When it all Stopped

I was quite young the first time it happened, somewhere around ten or eleven years old. Probably eleven, because I seem to recall I hadn’t long started secondary school when it happened for the second time.

The first time, though, happened when a few of us were playing football, on the local park football pitch. I had a brand new football and we were – I suppose – testing it out. It was quite a windy day and it was a light ball, not regulation weight or anywhere near. Anyway, eventually the ball sailed through our improvised goal – jumpers for goalposts, of course - and over a garden wall.

I knew I had to get my ball back, even though the others all said that there was a dangerous dog in the garden. It was more an orchard than a garden, one that we’d never ever tried to scrump, because of this alleged big vicious dog, despite the fact that none of us could recall ever seeing it.

I climbed up onto the top of the wall and sat astride it, looking down into the orchard. A couple of my friends joined me up there and we peered into the long grass that covered the ground searching for the yellow ball. Eventually we saw it down by the trunk of one of the trees.

There was no sign of any dog, or even a sense that the orchard was anything but deserted. Even so, I dropped down from the wall as stealthily as I could and made straight for the ball.

I was strolling out, back to the wall, with the ball under my arm when the other two boys on the wall screamed and pointed behind me. I turned just in time to see the dog behind me – mid-leap. I crouched down, dropping the ball and covered my face with my arm, waiting for those massive vicious teeth to rip me to shreds….

Nothing happened….

Gingerly, I looked up from under my protecting arm. The dog was there in mid-air, spittle droplets hung in the air under its wide-open jaw, its ears blown back in the now non-existent air-resistance from its leap.

I looked around, one of the boys was open-mouthed too, silently screaming and pointing, the other had his hands over his eyes, half-turning away from the sight of me and the dog.

I didn’t hang around to see how long this tableau would remain, how long the freeze frame would last. I picked up my ball, threw it over the wall and then climbed up the tree nearest the wall.

I was shinning my way halfway along the bough that reached the wall when the roar of the dog and the scream of my mate split the silence again. By the time the boy and dog had realised I was no longer where they thought I was; I was safe back on the top of the wall again.