A Night For Flying


From her bedroom window, two storeys up, Clara had watched children flying, seven houses away. The scene had been idylic; a scene she'd savoured since early June and at night, alone in her room, she plotted and schemed.

Now the time had come and, in the early hours, letting herself out of her room, she crept through the corridors of Red Roof's Retirement Home, down the winding back staircase and into the huge kitchen.

Still agile and slim for her seventy five years, Clara climbed through an open window and, marching down the meandering drive, she reached the main road. Not pausing, she continued her steady pace, eyes staring straight ahead, counting house numbers as she went until she came to a stop at the corner of Mount Pleasant Road.

For a moment, her courage faltered at the sight of an imposing Victorian house. Then stirring, cat-like, she moved up the drive and around the side of the house to the back garden.

There in the shadows, her gaze fell upon the reason for her late night escapade. Smothering a joyous gasp, she knew it was waiting for her. Waiting for her to clamber aboard.

Step by nervous step, she made her way across dewy grass, kicking off her shoes as she went and, on reaching her goal, scrambled up onto the trampoline, smothering a chuckle. Tentatively at first, she started to bounce and, as her bounces took her higher, her chuckles grew into raucous laughter that woke up the sleeping neighbourhood.