The Criminal Escapades of Geoffrey Larkin Page B

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    This meant to Geoff that he and his friends had to act that night, or not at all. The time between lights out at the school and when he thought it was safe to move seemed like an eternity.
    Eventually the four boys, in their stocking feet, walked down the dimly lit corridor between the dormitories, slowly making their way to the emergency exit that led onto the fire escape. This would not have been possible if the group had still been in the large shared dormitory.
    Several of the live-in teachers had bicycles locked away for safety in a shed near the craft workshop. John Bolton had no difficulty picking the old padlock on the shed door. Taking the bicycles from the bike shed they were ready to set off when Sooty dropped a bombshell.
    â€˜I can’t ride a bike.’
    â€˜Can’t ride a bike?’ repeated Derek Plant in amazement, while the other lads stood looking on, dumbfounded. ‘Why didn’t you tell us before?’ he continued in a raised voice.
    This caused an aggravated, ‘SHHH! Keep it quiet or you’ll wake the staff,’ from a tense and very nervous Geoff.
    â€˜Because you never asked me,’ replied Sooty to Derek’s previous outburst. The next half hour was spent a short distance down the road from the school showing Sooty the basic rudiments of riding a push bike, to the growing frustration of Geoff as they had a lot to do within the short time available.
    They eventually set off, Sooty wandering from one side of the road to the other but managing to stay upright on the bike, but fortunately for the group they were keeping to the back roads in the town to avoid the little traffic that was around at one o’clock in the morning.
    In no time at all they were in the country lanes and Sooty, after several near scrapes, seemed to have mastered riding the bike.
    The area seemed so different and eerie to Geoff and the rest of the lads in the dark of the night, than when Sooty and him had travelled in the work’s van in the early light of the mornings. The poor light from their bicycle lamps was insufficient to light their way properly and on several occasions one or the other would collide with the high banking at the side of the sunken lane near the entrance to the village church yard. ‘Shit!’ shouted Derek. ‘That’s the second time I’ve bloody run into the bank.’
    â€˜SHHH!’ whispered Geoff loudly, continuing, ‘It’s enough to waken the dead.’ This caused a peel of laughter from Sooty, who had mastered riding the bicycle quite well, and was the only one of the group not to hit the bank. At the bottom of the lane they arrived near to where they had been working that previous day. This was on the next but last stretch of the new overhead electric line that would finish on the outskirts of the village. They left their bicycles in the churchyard and walked the rest of the way up the lane on foot using the lights taken from their bikes to light their way. Taking the two wheelbarrows that were holding down the tarpaulin they loaded them with the copper wire then, taking it in turns, they pushed the heavily laden wheelbarrows down the lane towards the church situated on the edge of the village.
    It had been several days earlier that he and Sooty had taken a stroll during their lunch break. Looking curiously around the graveyard next to the church Geoff had suddenly shouted out, ‘Eureka!’ causing his friend Sooty, walking at the side of him, to jump in alarm.
    When the four boys entered the church grounds it took all four of them to push the heavily laden wheelbarrows up the final slope to the cemetery. Once they were there, it did not take long for the wire to be unloaded and slipped under the several gravestones to the tombs. These were horizontal to the ground but raised about nine inches on stone pillars, fortunately, the wire was hidden from view by the long grass that was growing up to the graves. It took many