As you know, due to the academic commitments of the lovely Miss Harper, we are all obliged to rise at 5am on Thursdays and Fridays. Well, the morning proceeded with all the trappings of normality that conducting any kind of business at the god forsaken time can. Girl is clad in Pyjamas, dressing gown and a thick wrapped blanket. She is attempting to sleep whilst eating a croissant and drooling. We make the short journey to the station in good time; the roads are empty with that slightly haunted feeling that early travel affords.
Miss Harper has an amazing memory, she's genuinely gifted in that respect and only needs to see or hear a thing once before being able to recall it. . . However on this occasion she has forgotten her ticket, purse, phone and keys. . . She only does two days a week and so they are packed and important. I had my wallet so we resigned ourselves to the purchase of a new ticket. As we were leaving Miss Harper remembered I had a two hour meeting after school and so I gave her my keys in order that she be able to get in. . . .
Me and Lyra arrived home at about 6:10 only to discover that we had no way of getting in. . . Yes I am a dolt. . . Sadly Miss Harper is very good at locking all the windows, so no possibilities there. . Me and girl start exploring the dark, over grown alley at the back of the house. I can tell she is a little frightened as she is taking long, hunter like steps and her eyes are quite wide. I manage to locate two dustbins which I can stack and use them to climb over a neighbours back gate, ours is unassailably high . . I would then like to tell you that I vaulted over a couple of brick walls in order to get into our back garden. . sadly we all know this to be unlikely. The reality was that I scraped and slithered my way over the walls and finally got into our back yard. It's worth adding to the already compelling image you are no doubt forming that I'm clad in my own pyjamas still . . . Girl isin the alley at this point and becoming increasingly agitated. I slide back the bolt on our back gate and we are both relieved.
I stride purposefully towards the house and break a hundred fat spider webs with my furrowed brow. My hand draws over my face and sadly this results in somewhat sticky eye brows. My right foot lands perfectly in the middle of an old washing up bowl that girl plays with in the garden. It is cold and dirty and manages to bestow these blessings upon my afore mentioned foot and starts to seep up my pyjama leg, just as the dread realisation that I'm going to have to do something drastic is making it's way from my screaming monkey brain down my spine. The two meet and occasion a might sigh.
Girl is getting a bit worried and prophesising that we will “never be able to get in” and moaning about how “We can never go home”. It is her Harvest Festival and she is quite anxious to go armed with a ropey jar of homemade chutney me and Miss Harper are feeling smug about offloading.
I realise that there is no alternative but for me to kick down the back door. Our back door has a variety of locks and I am determined to preserve the Chubb lock so that I can leave the house secure that day. I need to kick the dead bolt off and hope the Chubb will just ‘pop’. The first difficulty I am faced with is the fact that the dead bolt is fitted to the top of the door. Despite embodying the perfect hybrid of Adonis and a ninja my reach is somewhat . . limited. . I improvise by hanging off of the adjacent wall and thrashing at the top of the door. I’m conscious of the fact that I look a little bit like an Umpa-Lumpa being electrocuted . . It’s not like it is in the movies. In fact it took about ten minutes of thrashing and kicking for me to kick the dead-bolt off. . . At one point in proceedings Lyra decided to lend a hand. She took a run up, growled to summon the ‘strength of the bear’ and hurled herself at the door. Sadly our trajectories merely resulted in me being mildly hamstrung.
Most neighbours exist somewhere on the curious to obsessively nosey spectrum and ours are no different. It is with more than a mild sense of resentment that I noted not one of them decided to even curtain twitch, despite the kicking, bear noises, splintering of wood and other criminal type sounds. . .
Finally we gain entry to our house, the dead bolt springs off of the door with a satisfying cry and lands somewhere behind the freezer. . We are in, and both greatly relieved. I am quite hot and I can feel the kind of sweat which arrives suddenly and leaves with entirely less alacrity. For the second time that day I shower. We are preparing to leave the house when the doorbell rings. Miss Harper has arrived in a cab, having noted our predicament as soon as we left her. . .
It is about 7:00am, we have purchased an unneeded ticket, I have kicked the back door in, Miss Harper has missed a day at university, we are quite tired. Never mind, I have a full day at work complete with two hour afterschool meeting to brighten my mood.
By the time I had repaired the door that evening (thank god ‘twas wood and not PVC) and had a glass of wine I was more than ready for my bed. . .
Apologies for the rather second rate recounting of this tale, but it’s been a piecemeal affair, assembled in those precious moments when children are capable of whole minutes of autonomy.
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