Fabulous Short Stories

damages.

Little Mister Know-All

Many decisions and actions are based on assumptions, and there are hundreds, if not thousands, of assumptions made by each person every year. People assume the train will arrive at the station when they go to work each morning. They assume that food will be available for them to buy in supermarkets. They assume that petrol will be in plentiful supply on garage forecourts. In fact if assumptions were never made, it would be impossible to enjoy life. But there are times when they are not quite so clear-cut. The reason is that one can depend on inanimate object situations such as trains, supermarkets and petrol-filling stations, but one should not put the same trust in those relating to human-beings. For example, it is assumed that the wonderful people who marry will stay together with each other and remain faithful for the rest of their lives. They assume a person aged twenty-two will live until they are at least seventy years old. They assume that tragedy will not happen to them or their families despite recognising that thousands of people are killed on the roads each year, that murders take place, that people die of sudden heart failure, and so on. Indeed, to be fair, there are assumptions which seem to be set in stone and continue to be accurate from one year to the next. But there are the exceptions to the rule which create doubt and indecision. And it should be that way. Because if every assumption was correct life would be very boring. Everyone would guess what was going to happen... there would be little excitement and less mystique. A typical example is a family who exchanged Christmas presents on the twenty-fifth of December and examined the wrapped boxes and bottles guessing in advance what was in each present. They guessed correctly but the fun and excitement when opening Christmas presents was entirely lost to them... they already knew what they had been given before opening them. The tale below concerns pride and assumption... a combination which can prove costly in many ways.

Joe Collins and his son, Archie, were the laughing stock of the neighbourhood. Nothing would ever change that. There was nowhere to go... nowhere to hide. In a tough, poverty-stricken area, comprising a community of thousands of people living in flats on council estates close to the London Docks, they had no option but to face ridicule and humiliation. Indeed, the people who lived in the area followed an austere set of unwritten rules which demanded common sense, respect and respectability. If someone stumbled or ignored the rules, it was destined their folly would never be forgotten. Consequently, although Joe Collins and his son had been forgiven instantly for what happened on that ill-fated evening, the memory of their actions remained locked in the minds of the local people who tried not to laugh each time they came face to face with either of them.

Joe lived in a block of flats built just after the Second World War opposite the area known as the docklands. The place had a fascination all of its own. There was a plethora of ancient warehouses set in a maze of dirty, dingy alleyways where the air was always polluted with wisps of wool imported from Australia. The strong smell of coffee, the delicate aroma of musk, peppers, and a whole host of other spices permeated incessantly from the dilapidated store-houses. No doctors, lawyers, accountants or professional people ever emerged from this quarter. Some were dockers working at St. Katharine’s Dock, hauling imported goods or despatching exports elsewhere. Others worked in the rag trade, slaving in the sweat-shops which manufactured fashionable ladies garments. But, since time immemorial, not one person in the district had ever laid any claim to fame. One had to discount notorious figures such as Jack the Ripper in the neighbouring parish of Whitechapel but, apart from that, it was clear that national or international fame was an absent feature in the lives of the locals of Stepney. No Mozarts, no Einsteins, no Renoirs... nothing! Then, without warning, Archie Collins, a boy of only thirteen years of age, stepped into the limelight. He was a shy, quiet, well-mannered boy who knew his place in the pecking order. It had been drummed into him from infancy it was politic to speak only when spoken to, and to obey orders with the least possible resentment or delay. Nothing else was accepted. After all, the old adage was that children should be seen and not heard. Without casting any aspersions on his parents, it is true to say that Archie retained a strong sense of insecurity as well as recognising his ignorance in practically all fields of knowledge. In the latter respect he said little for fear of uttering something either rude or wrong and getting scolded for it. His father wanted him to shine at school and expected much more from the boy than he could deliver. In hindsight, Archie had nothing more to offer than any other child of his age, perhaps even less. They lived in a docklands area and didn’t expect to do well. His school record was extremely average, and like all the other children in his class, there was relatively no time for study. In a poor area every penny counted for the family, and boys and girls of thirteen and over were expected to work in their spare time, weekends, and during school holidays, to undertake menial tasks in the docks, or in the sweat-shops of the garment manufacturers. It was the accepted way of life. But there was a strange esoteric advantage... as no one had any money, the area was completely free of muggers.

Late one afternoon, Joe Collins returned from the sweat-shop after a hard day’s work and sat down to enjoy his evening meal. It was at this time each day he remonstrated vociferously about the antics of his fellow workers, complained about the difficult cloth he had to handle, and criticised the appalling attitudes of the management towards the workers. Mrs. Collins was a martyr in her own right. She had listened to such tales from her husband day-in and day-out for fifteen years, and learned to nod or mutter in the right places without expressing any emotion whatsoever. From his point of view, he was always satisfied that she supported him to the hilt. However, with remarkable preciseness, the tirade always ended at the moment when the dinner plates were placed on the table, and silence reigned as the family enjoyed the evening meal in peace. When they had finished, Mrs. Collins removed the dishes and went into the kitchen to wash them. Joe sat comfortably in a large armchair, lit a pipe, and turned on the radio to listen to a quiz programme that was just about to start. He enjoyed quiz programmes and smiled amiably at his son as the first question echoed clearly over the speaker, hardly realising the effect it was going to have on his life.

‘For two marks, can you tell me the name of the author of the book For Whom the Bell Tolls?’

A long silence ensued as the contestant struggled to find the answer. Joe Collins thought hard but he failed to recall the name of the author, glancing towards his son who was turning over the pages of a Hotspur comic at the table. ‘I don’t suppose you have any idea of the answer, do you, son?’ he ventured, not expecting the boy to respond. Archie looked across at him and smiled casually. ‘Yes, I do, dad,’ he replied smartly. ‘It was Ernest Hemingway.’

His father stared at him with mild surprise when this proved to be correct and shrugged as though to imply that the boy had enjoyed beginner’s luck. But that was only the start of it.

‘For a further two marks,’ continued the question-master in a dull voice, ‘what sport was once called Poona?’

‘That’s a tough question!’ said Joe, not wishing to tackle it, and he stared at the boy enigmatically in defeat.

Archie did not even look up. ‘Badminton’, he muttered

His father’s eyes opened widely as this was confirmed to be correct, and his face took on a curious expression. He puffed hard on his pipe wondering whether his son nursed a hidden talent to which everyone had been blind. There were geniuses in life. Mozart quickly came to mind. He could write music at the age of five or six. Perhaps Joe and Irene Collins had spawned a genius and it was only now becoming obvious. After all, it took time and incident to discover that a person was a genius and now it had happened here. The next twenty-five minutes was a revelation to Joe. The questions came thick and fast and Archie answered every one of them without difficulty. His father could hardly believe his ears. ‘My goodness!’ he shouted excitedly. ‘Do you realise you scored top marks? Better than all those people on the radio. I had no idea you were so good at quizzes! Now don’t go shy on me when I tell you you’re a real genius at quizzes. Just accept that I know what I’m talking about.’

Archie merely smiled and shrugged his shoulders as he delved further into the pages of his comic. However, the boy’s new-found talent proved to be a problem for his father. The man knew he had found a source on which he could capitalise, not only with pride but also for financial gain. However, he was unable to fathom how to do it. As a garment presser of limited intellect, who made no contacts outside his small circle of family and friends, he was unused to dealing with matters where brain was superior to brawn. Subsequently, he struggled vainly with his thoughts for almost a week, looking frustrated most of the time because he knew he was on a winner... if only he could determine the way to exploit it. Then, one morning, he decided on a plan of campaign. He worked for an international company of some magnitude which continually aimed to engender greater spirit and teamwork in its workforce. The management had formed a large-scale sports association in which the factories, the retail shops, and the regional head offices competed against each other in a wide series of sporting events. Naturally, the most popular related to football, cricket, rugby and golf, but quiz contests were also included in the schedule. Nonetheless, in Joe Collins’s case there were a number of serious hurdles to overcome before he could achieve his aim. Firstly, the rules stated that only company employees were eligible to be selected for sports-teams... and that included quizzes. Archie was not an employee of the company and therefore could not qualify as a contestant. Secondly, quiz events were extremely popular and there was a queue of employees in the Stepney area waiting eagerly to be selected for the team. Thirdly, no one in their right mind would pick a thirteen year old boy for the team in favour of adult applicants. And so the list went on.

When Joe confronted the committee, he found strong opposition to Archie’s application. They quoted the rules in general but Joe refused to concede, claiming that Archie was the son of an employee and therefore had every right to be selected. His best argument, however, was devoted to an entirely separate issue. It related to the fact that the Stepney team was extremely poor in terms of knowledge. The standard was very low and the results were even worse. They had been bottom of the company’s quiz league for the past seven years. In fact every other team in the league waited patiently to meet them in order to establish two certain points in the league table. Joe alleged they could hardly do worse if Archie was included in the team!

The battle lasted for nearly three weeks. No one was willing to yield. The committee considered it was bound by the rules and had to abide by them without fail. Joe believed that, as he was an employee of the company, his son had every right to seek selection. And that’s how it would have remained if the matter of money had not been mentioned. By this time, Joe had turned a reasonable request into a giant crusade and he was beginning to lose sight of reason. A fierce battle raged within the company which looked as though it would boil over from a company situation to a massacre of personalities. The atmosphere became hot and dangerous. The committee, on the one hand, threatened to contact the Head of the Sports Department to prevent Joe from pressing home his claim and to desist arguing with them. Joe, on the other hand, threatened to write letters to the Managing Director, to the institutional investors of the company, to the local Member of Parliament for his intervention, to the Press, and intimated he would carry out other deeds which could only be deemed as far less honourable. The issue was getting completely out of hand. Joe had assumed that Archie could take on the universe in a quiz contest. He had convinced himself of his son’s invincibility and, with that ideal in mind, the subject of money eventually came to the fore. In his wisdom, he offered to bet one week’s wages against one pound to anyone on the Stepney quiz committee that the team would win the first round of the competition if Archie was selected. The committee may have been intransigent in their attitude, and nervous of selecting a boy of thirteen years of age, but they weren’t stupid! Within five minutes, the wager had been taken up eagerly by all the members of the committee as well as a number of other people in the workshop. Joe accepted all the bets feeling morally uneasy. He considered he was cheating his colleagues out of their money, for he was the only one who had witnessed the ease by which his son had answered the questions on the radio programme. In fact Joe had checked the matter of his genius son on two further occasions by getting the boy to answer the questions on the same radio programme two weeks’ running. He, and he alone, could confirm that Archie was a genius. It was time the world knew about it. However, the Press were less enthusiastic about a claim by a father that his son was a genius, especially as contact with his school proved the opposite. Nonetheless, they were interested when they got wind of the wager and very shortly an article appeared in the local newspaper together with a photograph of Archie and his father. But contrary to being considered a minor celebrity by the pupils at his school, who were mostly the sons of dockers, Archie was treated cruelly for his sudden rise to fame. The boys toyed with anecdotes such as: ‘Why is an Archie Collins brain so unusual? Answer: It’s used only for quizzes and nothing else!’; ‘Ask a silly question? No, ask an Archie Collins!’; and ‘Do you know what? No... nor does Archie!’ The latter one becoming the most popular throughout the school.

‘Don’t worry about them,’ consoled his father. ‘A man can never be a philosopher in his own land.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ asked Mrs. Collins, surprised at her husband for emerging with such a wise comment.

‘You just wait and see, Irene,’ he told her. ‘I reckon we have a genius for a son. I think we’ve been blessed!’

‘Well if the Stepney team wins a match, even with Archie in it, I think we’ll all faint.’

It was now time to set the scene for a revelation and Joe could hardly wait for the day to arrive.

The first contest was a home match. Normally, these events were attended by very few people, especially as the Stepney team was always firmly fixed at the bottom of the quiz league. On this occasion, however, the situation was quite different. As a result of the article published in the local newspaper, and the widespread knowledge that a ‘genius’ lived within their midst... the only person in the area with the potential to become truly famous... the demand for seats was enormous. People choked the telephone lines of the company in an attempt to get tickets and it became necessary for the committee to dispense with their usual venue and hire a large hall to accommodate all the spectators. Within a few days there wasn’t a ticket to be obtained. It was a complete sell-out.

On the appointed evening, Archie accompanied his parents went to the hall and stood timorously behind a curtain at the rear of the stage. The boy was convinced that his mind consisted of a gigantic void, empty of all knowledge... a dry sponge! The rest of him remained quite cold and numb. In an enormous Victorian hall, with its giant dome, its great portico, the numerous stone pillars, and its majestic magnitude of width and space, he felt extremely small, very vulnerable, and quite insignificant. The building sported eleven hundred seats and the place that evening was filled to capacity with people waiting eagerly for the curtain to rise. From where he stood, Archie began to feel the onus of responsibility on his young shoulders... something he had never experienced before. More than that... he was scared out of his wits! It was little comfort to feel his father’s arm around his shoulders as the man offered the boy a few words of encouragement before the contest started. ‘Don’t worry, son,’ he said confidently. ‘I’ve got every faith in you. Just go out there and knock the socks off them! Remember, you’re a genius! A real genius!’

It was then that Archie first faced the gaunt-looking question-master, a tall, skinny, hawk-faced man dressed in an ill-fitting black suit that made him resemble Count Dracula. He stared at the boy down his long spiny nose from a great height as though the youth was a bad odour and then addressed him sharply. ‘If you’re not aware of the rules of this competition I suggest you’d better find them out now,’ he snarled, with a sneer on his face. ‘Do you understand?’

Archie nodded and his father took him by the arm. ‘That’s my boy!’ he said proudly. ‘He’s going to shock a lot of people here tonight. Aren’t you son! A lot of people!’

‘Well one thing’s for sure,’ continued the question-master testily, ‘he’ll get no advantage on the stage. Thirteen years of age or not! It doesn’t matter. Everyone receives the same treatment. You’ll find no nepotism here. None at all!’

The teams were ushered on to the stage to sit at two trestle tables, and they waited patiently for the contest to begin. Shortly afterwards, the lights were dimmed, the audience became hushed, and the curtains opened slowly. The atmosphere was full of excitement and expectation. Archie, however, felt quite differently. He began to tremble and his knees started to knock against each other under the trestle table. The question-master introduced the teams and then produced a long list of questions which had been set for the contest. The boy did not have to wait long to find himself in the limelight. He became the first contestant and was invited to the microphone to tackle the first six questions in succession in the quiz. His nervousness at that moment had risen to such a pitch he was amazed he could reach the instrument without falling apart on the way. There were eleven hundred people packed into that massive Victorian hall, and yet it was possible to hear a pin drop.

The question-master clear his throat briefly and steadied himself. ‘The first contestant is Archie Collins of the Stepney team.’ He stared grimly at the boy and then read out the first question. ‘What are saurian creatures?’

There was a long silence as Archie stared down blankly at his shoes. Two thousand two hundred eyes were fixed on his face. The second hand of the clock on the wall at the back of the stage inched ahead with regular monotony. For Archie, the short span of time allocated seemed to last for an eternity. Contrary to expectations, there was no response as his mouth remained tightly shut and his limbs continued to tremble.

‘I’ll repeat the question. What are saurian creatures?’

The boy gazed into space for a few seconds longer until the silence became shattered by the sound of the gong which reverberated loudly throughout the hall. Murmurs of surprise and disappointment came from many people in the audience.

‘The answer is lizards. Question two. Which writer wrote the Cherry Orchard?’

The same thing happened again. The blank look on Archie’s face, the tightness round his mouth, mutterings from the audience, a long drawn-out silence, and then the sound of the gong. The question-master took pity and moved towards him in a gesture of mercy. ‘You can hear the questions, I presume,’ he ventured. ‘Tell me if you can’t.’

Archie made a low sound that sounded like a wounded moose about to expire, and it was clear from the question-master’s face that he had no patience with children... especially an arrogant, pompous kid like Archie!

‘The answer is Chekhov. All right, let’s move