The Tooth Fairy by Graham Joyce Page B

to a girl.
    ‘See you next week, lads,’ shouted Skip, switching off the classroom lights with an extravagant sweep of his arm. ‘See you next week.’

Wide Games
     
    They did return to Scouts the following week but only because Wide Games were promised ‘to take advantage of the Indian summer’. As for the intimidation from the likes of Tooley and his cohorts, everyone assured them they’d simply been initiated.
    ‘They’re just seeing what you’re made of,’ Eric told Clive.
    ‘They’re simply teasing you all,’ Nev assured Sam.
    ‘It’s a kind of test, which you’ve passed,’ said Terry’s Uncle Charlie.
    So they went to the Wide Games, which were organized at Wistman’s Woods. The stipulation had been that they should gather at the end of the track leading to the wood rather than at the school where meetings were usually held. Terry, Clive and Sam donned their ill-fitting uniforms and took the road which passed the pond and the gymkhana field. It was a warm September evening, and the bronze disc of the sun was already low in the sky. Clouds of gnats flared in the yellow light, a thousand winged creatures individually aflame. As they approached the woods, a horse rider came trotting out between the trees. It was the girl from the gymkhana. Drawing abreast of them, she reined her mare and stopped. The horse seemed to want to walk on the spot. They too stopped.
    Her eyes were shadowed by the peak of her riding hat. She looked down at them with an expression of haughty amusement. ‘Boy Scouts,’ she said, landing a cynical emphasis onthe ‘boy’. There was both irony and contempt in her voice. ‘
Boy
Scouts.’ Without warning she urged her horse and cantered clear, leaving the three to gaze stupidly after her. None of them could think of anything to say.
    ‘Come on,’ Clive said at last. ‘Let’s find these games.’
    The activities were to be commenced in daylight and finished in darkness, they were told. A campfire would be lit. A command point was established, and colours were distributed. They were joined by Scouts in the unusual green shirts of the Coventry Forty-eighth, and all boys present were divided into three groups. Each group was given ‘honours’ in the form of a coloured flag ‘to be placed up a tree’. The object of the game was for each group to acquire, by cunning and stealth, all three flags.
    ‘By cunning and stealth,’ Skip repeated frequently, intoning the words.
    Sam followed his Eagle patrol and three members of the Forty-eighth who had the good fortune to be assigned to it, and together this ‘Blue Team’ went off into the woods. Five minutes into the game, Tooley stopped everyone dead and turned on one of the members of the Forty-eighth. ‘We need a decoy,’ he said.
    The young Scout was bundled to the floor, gagged, his hands tied behind his back and his legs lashed together at the ankles. His two comrades looked ready to object, but sizing up Tooley made them think better of it. The blue flag was stuffed half way into the boy’s breast pocket, a rope was tossed over a tree branch and he was hoisted by his feet to dangle, upside down, eight feet from the ground. Then the rope was lashed to the trunk of a fallen tree. The blue flag hung invitingly from his breast pocket.
    ‘Now we hide,’ said Tooley.
    The group took cover behind toppled, rotting logs and dense bushes. Tooley crouched near Sam. They waited in silence. After a moment, Sam cleared his throat, and Tooleyrewarded him with a stinging slap to the ear. Tooley bared his teeth. They waited several minutes. Sam, kneeling, developed cramp in his leg but dared not risk another slap from his Patrol Leader. He crouched in agony.
    Eventually a pigeon broke through the trees, followed by the shrill clucket of a disturbed blackbird. Tooley’s muscles coiled like springs. Two young Scouts appeared, stalking the path. Sam recognized them as Falcons from his own troop. They stopped dead when they saw the