Billy and the Golden Gate (12 page)

To my Dear Reader,

Thank you for spending your precious time reading Billy and the Golden Gate, it is the nicest gift I could have hoped for. I hope you enjoyed it.

Thoughts, feelings, emotions, scatter and shimmer in our soul's core. They wave around inside our heads influencing our actions and our conduct, how we live every moment of our finite mortal lives. The miracle is that these thoughts make their way out into the greater world, the universe. They may seem small and insignificant at times but it's the small, seemingly insignificant stuff that matters.

It's a funny world. Sometimes blindingly, beautifully, light; sometimes dark, dark, dark. It's a mystery.

I don't pretend to understand any of it because in all truth I know nothing, but if it's ok with you I would like to share the words of someone I consider to be a wise man with you. He is no longer with us, in the mortal sense. I have substituted the word ‘mind' with ‘soul', it just resonates for me.

Just for a moment… breathe, slowly, deeply.

All my love,

Emma

¹
Clever things like computers and tablets are not used in Miss Beetle's classroom, the children use copybooks. A copybook is meant to contain examples of writing which the students copy down in class. More often than not they contain doodles and evidence of active and creative young minds that couldn't be bothered with copying down anything.

²
Miss Beetle is a very efficient young woman. When she started in the school, she decided the village also needed a keeper of books – librarian to you and me. Once she had made up her mind, the village didn't really have much choice in the matter.

³
Most people have never heard of a ‘delicate belch'. They exist though, not quite a burp or bubble. They are slightly harsh and yet, slightly reserved.

⁴
It's the sort of bike that has a special go-faster saddle, a bell that looks like a horn but sounds like an angry mouse and peeling paintwork that began life riddled with lightning bolt designs.

⁵
A small town, about five miles away, has given local teenagers plenty of wholesome fun defacing its signage, known locally as ‘naughty' and known by the cooler teenagers as ‘The Clon'. Of course, it goes without saying that the coolest teenagers never even mention it.

⁶
Absolutely nothing delicate about this type of belch, it's the sort that smells of rotting Brussels sprouts and leaves the air feeling warm and slightly humid. Nice.

⁷
Named Horace, after the poet Quintus Horatius Flaccus; a man fond of saying things like ‘Carpe Diem'. No one in Daisy's family believed in her make-believe friend, except Daisy. Sometimes just having one person believe in you makes you real and, on top of that, if you believe in yourself, well then, that's even better again.

⁸
Oh, go on, you know what he means…

⁹
Veronica is especially clumsy. Daisy puts it down to her excessive nosiness; she's so busy minding other people's business, she never minds her own. Were you to ask Veronica her opinion of Daisy, her answer would be almost exactly the same.

¹⁰
Which would normally indicate that the onions were being cooked; except they don't smell like anything you would ever want to eat.

¹¹
Yes, you are correct, of course chisels are supposed to be nicely honed. But you see, Harry Spade had a habit of mixing up his tools, particularly when his mind was mulling over a new challenge.

¹²
Of course there is only one brick road, but some clever clogs decided to name it ‘other'.

¹³
First made and sold in 1928 apparently. A sliced loaf of white bread; the general consensus is that it makes the best toast in the world.

¹⁴
It's a common misconception. The reality is that hell's minions are the ones that sound celestial and tuneful – the sort of music you hear when you are stuck in a lift or a very big supermarket. It figures, really.

¹⁵
Billy sleeps soundly that night. The next day, Daisy does brilliantly in the maths test. Rex eats Screech's jacket instead of eating Miss Beetle's lunch. Rufus has his butter and marmalade on toast. Mr Jackson decides that being too generous with the markdown on the vegetables is not a good idea. Missus Furnish writes a letter to the local newspaper about the disgraceful scattering of litter and how the nation's youth have no manners and, well, the world keeps turning.