The Foot

 After Lunch

Mrs Gantry and Mrs Curtiss

would patrol the playground.

Mrs Curtiss was warm and friendly

as wax crayons.

Mrs Gantry was as spiky

as a fork.

The girls all loved Mrs Curtiss

and they bundled her from one game to another.

The brave ones sometimes

linked arms with Mrs Gantry

and her grey face

melted for a moment.

On Thursday,

it was

Richard Barnes and me

and John and Robert Jarvis.

We were talking

about tractors.

Robert was sitting

on the playground tarmac -

his shorts were baggy

and from where I was sitting

I could see his willy -

Attribution: Dave Fergusson

but his Dad had a Massey Ferguson

so I didn’t say anything.

All the girls had taken

Mrs Curtiss and Mrs Gantry

all the way

to the end of the field

where the wire-link fence

looked out into the wood.

Then

an infant

brought the message back -

they were showing them

a foot.

A what?

A foot!

How?  Where?  A What?

A foot -

honestly -

it is one.

Come and see.

So we had to go and look.

And it was a foot -

wasn’t it?

You could see it clearly

sticking out from behind the tree.

It was a foot

about five feet up in the air

sticking out from behind that tree.

Wasn’t it?

Somebody must be hiding there -

with their foot

sticking out.

But they were very still.

Did they know we had spotted them -

well - their foot?

We ought to call the police.

It might be a thief

or an outlaw

or somebody from St Gregory’s.

Lets Get Them.

We all wanted to climb over the fence and get them.

Well Ralph Bond didn’t.

And neither did Christopher Farrell.

Helen Cross said we couldn’t

and we wouldn’t dare anyway.

I said I did dare

I just didn’t want to go ...

Then Mrs Gantry said nobody

was going to ‘get them’

because there was nobody to be got.

She sent Christopher Downton

over the fence.

We were very quiet

as he tiptoed

up to the tree

with the foot sticking out and

pulled it off!

When he brought it back

you could see

it was just a bit of old toadstool

growing out of the other side of the tree.

I said I thought it was going to be something like that -

Richard said he did too -

and then the bell went

and we had to go

and do

papier mâché.