his nose at it.

“Of course it’s me!” smiled the really old and gnarled man, and he thrust his hands into his shorts pockets and hitched them up.

“Jenny said I shouldn’t talk to strangers,” said Daniel, “are you a stranger?”

“If you don’t know me then I’m a stranger,” replied the old man, grinning broadly.

“And are you going to hurt me, because if you are I must tell you I’m nearly eleven and as strong as an ox!”

“That’s very scary,” smiled the old man, “let me tell you who I am. My name’s Toby Fletcher and I’ve been here, near this stone cross, ever since before it was put here.”

“That must be, oh, more than two years?” suggested Daniel.

“Oh, it’s a great deal longer than that! You say you’re nearly eleven, do you? Well, I’ve been here twenty times longer than your nearly eleven years!”

Daniel frowned as he tried to work it out, and he concluded that he’d heard that hardly anybody lived to be a hundred, and this old man said he was much older than that, though he hadn’t quite finished working it out.

“And I’ve got a present for you,” added Toby.

“Why for me?” Daniel was beginning to get suspicious because he’d done nothing special to warrant a present. Finding a cave filled with treasure would be one thing and okay for thr taking, but a present from an old man was very much something else.

“I’ll tell you why for you,” sighed Toby, “because you trusted me when I told you to walk forever and because even though you worked out that nobody can walk forever you still came down this road in search of the cave I told you about even though you must have worked out that there’s no such place. And that was because you trusted me.”

“Jenny said…” began Daniel, then he shut up. Jenny was his friend, his best friend if the truth was to be told, and he didn’t want to let her down by saying something she might not like him to say.

“But she’s a girl!” exclaimed Toby, “and you know what girls are like…?

“She’s nice,” admitted Daniel.

“Yes! That’s the word! Girls are nice!” laughed Toby, “I should have learned that when I was alive, but I didn’t. I hurt girls. I hated them. They always got the best things and I got nothing. So I hurt them, and I’ve been sent here to learn how wrong I was… And you’ve told me that girls can be nice! Maybe I should have known that rather than be unkind to people, especially to girls.”

“Dan! Dan! Where are you!” shouted a voice she knew belonged to Jenny.

“Here,” he replied, “I’m here, Jen, and Mr Toby here says he’s got a present for me.”

He indicated the place where Toby had been standing but there was nobody there. And the strange smell, like the smell of stale tobacco and pipes that belched smoke when they were sucked outside the pub by old men arguing or laughing or simply standing stil down the road from where he lived, that had gone too.

Instead there was Jenny, smiling at him, and he knew one thing for sure, above all others.

He had a really good friend who had come all this way to make sure he was all right. He must remember that forever and if he ever saw Toby again, me must thank him too.

© Peter Rogerson. 20.03.23

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Reviews

[DIVYA]

A great conclusion to the story. Daniel may not have found his treasures but then the realization that dawned on him was such a treasure in itself. And it was Toby who helped him with that. Sometimes, faith can lead one to good places, even faith in a stranger. Children, more often, have that kind of faith. Once again, the interesting story telling kept me glued till the very end. Your narration is so effortless, well paced and easy to understand. The flow is great and there are no hitches anywhere. All of it makes for a great reading experience. I wonder if you have thought of submitting your stories for publishing. I'll certainly be reading all in your collection.

[Peter Rogerson]

I did self-publish some material over twenty years ago on the Lulu site, which pleased me because all it cost me was the copies I chose to buy myself, but since then I'm quite happy being an old man knocking out stuff to please myself. Thank you for your observations and kind words. I note you are in India. Coincidentally my eldest daughter is moving to a job in India in a month or so!

[DIVYA]

Wow! That's nice to know. Please do convey my best regards to her, from India.

You're most welcome and I'm enjoying your stories. Thank you for sharing.

[Bob Carr]

I was hoping he'd get the X-box. Very readable, and nicely open-ended.