OEDO KIDS - TYRE SWING Feral paced along the edge of the ditch. She gazed up into the tree canopies and saw a fairly low, strong-looking branch. Perfect, she thought, grinning. Quick as a flash, she leapt up, caught the branch and swang elegantly across the ditch and onto the other side. She laughed, in the way that small chuildren do when they find a seemingly endless source of pleasure. She leapt up again and went to swing back, but this time something seemed to go wrong. She landed heavily and winced in pain. She looked at her hands, which were red and throbbing. Friction burns. And splinters. Lots of splinters. "Ouch!" she cried as she set about removing the tiny pieces of wood. "How can such little things hurt so much?" she asked herself. As she continued with her painful task, her gaze returned to the branch. "I guess I can forget that idea, " she said, softly. "What idea, Feral?" Lena's bold voice shattered the silence of the small wooded area around them. "Hey, what happened to your hands?" she asked as she knelt beside the smaller girl. "I had a swing. But it only works one way." She pointed to the branch. "You catch it and swing across, but if you swing back..." she held out her reddened palms for Lena to inspect. Lena looked at Ferals hands, then at the branch, then the ditch, and finally turned her attention back to Ferals hands again. Then her eyes lit up. "Feral, you've just given me an idea! Come on, let's get the boys!" She caught Feral by the wrist, pulled her to her feet, and ran into the street. * * * "You'd better have a really good reason for dragging me away from my homework!" "Calm down, Juzo, it's Saturday! You don't have to work on Saturdays." "It's HASEGAWA!! Juzo is a kids name!" "You are a kid! You're only ten years old!" "It's older than the rest of you, AND it's nearly a teenager. I'm not a child any more." "Juzo, lighten up! If you work too hard you'll get all tensed up and never amount to anything." Hasegawa scowled at Feral as she spoke. Benten noticed and decided to change the subject. "What's the rope for, Lena?" "I'll show you in a minute," she replied, stopping at the ditch. She dropped the rope and turned around. "We're going to make a swing," she announced. "We can just tie the rope to the branch and swing across." "It was MY idea!" Feral cried enthusiastically, before anyone else had a chance to react. "Hey!" Benten protested. "You know I can't hold onto ropes like that!" "What are we going to do then?" Feral demanded. "I want my swing!" "We could tie a stick to the bottom," Sengoku suggested. Then we could sit on it and hold on." "No, I've tried those," Gogul noted. "They're impossible to get onto; the stick keeps moving." "A tyre, then." The others stared, astounded, at Hasegawa. All he ever seemed to do was pick holes in what they did, and now, Hasegawa, of all people, was suggesting a fun thing to do. "What?!" he demanded, when he saw them gaping at him. "Let me get this straight, Juzo..." Sengoku began. "Hasegawa!" "OK, Hasegawa," he continued. "YOU have suggested using a TYRE on a SWING?!" "It was just a thought, there's no need to pick on me," he muttered in reply. "That's a grest idea!" Feral cried in excitement. "Yeah!" Lena agreed. "I just can't believe it came from Juzo!" Sengoku added, a little too loudly. Hasegawa shot him a dirty look but didn't say anything. "There's just one problem," Benten began, but Gogul continued for him. "Where are we going to find a tyre no-one wants?" This had them all stumped. Tyres were becoming rarer and rarer, to the extent that most people sold off their spares for extortionate prices to the highest bidders. It was unlikely that a handful of kids were going to get a tyre for a swing when they were big business among the adults. Then Lena brightened. "I know!" she cried. "My dad has a big car out the back of our house that he hasn't used in a long time, and it's got really big tyres on it." "But Lena...." Gogul began. "If your dad has those tyres, why doesn't he sell them like everyone else?" "I don't know, but that's my dad for you!" "Let's go then!!" Feral yelled impatiently. "I wanna make the swing!" * * * "Lena, just let me undo the bolts! We'll be here all day!" "I can DO this, Sengoku, don't patronise me!" As she spoke, the wrench came off the bolt and Lena crashed to the ground. "I told you!" Sengoku cried triumphantly. "Shuddup, it just needs some oil or something." Sengoku gave a deep sigh of frustration, picked up the wrench and loosened the bolts. "If you want to undo them so bad, do it now," he muttered, holding out the wrench. She took it grudgingly and undid the bolts, saying nothing. Feral was ignoring their squabbling, instead pacing up and down impatiently. She paid no attention to them until Lena yanked the tyre off its pivot, sending that corner of the car crashing to the ground with an expensive clatter. "Is it off? Is it off?" she demanded. "Yes, Feral, it's off. Now get in front and help us steer this thing." Feral ran to the front as she was told, and Lena and Sengoku went to the back. After a few minutes they had rolled the tyre back to the ditch, where the other three were setting up the rope. "Hey, boys!" Lena yelled. "You got the rope up yet?" "WE have!" Benten replied indignantly. "Juzo just sat around and gave us orders." "A good supervisor is just as important as the manual labourers," Hasegawa reasoned. "What is it with you and all your 'in charge' crap?" Gogul snapped. "Is it your excuse for being a measly little pen-pusher?" "What's THAT supposed to mean?!" Hasegawa demanded. "He means that you're a geek, Juzo," Lena answered bluntly. She caught the end of the rope and began to wrap it around the rim of the tyre. "It's HASEGAWA!!! And I am NOT a geek!!" "Yes you are," Sengoku agreed, as he knelt down and helped Lena pull the knot tight. "I AM NOT!!!" "Prove it then. We need someone to test the swing and you're the heaviest one here." Lena let go of the tyre and rope, sending it back to its natural position. It swang enticingly at the end of the rope. Hasgawa didn't say anything. "Well?" Lena demanded further. "I don't have to if I don't want to," he replied sulkily. "Chicken! Chicken! Chicken! CHI-I-I-CKEN!" Sengoku began to chant. And it wasn't long before the others joined in. "ALL RIGHT! ALL RIGHT! I'LL GO!" Hasegawa yelled. He strode up to the ditch, reached out, caught the rope and climbed into the tyre. He jumped and the tyre flew forwards. The other five cheered, but Hasegawa just sat nervously in the tyre. "I want to get out now!" he yelled. "The rope's losing momentum anyway!" "In ENGLISH, Juzo!" "It's swinging lower!" he replied. "Just wait until it stops and then we can pull you back in!" Benten suggested. It wasn't long until the tyre did stop swinging, leaving Hasegawa sitting catatonically in the middle. "Get me outta here!" he yelled. "Hang on, we'll pull you in now," Lena replied. Gogul, being the tallest, reached out for the tyre but couldn't quite make it. He touched it, but couldn't hold on to it. Unfortunately, even this had an effect on the tyre. It began to spin. Slowly at first, but then faster. Then a creaking noise came from the rope above Hasegawas head. "I'M SLIPPING!" he screamed in a panic. "GET ME OUTTA HERE!!" "Try swinging over a bit nearer to us, then we'll be able to catch you!" "Are you kidding?!?! Then it'll...." The rope suddenly decided to give up the ghost. It just slipped out of its knot and off the branch. And down came Hasegawa, tyre and all. "What were you saying about being a good supervisor, Juzo?" cried a bemused Benten. "Shut up! I'm all muddy! My parents'll kill me!" Feral began giggling. After a while, so did Lena. And soon all five of them were killing themselves laughing. "It serves you right for wearing your school uniform on a Saturday!" Feral cried, in between fits of laughter. "Shut up!" * * * Lena and Feral sat, depressed, on the pavement. "It's not fair!" Feral protested. "Why can't we have our swing? Just because Juzo got his uniform all muddy?" "That, and the fact that we took my dad's tyre without asking. He was gonna sell that car out back but can't because of the tyre." "It's not fair. Why can't he just put the tyre back on anyway?" "Because when we took it off we lost two of the bolts. And we dented the pivot when it dropped." "But... it's mainly Juzo's fault that we can't have a swing, right?" "More or less, yeah. I don't think my dad would've been so mad if it hadn't been for his parents telling him about the accident." "Where's Juzo now?" "I think his mother was worried about him catching pneumonia or something from the mud, so he's probably in bed right now." "Let's pay him a visit," Feral suggested, with a hint of nastiness in her voice. "You don't mean that in a nice way, do you, Feral?" Lena asked, with a hint of wickedness in her voice too. Feral grinned at Lena, her eyes gleaming with mischief. "I'll get the ladder, you get a knife or something." Feral kept grinning as she ran off to find some knives. Time for retribution.