Johnny Swanson - Eleanor Updale [13]
Hutch continued, ‘I’ll see what I can do for you. I won’t be able to pay you much, mind. But it might be enough to help a bit. And I’ll expect you to work hard.’
‘Don’t worry, I will.’
‘You can stay on after your evening paper round every day and sweep up. And you can help me unpack some of the deliveries.’ As he said that, Hutch’s hand slipped, and the pyramid of tins fell to the floor. Johnny collected them up and started rebuilding the display.
‘This can’s got really badly bashed,’ he said. ‘And the label’s ripped.’
‘Put it to one side,’ said Hutch. ‘I’ll have to sell it at a discount. No one’s going to want to pay full price for that.’
Johnny put the dented can under the counter.
Albert Taylor and Ernest Roberts were waiting outside with their pocket money. Strictly speaking, Hutch didn’t let customers in till nine o’clock, but everyone knew he could be persuaded to sell a newspaper or two earlier, and today was the day the comics arrived. Hutch let the boys in. They were polite to him, but when his back was turned they made coughing noises at Johnny.
‘Heard from your girlfriend?’ said Taylor. ‘Is she dead yet?’
Johnny pretended not to notice, and raced out of the shop to deliver the morning papers.
At the end of the day, when Johnny had helped tidy up, Hutch reached under the counter and handed him the damaged tin of peaches. ‘Take this home to your mum,’ he said. ‘Tell her it’s not charity. It’s your pay for the extra work you’ve done.’ Then he looked sternly at Johnny. ‘I won’t always be so generous, mind.’
But Johnny saw it as the start of a new role for him. From now on he would take stuff home from the shop whenever he could. That way his mother wouldn’t go in there and Hutch would never get the chance to ask her about Auntie Ada. It had been a good day. For on his paper round he had looked in all the newspapers to find out how to place adverts. He reckoned he could get his secret business up and running with just one more raid on the money in the Peace Mug. He would write out his first advertisement in bed that night.
Chapter 8
THE SANATORIUM
The next morning, Dr Langford gave Johnny another exhilarating bike ride down the hill. Hutch was not there when they arrived at the shop. The doctor propped his bicycle against the wall and waited with Johnny.
‘I might as well pick up my paper here,’ he said. ‘I’ll be at the sanatorium all day, and there’s no point in you taking it to my house if I’m not in.’
‘Is that a flat tyre?’ Johnny asked, pointing to the front wheel of the bike.
‘Oh dear. It looks as if we went over something sharp,’ said Dr Langford. ‘Yes, here’s the culprit.’ He showed Johnny a tiny nail sticking into the rubber. ‘Never mind, I’ll have it fixed in no time.’
The doctor opened the saddlebag and handed Johnny a long tin with rounded ends. Johnny wriggled the lid off. Inside there were some metal levers, sandpaper, assorted patches, a tube marked RUBBER SOLUTION, a crayon, and a few bits and pieces Johnny couldn’t identify at all.
The doctor turned the bike upside-down and asked Johnny to pass him one of the levers. Soon he’d worked the inner tube of the tyre out from under the rubber tread. It hung like an empty sausage skin. Dr Langford unclipped the pump from the bicycle frame and inflated the tube. ‘Come here, Johnny,’ he said. ‘Keep quiet and tell me if you hear a hiss. With a bit of luck we’ll find the hole pretty quickly. If not, we’ll have to dunk the tube in a puddle and look for some bubbles.’
Johnny put his head close to the doctor’s and listened. ‘There it is!’ they cried together.
‘Crayon!’ said Dr Langford, as if he were talking to a nurse in an operating theatre. Johnny passed it to him, and Dr Langford marked the spot.
As the doctor got to work on the puncture, Johnny found the courage to talk to him more freely than he had before. It was easier when they weren’t looking directly at each other. Johnny cleared his throat. ‘Dr Langford?