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    The Blue Lawn
    The Blue Lawn
    The Blue Lawn
    Ebook188 pages2 hours

    The Blue Lawn

    By William Taylor

    ()

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    About this ebook

    One Tree House brings this much-loved, award-winning and historic children's book to a new generation of readers.

     

    David is 15 and the star of his school's rugby team. Theo is 16, an outsiders. Initial hostility turns to a growing attraction neither boy understands. A powerful novel of relationships between young men who don't yet understand what they are feeling and have nowhere to turn for help.

     

    Our new Classic e-collection supports our literary history, classroom learning and reading for pleasure. 

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOneTree House Publishers
    Release dateNov 21, 2022
    ISBN9781990035784
    The Blue Lawn
    Author

    William Taylor

    William Taylor has written many children's books and has been published worldwide. He won the New Zealand Library Association's Esther Glen Medal for Agnes the Sheep. His titles have been honoured by both the New York Public Library and the American Library Association. William Taylor used to be a teacher, and he lives in Raurimu near Mt Ruapehu in the central North Island.

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      Book preview

      The Blue Lawn - William Taylor

      1

      It had been a hard run. The rain and the wind had driven in at them, needle sharp. The cold was such that the run had been almost over before the exercise had started to warm any of them.

      The changing room emptied quickly. No one was interested in a cold shower and most had hastily towelled off heads and faces and had clambered, sticky and half-wet, back into their clothes before taking off into the gathering dusk. There was no talk. In ten minutes only two remained in the dank gloom.

      Their coach poked his head around the door. ‘Come on you two. Get a move on. I’m off,’ and a moment later they heard the sound of his car as it backed from the parking lot outside and then took off.

      The one who seemed to be the younger of the two busied himself, stripping from half-sodden shorts and T-shirt, pulling on clothing and wrinkling his face in a grimace of distaste. His clothes resisted, the wool and the cotton reluctant, uncomfortable and prickling against his skin. The discomfort was the least of his worries. His mind, all his attention, was directed towards the other, and his effort was spent in not betraying this.

      The older of the two had not moved during the whole of the short, sharp pantomime of fast change and swift exit. He continued to rest on the bench where he had slumped after coming in from the run. He gave no sign that he noticed the presence of the other. Now, he hooked a toe around his sport bag and drew it, grating, across the concrete floor towards him. He fished in among the jumbled contents. He took out cigarettes, a lighter, lit up and then slumped back again against the wall. He took two or three deep drags, blew a cloud of smoke into the damp air, wrinkled his face and then flicked the unfinished cigarette across the room and into a urinal. He put his arms behind his head, closed his eyes briefly and sighed. Then he stood, stretched and started to strip from his running gear. The movement brought him closer to the other, who had almost finished changing and was busy shoving a ball of wet clothing into his bag. His hand shook slightly as he tugged at a reluctant zip.

      The younger one stood, swallowed hard and looked, for the first time directly, at the older.

      ‘Had a good eyeful, kid? Been having one these last ten minutes, eh? What d’you want now? A handful?’

      The younger boy jumped, recoiling as if shot. As the other laughed at his discomfort he thrust the last of his gear into his bag and pulled on his jacket. He was hot. Hot and, he knew, flushing red. He moved to the door, head down. The older one stood in the doorway. ‘What d’you say? Eh?’

      ‘Get out of my way.’ The younger spoke for the first time.

      ‘That what you want?’

      Emotion welled up in the younger. He swung his bag hard in the direction of his tormentor, who side-stepped neatly, laughing. The bag thunked, clanged uselessly against a bank of lockers. Rage rose, swelled acid into his throat and he flung his bag aside and himself onto the older one.

      The meeting was short, sharp, brutal. Physical advantage lay fully with the younger. Knee to groin, one left hook, a right and it was all over. Twenty seconds, less, and the older boy, still half-naked, slid gasping, down the concrete wall and rested, knees to chin and head and face averted from the attacker standing over him. The younger one caught his breath in short and shallow gasps and the muscles of his face worked, twitched, and there was a bewildered look in his eyes. Without taking those eyes from the older he reached for his bag and edged through the door and ran into the wet night.

      His mother fussed. ‘David, David. You’ve hardly touched your food, dear. And it’s one of your favourites.’

      ‘How’d the training go?’ asked his father.

      ‘Pretty cold. Got a bit of a chill, I reckon. Okay if I have an early night?’

      ‘Good idea, love. I’ll do you some hot lemon,’ said his mother.

      ‘Stop fussing, woman,’ said his father.

      ‘It’s beyond me why they put you through this nonsense in weather like this. Good Lord, it’s only a game,’ said his mother.

      ‘Nonsense it might be,’ smiled his father. ‘But you should hear what they’re saying about this guy and his future down the club. Sky’s the limit, they reckon.’

      ‘Doesn’t make it any the less a load of nonsense,’ said his mother. ‘You take off to bed, Davy. I’ll just rustle up a nice hot lemon and honey.’

      ‘Put a slug of whisky in it, too. Boy’s big enough. Put a few more hairs where they’re meant to be,’ the father chuckled.

      ‘It’s okay. It’s okay,’ said their son, wishing he had said nothing in the first place. ‘Don’t want anything. Honest I don’t. Reckon all I need’s an early night,’ and he tried to smile his gratitude through to both of them. ‘No more’n a bit tired. I’ll have a shower and go to bed.’

      ‘If this wretched weather doesn’t clear, you stay home tomorrow, David. One day off school won’t hurt you and it’s just so foul.’

      ‘Don’t coddle the boy, woman. He’s a man, not a mouse. A man’s game he plays, too. Let him be.’

      The son tried to smile. ‘It’s all right,’ he said in reply, he knew, to nothing. He went to his room.

      He took a long shower and stood, letting the needle jets of hot water prick, too hot, into his skin. Usually he used this chance to play, to use every soap, every potion, every shampoo, or conditioner, and whatever else his mother stocked in the bathroom. He felt numb. He felt as nothing and the water hitting into him increased that feeling of nothingness. Finally he dried and, using a corner of his towel, de-misted the long wall mirror. He combed his hair and looked at his reflection. It was no gaze of self-admiration.

      He was tall, above average for his age. Well built. Solid, but certainly not fat. Strong neck and broad in the shoulder. Equally strong in leg and arm and well-muscled for his almost sixteen years. Intensely, intently he looked into the mirrored image of his face almost as if he were trying to see further into himself than the mirror would allow. He shook his head as if disappointed that the surface image alone was all he could get. His was a pleasant face. Unremarkable. No great success story. No great disaster. Good eyes, grey. Good crop of fairish and straight hair. All the other normal bits and pieces. He blinked, shook his head back into reality and felt with a finger along the ridge of his chin. Good. No need to shave. As yet, once a week was often enough.

      Then he stood back from the mirror and took in the whole of himself in an almost puzzled examining of what he saw. He closed his eyes, bit his lip, swayed slightly for a moment or two and opened his eyes again for another look. He looked very closely. Nothing different. There was nothing different at all from what he considered should be there, or from what he thought might be the norm.

      Quickly he tidied the bathroom, pulled on his bathrobe and went through to his bedroom. He did not go to bed but lay on the patchwork spread, thinking.

      He heard the phone ring out in the hall and his mother’s voice mingle with the sounds of the television coming through the open door of the room behind her. A knock on his door, and ‘Still awake, Davy?’

      ‘Yeah,’ he called back.

      She came in. ‘Not asleep and not quite in bed, either,’ she smiled. ‘One of your friends, I think. Says it’s important. I said it could wait …’

      ‘It’s okay, Mum. I’m all right. I’ll take it.’

      ‘You sure?’

      ‘I’m fine, Mum. Really,’ he smiled at her.

      ‘Look, I’ll just tell him …’

      ‘Leave it, Mother. I’ll take it. No big deal,’ he pulled himself up from the bed. ‘I’m good as gold. It was just the wet and cold earlier. That’s all.’

      ‘If you say so. Now you just stay there. I’ll bring the phone. Plug it in here. Time we got one for your room.’

      ‘Yeah,’ he said into the phone and waited, expecting the voice of one of his friends.

      Nothing.

      ‘Are you there?’ and he was about to hang up. Then he heard a soft breathing and he knew. He felt himself hot again. Hot. Hot and ashamed. He pulled the collar of his robe away from his neck and at the same time felt the pulse throbbing in his throat.

      ‘I just called to apologise. To say, sorry.’ The voice was very soft.

      David mouthed, but no sound came. He wet his lips with his tongue and sighed. He put down the receiver without a word. He leaned back against the headboard of his bed, eyed the phone, apprehensive. It was almost as if he expected the appliance itself to talk back at him. Then it rang again. He knew who it would be and picked up the receiver quickly.

      ‘Hey. It’s okay,’ said the voice. ‘I’m sorry. Don’t you worry.’

      This time he managed to speak and he knew his voice was strained, edgily high. ‘Was me hit you. Was me hit you and you’re sorry?’

      ‘Face it, kid. Anyone’d be sorry to be hit like that. But, hell, I asked for it.’

      David spoke slowly. ‘Never hit no one like that before. Not like that. Not ever.’

      ‘Shit, kid. Coulda fooled me.’

      ‘I never … I just never done that. Not since for as long as I can remember.’

      ‘Yeah. So, I believe you. Might be as well you don’t get used to it. Fists and knees of yours could sort of be called deadly weapons. Can still feel the effect and that’s for sure. Reckon you just might’ve done me some permanent damage.’

      ‘I … er …’ A croak.

      ‘It’s okay, kid. Don’t worry.’

      ‘I … I don’t know what made me do it.’

      ‘Huh? Don’t you?’ asked the voice. A pause and then a short laugh. ‘No, reckon maybe you don’t at that.’

      ‘What do you mean?’

      ‘I don’t mean anything, kid. Nothing at all. No hidden meanings. No hard feelings?’

      ‘Eh?’

      ‘Look. It’s Friday tomorrow and I’m away. Won’t be at school. How about Saturday you come round here, my place, say hello. How about it?’

      ‘You … you mean that?’ David breathed deeply.

      ‘Well,’

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