Five Boys by Mick Jackson Page B

the wink was as big a part of the joke as the actual mother-in-law.
    “How do you get the sugar out?” said Bobby.
    Aldred grew suddenly solemn and for a moment Bobby thought he was going to bring his hand up to his temples and do his Memory Man routine.
    “Well, first of all,” he said, “you’ve got to boil it up …” He paused. “… then you keep on boiling it. And when it’s been boiling and boiling and boiling …” He paused again. “… you just sort of squash it out.”
    Bobby stared at the heap of beets, wondering how any amount of boiling and squashing might cause white sugar to pour from it, when a head popped up out of the vegetables. Bobby jumped. Aldred almost fell right off the gate.
    Howard Kent must have been woken by all the talk of boiling and squashing. As he came blinking toward the boys in his muddy overalls Bobby thought that it was probably much more likely that Mr. Kent had been relaxing
against
the far side of the heap of beets rather than deep within it—but it still seemed like an uncomfortable place to take a nap.
    Howard leaned over the gate and looked up and down the track to see if the boys had any young mothers with them.
    “What are you two up to?” he said.
    Aldred was anxious to recover his authority. “I’m taking Bobby down to see Old Tom,” he said.
    Howard turned and headed back toward the sugar beets. “Well, you’d better be getting along,” he said.
    • • •
    When they reached the top of the hill they filled their lungs, then sat and looked down into the valley. The river was flat and silver far below them and wound its way across the valley floor so benignly that Aldred decided to save all his stories of currents and drownings until they were alongside it, when things would hopefully look a little more dangerous.
    He pointed out a clump of trees, packed as tight as broccoli, on a small peninsula where Old Tom’s boathouse was tucked away and, on the other side of the valley, a derelict building which had once been a cider house, run by an old woman who used to put curses on any customers who got behind with their bills.
    They got to their feet and Aldred was getting ready to go charging down the hillside and already planning a little trip and tumble toward the end. He turned to Bobby to say “Ready, steady …” but Bobby was miles away.
    “What?” said Aldred.
    Bobby was gazing down the river, beyond the trees with the boathouse buried beneath them, to where the water glinted between the interlocking hills.
    Aldred squinted but couldn’t see anything.
    “What?” he said again.
    Then he saw a smudge just above the water, like an insect caught in the sun. And a gust of wind brought a short blast of sound up the valley—the same drone of an engine that Bobby had picked up a few seconds before.
    “It’s a Spitfire,” said Aldred.
    Bobby shook his head and kept staring down the river. “It’s too rough for a Merlin,” he said. And they both stood and watched as the plane kept on toward them—real nowand its engine constant—until Bobby suddenly laughed out loud.
    “It’s a One-Ninety,” he said. “It’s a Focke Wulf.”
    Bobby waited and for a while Aldred stood firm beside him. Bobby’s eyes never left the approaching plane, which had now ceased to be a mere fraction in the valley and become the only important thing in it.
    The closer it came the more speed it gathered about it, until suddenly it was tearing a great hole right through the day. Then it was over the woods below. Then dipping a wing to pull out of the bend in the river. Then heading straight toward the boys.
    Bobby wasn’t aware of Aldred’s departure. But seeing the fields and hills so easily breached threatened to overwhelm him. And something in the dull shudder of the airplane’s engine had him back home, tucked away under the stairs.
    “The heavens declare Thy glory,” he heard his father singing, “the firmament Thy power …”
    The plane leveled its wings and