“Alec,” came his mother’s voice. “Is that you, Alec?”
“Yes,” muttered Alec.
“Listen, love. We’re busy in here. There’s a bit of meat pie and tomato on top of the fridge. You can have that for your tea.”
“Can I take it up to my room?” asked Alec, unable to believe his luck.
“All right, but don’t make a mess.”
Alec crept up the stairs with a plate in one hand and his satchel in the other and did not breathe again until he was safely inside his bedroom. It was small, but a palace compared with the boxroom. It had his own bed, a battered old desk Dad had picked up at a jumble sale, a chair and a cupboard full of all his most precious odds and ends. They’d have to go down into the shed if he moved into the boxroom, thought Alec gloomily, as he sat down on the bed and began to eat his meat pie.
As he ate, he started to make up his final triumph-disaster scoreboard for the day. He didn’t write it down, because things like that are highly confidential, but he made it up in his mind like this:
1. Ginger Wallace is out to thump me.
2. Ginger Wallace is trying to stop me going home down Boner’s Street.
3. Ginger Wallace might find out about the Tank.
4. I’ve ruined my trainers.
5. No pocket money for a month.
6. I have to move back into the boxroom.
7. I’m in the doghouse with Monty Cartwright.
He thought over the list carefully. Had he missed anything out? There’s nothing worse than a disaster that sneaks up on you. No, they were all there. The next question was had he made the list too long? Was Ginger Wallace really three disasters?
Alec didn’t hesitate; Ginger Wallace was at least three disasters.
Strictly speaking, numbers four and five were just one disaster. That is, five couldn’t be a disaster but for four. Life without trainers is hard. Life without pocket money is disastrous.
Number six was a disaster all right. It hadn’t happened yet, but neither had one, two, or three, and that didn’t make him feel any better. Number seven he decided to cross off the list. After the telling-off in line-up that day he’d heard no more and Mr Cartwright did not usually brood over past crimes. So that made the score six so far, or five if you counted numbers four and five as one. Five for disasters so far, while the other side hadn’t even crossed the half-way fine.
It was the highest score for disasters since that black day when he’d got all his home works mixed up and collected five detentions in a row. As he thought of this, his eye fell on his school bag. He should really take a last look at his history project on the Crusades before he handed it in tomorrow. He tipped out his books on to the bed and for the thirty-fourth time that day, his heart stopped.
Across the cover of his history project was a green stain. He opened the cover. Almost every page was a sodden green wreck with drawings, cut-outs, and writing all awash with Bugletown Canal gunge. This must have seeped through the side of his bag where the stitching had given way.
It would take ages to look up all that stuff again, let alone write it. That made disasters leading six nil. Almost a rugby score. Was there nothing today remotely like a triumph? He thought for a while. There was that funny, sealed but empty, beer can he had found in Boner’s Street. He could investigate that.
Bowden, he said to himself, you’re entitled to a treat. Give yourself the evening off. Tomorrow’s a disaster from the word go. Let’s save what we can of today. With that he jumped from the bed, took off his school clothes, put on his old jumper and jeans and quietly opened the bedroom door. As he crept down the stairs he heard them still at it in the front room. No trouble at all to sneak out.
“Alec, is that you?” called his mother.
“Yes, Mum. I’m just going out for a bit.”
“What about your homework?”
“I’ve just got some work left to do on my history project, and I’ll do that when I get back.” Alec always had trouble telling complete porkies.
“No telly then, mind you.”
“Shan’t want any.”
“What’s the matter with Mastermind?” That was Kim’s mocking voice.
Alec thought of a crushing retort, then remembered that he’d have to ask Kim for a loan. So with a “won’t be long”, he shot through the back door and was out in the street before you could say antidisestablishmentarianism!
Holding firmly on to his jeans pocket, where the can was wedged rather awkwardly, he ran down the slope and past the allotments. To his surprise, there was Granddad digging away, dressed in his old black suit. Alec waved, but did not stop, and headed for the tall fence round the Tank. If Granddad saw him slip through the loose planking, the old man gave no sign.
Alec paused for a second inside the fence, as he always did, to run his eye over the little kingdom amid its silent wilderness of elder bushes and weeds. The setting sun flashed on one of the few panes left in the window of the crane house, and cast giant shadows between the crumbling ivy-covered walls. Alec was heading for the canal when he remembered that the plank had collapsed under him that afternoon. He would have to cross by the old travelling crane gantry and enter the crane room through the window. Although this was a day of disaster and it seemed unsuitable to take the triumphal route, he couldn’t be bothered to find a new plank for his bridge just now. He turned right and ran along the towpath to the gantry.
Climbing the uprights by the steep steps was easy enough; the difficult part was when you had to cross the girder fifteen feet up above the canal. One false move and you would never be seen again. The safest but slowest way was to straddle the iron and edge your way over a foot at a time. The quickest and riskiest way was to balance on the six-inch-wide girder and walk boldly over like a tight-rope man. Crouching and waddling like a duck, Alec settled for a mixture of the two. Halfway over, it became easier because of the iron arm of an old hand crane which stretched alongside the main gantry.
At last he was across and wriggling his way through the broken window of the crane room. He put one foot on the lever and chain drum which were still linked to the hand crane and then he was down on the floor. He gave a jump and skip and looked around him. Now he was in command. He turned and faced the canal, peering through the dusty broken window. Then he seized the hand crane lever and slowly pushed it forward. He had spent many a Saturday afternoon greasing and oiling the mechanism, so that it moved. With a rattle the chain began to run through the pulley at the end of the crane and drop towards the canal. Alec threw the brake and stopped the chain just above the water. Then he bent down to the drum and taking the handle, carefully wound the chain up again.
When he worked the hand crane, he could imagine anything. He was loading a ship, rescuing a trapped submarine crew, hauling up treasure from a mine, replacing the piles in a nuclear reactor. He finished winding in the chain and put on the brake. Then he heaved himself on to the table and sat a moment looking out of the crane room window.
Now he was ready to investigate the mystery of the sealed, empty can.
“The question is, Watson, not why the can was empty, but why it was sealed?”
“Amazing, Holmes, I mean, Bowden. But what is the answer?”
“I’ll have to open it, won’t I, you plonker?”
Alec held up the can and inspected it. Then he raised it once more to his ear, as he had done that afternoon.
It