Sky Run by Alex Shearer

away with it, as they try and look angelic afterwards so nobody would suspect.
    â€˜I think I got the idea from old Ben Harley,’ I said. ‘He’s got a gun.’
    â€˜Yes, you’re right,’ Peggy said. ‘He has, hasn’t he? He’s got that old harpooner. And if he goes on drinking that private stash of his the way he does, he’s going to end up shooting himself in the foot.’
    â€˜Would that hurt?’ I asked, wondering if we might hear Ben Harley yelling when he finally got round to shooting himself in the foot, even though his island was quite some distance away.
    â€˜What do you think, Martin?’
    â€˜It would hurt.’
    â€˜It would hurt like hell. He’ll end up walking round on a wooden leg, if he’s not careful. Though no doubt it would match his wooden brain.’
    â€˜Thought we weren’t supposed to use words like hell, Peggy.’
    â€˜No, kiddo. You’re not to use words like hell. I get to use them whenever I like.’
    â€˜Why’s that, Peggy? Isn’t that like don’t do as I do but do as I –?’
    â€˜No it isn’t. It’s not do as I say at all. I don’t want you saying as I say, or you’ll end up a foul-mouthed hick from the way-backs, and when you get to City Island they’ll think you’re a little savage – which, going by that gun there, they may have some grounds for supposing.’
    â€˜So why’s it all right for you to say words like hell, Peg, and not me?’
    â€˜Because I’m one hundred and twenty years old and I’ve paid my dues and you’re not and you haven’t.’
    â€˜So when I’m a hundred and twenty years old and I’ve paid my dues can I say words like hell then?’
    â€˜You seem to be saying them now, far as I can hear.’
    â€˜I mean, can I go saying them on a regular basis?’
    â€˜Martin, if you ever get to be my age, you can swear like a trooper all day long. You have my permission.’
    â€˜Will you give me a note saying I can do that?’
    â€˜The hell I will.’
    â€˜You’re saying it again, Peggy.’
    â€˜I’ve got provocation.’
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜You. You and that damn toy gun.’
    â€˜You’ve gone and said damn now, Peggy.’
    â€˜The hell I have.’
    â€˜No, you did. I heard you say it.’
    â€˜Martin, find something else to play with, can’t you? I don’t like guns.’
    â€˜But you’ve got a harpooner too. Hidden away. I’ve seen it.’
    â€˜Really? Well, two things about that. One, what are you doing rummaging about in my hidden-aways?’
    â€˜I came upon it by accident.’
    â€˜The hell you did. Two, that harpooner is for emergencies only, big emergencies. I don’t like guns, Martin. Not even pretend ones. You play at war and soldiers and shooting things, next thing you know you’re all grown up and you are a soldier and you
are
shooting things. Only, after you’ve pulled the trigger, what you pointed the gun at doesn’t get up.’
    â€˜Oh, I was only passing the time, Peg.’
    â€˜I know. I know you’re a good person at heart, Martin. It’s just sometimes playing at something is conditioning, preparation, you might say, for the real thing.’
    â€˜Well, I’ll throw it away then.’
    â€˜No, you don’t have to do that. I’m not forbidding it. You play with it as much as you like.’
    â€˜I don’t really want to any more.’
    â€˜Well, you want to come and help me go rock-combing?’
    â€˜Yes, OK. Think we’ll find anything today?’
    â€˜You never know.’
    So I just left the piece of wood by the coast there and we went rock-combing – which is searching the rocks for whatever the wind and solar tide might have brought in. Most of it’s rubbish, but you occasionally find useful stuff.
    Anyhow, what put me in mind of