Storyteller by Colin & Anne Brookfield (motivational novels for students txt) đ
- Author: Colin & Anne Brookfield
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âQuite finished have we Alf?â retorted Janet. âAs a matter of fact, Stan and I seem to be suffering from double delusions. He saw the girl, and in the same chair I saw a strange little old lady. So there you are, youâre up to speed Alf.â
âI donât know how you two manage all this, but Iâve got a gut feeling weâre going to hear more about this matter, so Iâve jotted my phone number down in case we donât meet again. Call me if something follows through on this story.â
On reaching home, they didnât mention the peculiar happenings to their parents or friends; it didnât take a lot of imagination to figure out the sort of jibes that would inevitably follow and there were of course, more important matters to be dealt with.
Their grandmother had offered to pay for a holiday for both of them to New Zealand, and to take something to her daughter, their Aunt Alice in Auckland. Their suitcases had already been half packed for several days; it had been one of the reasons Janet hadnât previously wanted to partner Stan to the dance.
âIâm much too busy doing other things,â she had protested at the time.
âTickets, documents and money are in an envelope on top of your cases,â they heard their mother shout from another room, âWrite our surname SWIFT on the case labels, and donât forget some comfortable shoes for walking.â
The household was up with the lark the following morning, rushing around and getting in each otherâs way. Nobody could get any peace, even at breakfast.
âOf course,â remarked their father as they tried to eat, âWhen I was young, London Airport wasnât posh like it is now. Hounslow Heath Airport, as I called it, was just a bunch of old army Nissan huts scattered about. There was a run down scrap yard on the left of the main entrance as you drove in off the Bath Road â much more efficient though in those days before the modern rot set in.â
A distinctive groan echoed around the table; their motherâs eyes rolled upwards and she swayed in a pretend swoon. That broke the ice and everyone fell about laughing.
âI havenât quite finished,â their father chipped in, âbecause, I was talking about matters to do with aircraft. I just thought youâd like to know that your motherâs grandmother, Molly, was mixed up in that sort of thing in the old pioneering days â you know â at the very beginning of the wood and canvas flying machines. She was quite a success from all accounts. They used to call her âMolly the Larkâ, because she also had a beautiful voice, but much preferred the air to having her feet on the ground. She should have given it all up before she was eighty, but of course, she didnât and it finally killed her. The newspapers in 1933 headlined it as, âThe wings of the Lark are lost, its voice no longer heardâ. It was disclosed later at the investigation, that it was a structural fault in the aircraft, that had caused the fatal crash.â
This brought a hush to the table.
âPoor Mollyâ and âhow terribleâ seemed to be on everybodyâs lips at the same time.
âWhy have we never heard of this before?â enquired Janet.
âCome on you two,â reminded their mother, âthe taxi will be here in a minute. Donât forget to call at my motherâs house on the way to the airport, she has something to give your Aunt Alice when you get to New Zealand, and make sure you pay your way, my sister is not wealthy. Another thing, your father and I are still not happy saying our goodbyes from home and not the airport. I canât understand why you young people are frightened to be seen with âmummy and daddyâ at the airport in front of your friends.â
As the taxi driver pulled up outside the address they gave him, he asked them to âmake it quickâ because they were short of time. It took a couple of minutes before their grandmother opened the front door to them.
âHi Gran!â they chortled together. âMust rush, the taxiâs waiting and we believe you have something for us to give to Aunt Alice in Auckland.â
Within a few minutes they were climbing into the taxi again.
âBye Gran! Catch up with you when we return from our holiday,â and they went off with a last wave from the taxi window.
There were a few grumbles at the airport from Janet.
âA gentleman would carry the heaviest case,â she moaned.
âI told you not to put so much junk in it, so itâs your problem.â replied Stan, which was not the answer sheâd hoped for.
When they eventually located the Departures desk, they found some seats and had to wait a while for Check-in to open.
Sometime later, as Stan and Janetâs parents were having lunch at a nearby restaurant, they overheard voices from a nearby table.
âHow awful!â one voice was heard to say, âthat plane crash today with all those poor people going on holiday to New Zealand.â
Mr. Swift placed his hand on his wifeâs arm; his face was deathly white as he rose to his feet and helped his wife to the door. They would never know how they managed the short distance to their house, but the lights were on, and should not have been. Mr Swift fumbled for ages with the keys. At last, the key found the right place and the door swung open.
A second later he fell to the floor, having tripped over two cases. Janet rushed out of the lounge towards the front door to find out what the noise was. She was just in time to catch her wavering mother. Stan helped his father to his feet then it all went quiet, as they held on to one another. Eventually they made their way into the lounge, but something was very wrong. They had expected their parents to be very annoyed with them for not taking the flight; instead, their emotional state was saying something entirely different.
It wasnât until their father put the wireless on, that they discovered that the aircraft they were supposed to be on had crashed on take-off to Rome, the first leg of the journey. Janet and Stan fell into one anotherâs arms and she wept.
âWe never knew that it had crashed,â stammered Stan as he sat his sister down. âWe have so much to tell you.â
âItâs rather a long and incredible story, so Iâll make some tea and we can explain everything.â added Janet, gaining her composure.
Their parents were rather confused as Stan and Janetâs story opened up with the strange blue-eyed girl, and the funny old lady at the Palais.
âWhat on earth has this got to do with this horrible air crash?â uttered her exasperated mother.
âItâs all part of whatâs happened,â Janet stressed, âit all started there, and it finished as we were waiting to go through Check-in.â
Then Stan related the whole story of how he saw, and was besotted with the beautiful girl at the Hammersmith Palais, and how Janet had seen an old lady sitting in the same seat that he was looking at. By now their parents were looking even more perplexed. He finished the tale up to where he and Janet were at the airport.
âYou remember Grandmaâs present that we collected to give to your sister in New Zealand?â said Stan, âWell, whilst we were waiting for Check-in to open, we looked inside the open envelope containing the present, because as I suspected, it was a few very old pictures. We were totally stunned by what we were looking at.â He stopped because Janet had burst into tears.
âThank you Grandma Molly, thank you,â she spluttered.
Two sepia hand-coloured pictures fell on the carpet, the right way up. One was of a beautiful black-haired, blue-eyed girl, and the other, of a funny little old lady. Then with hands clasped to the sides of her face, Janet again spluttered, âItâs Molly when she was young â and â when she was old.â
Stan looked towards his father.
âYou told us at breakfast how Great Grandmother Molly had died. You said a âstructural faultâ was given as the cause. Well it all added up for us at the airport. We could see she had been warning us about something, so we walked away and came home.
A stunned silence said all there was to be said, whilst it sank in for all of them.
Several weeks later, Alf, who had served them with tea at his mobile refreshment place, was brought up to date with everything that had happened.
âWhat a story to tell my customers. Iâll have to start an entertainment charge.â
A small entry in the paper a few months later, reported that the crashed flight to New Zealand, had been due to a âstructural faultâ.
Santa Claus is coming to TownFred had worked for a record company pressing vinyls, but the company moved on to more modern technology and had closed. He had worked for them for so many years that we even called our dog âNipperâ from the little Jack Russell that looks down the large horn on the phonograph, although it was hard to imagine our large Bull Mastiff in that picture.
There was no golden handshake for my husband and for three months he had been out of work, so with Christmas coming, it was going to be difficult. Our two children were getting excited, totally unaware of the problems that lay ahead for us, but I had promised to take them to see Santa Claus.
Fred had looked for work, and he finally managed to obtain some on a temporary basis with a local departmental store as Father Christmas, for the month before they closed for the holiday period. The outfit they gave him was â to say the least â a bit tatty but, it was a job that would take us through the Christmas period.
I decided not to take the children to the store in which their father was working, in case they recognised him even under the horrible old beard they had supplied. So on Christmas Eve, I took them on the London tube to see the lights, thinking it might cheer me up as well. I had already bought some small gifts for them so I didnât need to do any of that in town.
We managed to get round the market section at Covent Garden to get all the vegetables we needed for Christmas Day, and stayed awhile listening to the budding opera buskers, whilst having some lunch of sandwiches and tea. It was a lovely atmosphere with buskers of all kinds milling around, and living statues that only moved when you popped a few pennies in their hats.
After we left Covent Garden, we went for a walk round one of the little garden squares which are scattered around London. Their main purpose is for the residents of those areas, but some are open to the public. It was in one of these gardens we spotted a Santa Claus sitting on one of the garden benches around a
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