There and back
Jun. 23rd, 2009 08:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
slowfox"So what's your dog called?" asks the shorter of the two girls in the back seat.
"Mali," quoth I, changing gear as we pick up speed on Chants. "Y'know, after the singer*..."
"Miley Cyrus?" she asks, evidently surprised, and suddenly I feel very old.
So, it's 6.40am and Mali and I are heading back to Castle Fox on the day's first walk. We get to the corner of Westbourne and Richmond, the one where there are two three storey houses marking the junction, both with a sort of tower built into the corner - the right hand one's cooler still, in that the 'tower' is set at 45° to the building's walls proper.
The left hand one's front garden is bounded by a 6' tall hedge - there's a gap in the hedge for the path to the front door, and hanging around there is a girl (Girl 1) who I'm guessing is about 17, clutching her arm, which has a rough bandage safety-pinned around her elbow.
Girl 1 sees me approaching, and vanishes through the hedge - I assume that she's headed back indoors, but instead she returns, this time accompanied by Girl 2, clearly one of her friends, and the two approach Mali and I.
"Can you give us £2.40?" Girl 1 asks. "My arm's broken and I'm trying to get home..."
It always fascinates me how people, when approaching completely random strangers in the street and asking for money, always request such precise amounts. Unfortunately, I don't have any cash on me. I'm walking Mali; we leave the house at 6.15am, and the first shops won't open for at least another ¾ of an hour after that, so there's little point carting cash about that's only going to jangle irritatingly in my pocketses, precious.
So, I explain that I haven't got any money on me, and Girl 2 starts explaining how the two of them have been at Hull Royal for the past 5 hours, waiting to get Girl 1's arm seen to, before they gave up and decided to walk home.
To Orchard Park (yes, where else?) - for those of you unacquainted with the intricacies of Hull's geo-political structure, Orchard Park is the rough end of a rough town, and yes, you'd have guessed that it would be Girl 1's address from the off.
Not to be dissuaded, and to be fair, the pair of them were looking pretty desperate, they ask me if I've got a car, then? "Yep," I confirm, non-committally.
"Well can't you drive us home, then?" pipes up Girl 2.
"Yep," I agree.
This floors them, a little, and bewilderment spreads across the two faces in front of me in stereo.
"Really?" enquires Girl 1, dubiously.
"Just give me a few minutes to get back home," I explain, waving vaguely in the general direction of Castle Fox, "drop him off," I nod at Mali, "and get the car. I'll be back."
So Mali and I head off down Richmond, and back to Castle Fox. I drop the hound off, pick up the car keys and then head straight back out the way I've just come, and stop in the middle of the road to pick the girls up.
They're very grateful. But as far as I can tell, they're also lying about how Girl 1 got her arm injured.
First off, it's not broken. She's got a nasty, deep gash just above the elbow. Girl 2 explains that they were 'out' and Girl 1 fell over onto a broken bottle. All I can tell is that the cut needs cleaning, and I tell them this.
But certain things don't tally. For one, Girl 2 is, if not dressed up in finery, at least dressed up for an evening out. Girl 1, however, is in a sleeveless top, wearing what can only be described as pajama bottoms, but the killer detail, for me, is that she's wearing slippers.
I don't point out these discrepancies - clearly there's more going on here than they want to tell me - and instead we head across to Orchard Park in the Micra, the two girls in the back, and me rather conscious of the fact that in the worst case scenario it's my word against two of theirs.
But, in the overall scheme of things, if it helped get those two out of whatever fix they were really in, I'd much rather it was me who drove them somewhere of their choice than some other less altruistic bloke, where the outcome might have been less pleasant.
* but spelt like the country
"Mali," quoth I, changing gear as we pick up speed on Chants. "Y'know, after the singer*..."
"Miley Cyrus?" she asks, evidently surprised, and suddenly I feel very old.
So, it's 6.40am and Mali and I are heading back to Castle Fox on the day's first walk. We get to the corner of Westbourne and Richmond, the one where there are two three storey houses marking the junction, both with a sort of tower built into the corner - the right hand one's cooler still, in that the 'tower' is set at 45° to the building's walls proper.
The left hand one's front garden is bounded by a 6' tall hedge - there's a gap in the hedge for the path to the front door, and hanging around there is a girl (Girl 1) who I'm guessing is about 17, clutching her arm, which has a rough bandage safety-pinned around her elbow.
Girl 1 sees me approaching, and vanishes through the hedge - I assume that she's headed back indoors, but instead she returns, this time accompanied by Girl 2, clearly one of her friends, and the two approach Mali and I.
"Can you give us £2.40?" Girl 1 asks. "My arm's broken and I'm trying to get home..."
It always fascinates me how people, when approaching completely random strangers in the street and asking for money, always request such precise amounts. Unfortunately, I don't have any cash on me. I'm walking Mali; we leave the house at 6.15am, and the first shops won't open for at least another ¾ of an hour after that, so there's little point carting cash about that's only going to jangle irritatingly in my pocketses, precious.
So, I explain that I haven't got any money on me, and Girl 2 starts explaining how the two of them have been at Hull Royal for the past 5 hours, waiting to get Girl 1's arm seen to, before they gave up and decided to walk home.
To Orchard Park (yes, where else?) - for those of you unacquainted with the intricacies of Hull's geo-political structure, Orchard Park is the rough end of a rough town, and yes, you'd have guessed that it would be Girl 1's address from the off.
Not to be dissuaded, and to be fair, the pair of them were looking pretty desperate, they ask me if I've got a car, then? "Yep," I confirm, non-committally.
"Well can't you drive us home, then?" pipes up Girl 2.
"Yep," I agree.
This floors them, a little, and bewilderment spreads across the two faces in front of me in stereo.
"Really?" enquires Girl 1, dubiously.
"Just give me a few minutes to get back home," I explain, waving vaguely in the general direction of Castle Fox, "drop him off," I nod at Mali, "and get the car. I'll be back."
So Mali and I head off down Richmond, and back to Castle Fox. I drop the hound off, pick up the car keys and then head straight back out the way I've just come, and stop in the middle of the road to pick the girls up.
They're very grateful. But as far as I can tell, they're also lying about how Girl 1 got her arm injured.
First off, it's not broken. She's got a nasty, deep gash just above the elbow. Girl 2 explains that they were 'out' and Girl 1 fell over onto a broken bottle. All I can tell is that the cut needs cleaning, and I tell them this.
But certain things don't tally. For one, Girl 2 is, if not dressed up in finery, at least dressed up for an evening out. Girl 1, however, is in a sleeveless top, wearing what can only be described as pajama bottoms, but the killer detail, for me, is that she's wearing slippers.
I don't point out these discrepancies - clearly there's more going on here than they want to tell me - and instead we head across to Orchard Park in the Micra, the two girls in the back, and me rather conscious of the fact that in the worst case scenario it's my word against two of theirs.
But, in the overall scheme of things, if it helped get those two out of whatever fix they were really in, I'd much rather it was me who drove them somewhere of their choice than some other less altruistic bloke, where the outcome might have been less pleasant.
* but spelt like the country
no subject
Date: 2009-06-23 08:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-23 08:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-23 10:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-23 10:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-23 10:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-23 12:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-23 12:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-23 12:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-23 12:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-23 12:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-23 07:11 pm (UTC)As for the rest of your adventure? It sounds like you fell into someone else's bad novel, or perhaps a Movie of the Week with some tragic Moral of the Story. Glad that your bit role in the extreme!drama didn't have any dire consequences for you! You're a kind, considerate person and those girls are VERY lucky that you were the one whom they stumbled upon for Knight in Shining Micra duties. You're a good egg, my friend.
And I suppose it's true: a fellow with a handsome hound at heel is much more approachable!
no subject
Date: 2009-06-24 06:56 am (UTC)My parents' cat was called Scrabble - the original owners got out the Scrabble set to play around with letters, trying to find a suitable name. At the end of the day, though, they couldn't come up with anything, and settled on 'Scrabble', which was a great name :-)
There was a dog at the first house my parents rented, called 'Speed', another fantastic name for a dog - particularly in 1970! And I was always proud of 'Djinn' for my supreme student days cat - the one with the pierced ear that could fetch and do back-flips - he was an awesome cat.