This activity felt too wonderful, fully exhilarating, the most alive any 'not yet a five year old boy' could ever experience. This young boy and his tricycle, had for a moment become furiously focused, one piece of united energy. Who could have known such short legs, with so little muscle, could generate this amount of momentum. But to his boyhood imagination the sense of propulsion and speed felt immense, utterly intoxicating. He wanted much more of racing along the pavements hell for leather. Then an adult hand caught him, and brought it all to an abrupt stop.
It was always like this it seemed, some adult, usually a parent, spoiled the fun. To them it was all about stopping him, making him consider the effect of his actions upon other people, that he needed to be more respectful. It was, after all, early afternoon, and lovely kind Mrs Greenwood would be having her afternoon nap. They'd completely over rule his excuses. Downplaying the value of his enjoyment. For one moment he had been riding his tricycle without a care in the world. Now could that ever have been wrong? Adults were relentless spoilsports, trying to force him to feel guilty. And there were tears, but more out of a sense of loss. Grieving for this one blissful moment in his life, now trashed and sullied. Apparently the problem with him was he did not think. And so he'd cried, but did so with such an angry pout of disapproval on his face. They had ruined his entire day. He'd been, and still was to his mind, guilt free, enjoyably pedaling his tricycle around and around the block, along pavements, up and down cobbled snickets and back alleys, between the terraces. They'd obviously forgotten what that was like.
Going round the block, this was his race track, around which he was timing himself. But for some reason adults, they always wanted to get him to 'stop making that bloody racket' They always swore, and his Mum always said it wasn't clever to swear. Rude language, was vulgar, indicating a lack of intelligence. Poor vocabulary spoke volumes about who you were. He never understood a lot of that. Why was it adults could swear and he couldn't? This he could not comprehend. The racket, the noise, was what made this particular form of playfulness special. It was what adding all the stones and objects was all about. To see what difference they made to the overall sound. The stones were cargo, that needed delivering, and he was now behind with that delivery, thank you very much. He had to catch up, if he was ever to be on time.
The metal tricycle had once been a spanking new red. Now it was seriously dented and scuffed, some of the battered pock marks were beginning to rust badly from being left out in the rain. His Mother was already firing warning shots about him out growing it, and the time to throw it away. He had not, at first, recognised the possibilities a tricycle gave him. Perhaps initially too young for it, his legs did not quite meet the pedals right. It had felt as though it required too much effort. But a mere few months later, suddenly it all clicked, exactly what a tricycle could do. At first he was endlessly cycling up and down the pavement in front of his home. It was only when he went up and down the echoing cobbled snicket for the first time, that it's acoustic possibilities became the decisive revelation of love. What an immensely pleasurable noise that was, as you were shaken and bounced up and down over every little minor cobble and rut.
He ventured further afield, to discover what different surfaces and places looked and sounded like. One day he got so carried away with his peddling, he actually reached the very limit of his road. Never having ventured this far before, he started to feel uneasy, out of his depth and a teeny weeny bit scared. He scanned what was at the road's end, spotting a few things he'd like to explore later, on another day, when he was feeling braver. Aware, on this occasion, that it was probably nearing tea time, and he really ought to be heading for home.
His Mother took him with her on a shopping trip into town the following day, what a tedious waste of time that was to 'a not yet five year old boy" intent on adventure. Consequently he was only able to perform the return journey, a few days later, back to the road's end On his previous glance around, he'd spotted a row of semi-dilapidated garages on the corner opposite. He reached these easily, part pushing with his feet, part waddling across with the tricycle still placed between his legs. To the right of these garages was a lowish stone wall, one he knew he could easily climb. This turned out to look down onto the railway cutting and shunting yards, things he'd only heard before, never actually seen. They were incredibly close, so near he could wave to the drivers. And he spent many a subsequent idle afternoon, hanging around just watching these magnificent beasts, with massive engines moving back and forth. Occasionally older boys, ones he didn't know, turned up. They'd hassle and teased him too much, that he started to clear off home sharpish the moment he saw them heading in his direction.
There were, of course, other places to explore. He could see them in the distance, over the other side of the wide road junction, where the main road out of town split off in two directions. Could he cycle over there? He'd give it a try. Setting a determined chin peddling his tricycle furiously across this main road. With such intensely that he hit the kerb opposite with great force, and was nearly thrown over the handle bars. Quickly heaving the tricycle off the road, he reviewed whether there was any lasting damage. Well, none that he could see. And having finally arrived there, he could take in the bank of allotments the other side of a shallow stone wall, the suggestion of a valley beyond them. These all were enticing. He couldn't possibly drag a tricycle all that way, so what was he going to do with it? Improvising a hiding place behind a hedge, and hoped that that would be enough for it to remain secret.
There were a few adults pottering around the allotments, so he'd need to behave like the Indian tracker he saw on TV. Keeping low, move slow and quietly. There'd obviously been children here before him, with a well flattened grass path to crawl around the back of the allotments. And then that path suddenly veered downhill. You could fully see the heather on the top moor opposite, and how the road curled in the valley beneath it. Having rapidly descended, the path curved horizontally across the slope until it came to a soot blackened granite shelf of rock that stuck out dramatically, what the boy instantly christened 'the cave'. He hung around entranced by his discovery for seemingly an age, looking out at the hills opposite, rapt in his imaginative reveries. Until again he started to feel on edge, nervous about it getting dark soon, of being here on his own, that maybe he hadn't hidden his tricycle well enough, what if he couldn't find it? What time was it now? Suddenly hitting the panic button, he pelted as fast as his legs could carry him, passed the allotments, back to his tricycle hidey hole, back across the road junction.
By the time he'd reached home, the panic attack had subsided and he was on full beam with the sheer joy of today's adventuring. His Mother was waiting for him, standing by the back door looking bad tempered and cross. He'd been seen by a neighbour cycling across that busy main road, what was he thinking? There was a hard slap across the thigh. He was to stay at home for the rest of the week. This one incident proved to be the death knell for the tricycle. But the young boy 'not yet five years old' quickly got over mourning it's loss. He wasn't visibly angry or sulking, well, maybe invisibly he was, just a little. After all, he was now ready to move on to pastures new, he'd found himself a cave.
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