There's No Accounting For Love

PROLOGUE - PART ONE - Cont'd

Now, they were walking back down the garden path, Alan carrying a blue beaker and Clare a pink one, each containing orange squash and a yellow curly straw.  Alan also carried a packet of biscuits for them to share.  They sat down at the table situated at the back of the shed, in the shade, each setting down their beakers.  Alan undid the already opened packet and handed two biscuits to Clare.  

"There you are.  You like these don't you?"

"Thank you." she said.  They were always polite and said 'please' and 'thank you' even to each other.  However, Alan had the greatest difficulty in saying 'sorry' and it was a never-ending concern to his mother.  

They munched at their biscuits attracting a wasp, which flew around Clare's face making her very agitated.  She waved her hands at him.  "Don't do that!" shouted Alan.  "It'll sting,  you mustn't wave your arms around."  But the wasp persisted, frightening Clare so much that she stood up waving violently at him, knocking her drink all over herself in the process.  "Now look what you've done." shouted Alan, louder still.  

Clare wasn't listening, she was running as fast as she could, through the archway and down the path to the kitchen, where she found Alan's mother.  

"Auntie Pam, I've had a little accident," she cried, almost in tears. "But it wasn't my fault, the wasp was pestering me."  The little 'accident' was no surprise to Pam who fetched the bag of spare clothes and handed it to her.  Smiling broadly she said, "Don't worry sweetie, it doesn't matter.  Go up to the bathroom and get changed and remember to wash off the orange squash or you'll be sticky for the rest of the day."  Clare took the bag and climbed the stairs to the bathroom.    

As Clare was changing in the bathroom, Alan came up the stairs.  Clare had neglected to close the door and she saw him glance in at her.  She had placed her clean clothes along the edge of the bath, neat and tidy ready to put on and had just washed and dried herself with the towel, having let it drop to the floor when Alan caught sight of her, stood in all her glory, wearing nothing at all!  Clare scowled at him darkly and he blushed, a very deep pink, as she closed the door on him and quickly locked it.  She heard him go into his bedroom as she placed the towel neatly back onto the towel rail.  She dressed carefully and when she was ready made her way to his bedroom, knocked on the door and went inside.  

Alan was kneeling on the floor lifting up the dark blue duvet, on which a large red 'Spider-Man' was printed and looking beneath the bed.  He turned and looked up at her as she entered the room. 

"I've lost my 'Action Man' Clare, have you seen him?" he asked.

Clare was angry, but before she could speak he said, not sorry, (that was far too difficult for Alan to say) but "It wasn't my fault, you didn't close the door.  Don't tell mum, she'll be ever so cross.  You won't tell her will you?"  Alan was worried, but any embarrassment long forgotten.  Clare scowled. 

"All right, I won't tell." she said.  "I suppose I should have closed the door."

They dropped the subject and ran downstairs, passing Pam who was going into the lounge with a long overdue cup of coffee.  

Alan, who had brought Clare's beaker into the kitchen, kindly made her another drink and they walked carefully down the garden path, under the archway and back into the tent, first of all taking the biscuits from the table, away from any passing wasps.  

With no further mishaps they finished their drinks and ate their biscuits.  Then Alan, avoiding Clare's eyes, asked quietly,

"Why is your body different from mine?"  

Clare frowned, not wanting to be reminded of the incident and in any case it was another of Alan's stupid questions.  What was he thinking?  

"Well, I want to know," said Alan "I can't ask my mum because she'll be angry.  Please tell me Clare, you know everything. You're very clever, everybody says so."  

Wiping the crumbs from her mouth and pleased with the compliment Clare replied. "I'm a girl that's why.  You're a boy and one day you will be a big man."

"Yes, I will be a man and you will be a woman."

"No, I won't be a woman," said Clare crossly.  "I will be a lady."

"Oh, and you don't have a winkie." said Alan using a word of his own choosing.

"No, of course not. Girls don't have one.  We're very different, we don't need one."

"I need one!" said Alan loudly, but bored with the conversation, he jumped up out of the tent and picking up his plastic sword from the grass, started to 'jab' provocatively at the bees in the Russian Sage.  Clare followed and finding her skipping rope lying on the grass began to skip.

She tried to tell Alan that it wasn't sensible to jab at the bees, but he wouldn't listen.  Cries of 'touché' and 'en gaurde' were heard from Alan, but it was a fight to the death.  Alan yelped, stung by two bees in the same arm and he ran crying indoors to find his mother.  

Clare sighed silently, threw down the skipping rope and walked slowly after him, a question forming in her mind.  Why did Alan think it was dangerous for her to wave at the wasp, but okay for him to 'jab' at the bees?  Perhaps it was because he was a boy and one day he would be a man?  Only the other day Auntie Pam had laughingly said to her mother, "Men are a 'Breed' apart."  Clare wasn't sure what this meant, but when she was older she hoped to find out.  One day, she hoped to know everything.  That seemed a satisfactory explanation for now and wishing to give Alan her commiserations, she quickened her pace and reached the archway just in time to see Alan, still wailing, disappear into the back of the house.

Alan received three 'dressing downs'.  One for the bee stings, one from his mother for being so silly and one from Clare, who said he had murdered the bees as now they would die without their stings.  He was unusually quiet for the rest of the day.