by Nigel Balchin

Before you read:

1) What events do we call “incidents”?

2) Have you heard of any curious incidents connected with customs or travelling by train?

Among the passengers travelling home by train from Florence there was a certain Miss Bradley.

I only noticed her when passing down the corridor, because of her really remarkable plainness. She was rather a large, awkward woman of about thirty-five with a big, red nose, and large spectacles.

Later on, when I went to the dining-car, Miss Bradley was already seated, and the attendant placed me opposite her.

I think we may have exchanged half a dozen words at dinner, when passing one another the sugar or the bread. But they were certainly all we exchanged, and after we left the dining-car, I did not see Miss Bradley again until we reached Calais Maritime.

And then our acquaintance really began, and it began entirely on my initiative. There were plenty of porters, and I called one without difficulty from the window of the train. But as I got off, I saw Miss Bradley standing on the platform with two large very old suitcases. The porters were passing her by.

I am quite sure that had she been an even slightly attractive woman, I would not have gone up to her, but she was so ugly, and looked so helpless that I approached her, and said: "My porter has a barrow. Would you like him to put your cases on it too?" Miss Bradley turned and looked at me.

"Oh - thank you. It is very kind of you. "

My porter, without great enthusiasm, added her luggage to mine; and in a few minutes we found ourselves on board the Channel ferry.

Before the boat had been under way for ten minutes, I realized that Miss Bradley was a remarkable bore. Shyly and hesitantly she kept on talking about nothing, and made no remark worth taking notice of.

I learned that she had been in Italy a fortnight, visiting her sister who was married to an Italian. She had never been out of England before.

I did not look forward to travelling to London with her for another four hours, so excusing myself I went along to the booking-office on board the boat and booked myself a seat on the Golden Arrow.

Miss Bradley was travelling by the ordinary boat train, so this would mean that we should part at Dover.

At Dover I hired one of the crew to carry our luggage.

Normally, passengers for the Golden Arrow are dealt with by the customs first, as the train leaves twenty minutes before the ordinary boat train. When the boy asked if we were going on the Golden Arrow, I hesitated and then said "Yes. "

It was too difficult to explain that one of us was and one of us wasn't, and then it would get Miss Bradley through the customs quickly.

As we went towards the Customs Hall, I explained carefully to her that my train left before hers, but that I would see her through the customs; the boy would then take the luggage to our trains, and she could sit comfortably in hers till it left. Miss Bradley said, "Oh, thank you very much. "

The boy, of course, had put our suitcases together on the counter, and Miss Bradley and I went and stood before them. In due course the customs examiner reached us, looked at the four suitcases in that human X-ray manner which customs examiners must practise night and morning, and said, "This is all yours?"

I was not quite sure whether he was speaking to me, or me and Miss Bradley. So I replied, "Well - mine and this lady's. "

The examiner said, "But you're together?"

"For the moment," I said rather foolishly, smiling at Miss Bradley.

"Yes," said the customs man patiently. "But are you travelling together? Is this your joint luggage?"

"Well, no. Not exactly. We're just sharing a porter. "

I pointed my cases out. I had nothing to declare, and declared it. Without asking me to open them, the examiner chalked the cases and then, instead of moving to my left and dealing with Miss Bradley, moved to the right, and began X-raying somebody else's luggage.

The boy took my cases off the counter. I hesitated for a moment, but then decided it was no use waiting for Miss Bradley since we were about to part, so I said:

"Well, I'll say good-bye now, and go and find my train. I expect the examiner will come back and deal with you next. The porter will stay and bring our luggage up to the trains when you're through. Good-bye. "

Miss Bradley said, "Oh. good-bye and thank you so much." We shook hands and I left.

I found my seat in the Golden Arrow and began to read.

It must have been about twenty minutes later that I suddenly realized the train was due to leave in five minutes and that the porter had not yet brought my luggage. I was just going to look for him when he appeared, breathing heavily, with my suitcases. I asked him rather angrily what he had been doing.

"The lady is still there," said the boy, "and will be for some time, I think. They are going through her things properly. "

"But why?"

"Well, they'd found forty watches when I came away, and that was only the start, so I thought maybe you wouldn't want me to wait. "

I have often wondered whether, when Miss Bradley stood so helplessly on the platform at Calais, she had already chosen me as the person to come to her rescue, or whether she was just sure that somebody would.

Looking back, I think, she must have chosen me. I am fairly sure of that though exactly how, I have never been clear. I am quite sure she never made the slightest effort to make my acquaintance.

by James Ross

Before you read:

Have you ever moved house? How did you feel about it?

If not, would you like to?

'That's it then? '

2I nodded, and Derek, the removal man, turned back to the van, gave a wave to his driver and went to the back to lift the ramp, close the hatch and seal up the contents of my previous life.

3You don't really want removal men to be efficient and clean; you want them to be burly, and surly, beer-bellied, with pie-breath and greasy flat-cap. You want them to pause, rub their aching back and take a sharp intake of breath.

4You want chipped cups, splintered furniture, mashed boxes, lost boxes. Delays. Traffic jams.running over time.running out of time. You want stuff stored in the wrong rooms, too-heavy-to-move tea-chests dumped in the passage, stuff left behind to be collected, or not, three shame-faced weeks later, after seven increasingly irate phone calls from the new homeowner. You want inefficiency, damage and loss.

5In fact, if you were in my position, you would want the removal men to simply forget to arrive; you'd want the estate agent to lose the contracts shortly before the exchange takes place; you'd want the utility companies to forget to switch.

6And you'd want your wife not to have left you.

7Derek snapped shut the padlock on the back of the van, nodded in my direction and walked round to climb into the passenger seat. With a cough of blue smoke the diesel engine fired up and the driver wasted no time in crunching it into gear and thrusting it out amongst the blaring horns of midday London traffic. Some of what was in the back of the van was coming with us to our new home, but a lot more was to be dropped off at the auction house later. The way I felt at that moment, it could have all been taken direct to a landfill.

8This is not what I asked for, I told myself, as I slipped the door keys into an envelope, sealed it and pinned the envelope to the wall just inside the front door. Then I took one last look along the hall, past the front room door, past the dining room door, to the kitchen, where we'd breakfasted every morning for years, first as man and wife, and then man and wife and child, and lately, as father and son. On impulse I stepped back inside, walked along the hall to the kitchen door and took one last look inside, imagining us some seven years ago, seeing again the chaos of a young, happily married couple and their baby boy, eating breakfast, getting ready for work, talking, being a family. I saw this picture in my head, felt the anguish of what I'd never have again, and after I faced my grief, it faded. Quietly, almost reverentially, I closed the door and, taking a purposeful deep breath, I walked back along and out through the front door, turned and slammed it shut on my old life.

Feeling somehow lighter, I walked down the steps from what had been my front door and across the road to the car, to where Danny was sitting absorbed in his book. I opened the driver's door and got in. 'Ready for an adventure? ' I asked him, fastening my seat belt, adjusting the wonky rear-view mirror until it seemed prepared to stay in one position long enough for me to be able to ascertain that we weren't going to be crushed by a speeding juggernaut a very large multiaxle lorry/truck often used for international cargo transportation. or a fire-engine while driving along the Queen's Highway, and turned the ignition key.

He nodded, still looking at his book, 'Sure,' and reached over and patted my hand.

'What's that for? ' I asked.

He looked up at me, 'I'm on your side, dad. That's all. '

'You're eight. You don't get to be on someone's side at eight. '

He smiled knowingly, and went back to his book.

On the third attempt, the engine of our brand-new, seven-year-old Fiat managed to fire up; I adjusted the mirror again, signaled and pushed out into the traffic. We drove out of the street where we'd lived for nine years without looking back. Though that could have been because the rear-view mirror had slipped down and sideways once more, giving me a clear view of the passenger side dashboard air-vent.

'I like adventures,' Danny said, after about ten minutes.

I rubbed his hair, 'So do we all. '

'Don't muss up my hair,' he told me. 'It's got gel on. '

'Sorry. '

'It's ok. '

'When did you start wearing hair gel? '

''Daaad! '

We drove south, across the river, and the traffic was lighter than usual, this still being the school holidays. Danny looked up and asked, 'Where are we? '

'Adventure Country,' I told him.

'Cool. '

A few minutes later he said, 'The sign says Peckham. '

Fifteen minutes later we turned into a cul-de-sac that contained a row of large but fairly dilapidated Victorian houses surrounded on three sides by large equally dilapidated blocks of 1960's neo-brutalist social housing. Our apartment was in the basement of the house with the removal van parked outside. I pulled up beside the removal van, jerked on the handbrake, and turned off the engine. 'Come on,' I said.

Danny climbed out and went for a look round while I went to unlock the door for Derek and his assistant. Then I went and sat on the wall watching Danny running around.

From this vantage point, I could look up at the back doors and broken windows of the council flats opposite; I could count the satellite dishes and scan the walkways and stairwells where, no doubt, the feral underclass would prowl of an evening, dealing drugs, stealing phones and stabbing each other.

Danny was running off some energy, exploring nooks and crannies around the cul-de-sac, and I was letting the removal men do their job, and the sun was setting behind a tower block.

'Don't go too far,' I shouted.

He ran over to me, 'What? '

'I said, don't go too far. '

'Ok. '

I wanted to muss his hair but remembered his warning about the hair gel, so instead asked, 'Well, what do you think? '

He looked around as the glooming evening spread from shadow to shadow; streetlights were flickering on at random, doorways and corners beginning to look threatening. He looked back at me and whispered, 'Bandit Country,' his eyes glittering, and then he ran off to explore some more.

Comprehension

by Moose Pseudonym of a webmaster.

Before you read:

1) What animals or insects do you find repellent, if any? How do you feel about mice?

2) Have you ever watched animals closely? Have you discovered anything interesting?

In the spring of 1999, I spent some time mountain biking in the deserts of southern Utah. One night, I parked near a trailhead and was going to sleep underneath the stars, but I sat in my car and wrote letters before going to bed. I was near a canyon wall and I heard lots of small rocks falling down the cliff. However, there were too many rocks falling and something seemed amiss about the whole situation. “Hmm, I wonder if the cliff is about to fall down” crossed my mind. Then it sounded like my foam sleeping pad was unfurling. Next it sounded like rocks falling again, just that it sounded like too many rocks. Then the sounds seemed to be coming from inside my car. It sounded like something rubbing against my sleeping pad. “Never mind. ” I thought. I turned off my flashlight to look at the stars. Next thing I knew I felt something large crawl across my thigh. I jumped about a meter. This manoeuvre was made a bit more difficult by the fact that the roof of my car was only ten centimeters above my head. I had no idea what it was: a lizard, a mouse, or a snake? An intruder was inside my car.

I heard this thing crawling around and still had no idea what it was. I opened all the doors to let it crawl out. I finally caught sight of it. it was a mouse. I wasn't exactly happy about this, but it was better than a rattlesnake. I finally gave up on trying to get it out of my car and would deal with it in the morning. I enjoy sleeping under the stars, so I went outside for the night. I placed my food on the roof of the car. Usually you would put your food inside the car to keep it from animals, but this was a different case. I was lying on the desert floor and twenty minutes later a mouse approached, but ran off when I moved my head to see it. The next morning I cleaned everything out of my car and couldn't find the mouse, but did find some of my food that it had chewed on.

Two nights later I parked in the same spot. It was lightly raining off and on, so I slept in my car and heard noises similar to the other night. The mouse was back. I looked at my watch; it was 12: 33 a. m.

I tried to figure out where the mouse was and open the door nearest to it. I was poking around under the seats, but this didn't work. I went to sleep, deciding to live with it until the morning. Then I heard it chewing on something. What it was chewing on, I didn't know. Was it electrical wiring, my backpack, biking clothes? I didn't know and none of these were good options. I had to get rid of the critter, but I couldn't harm it. It was just doing what mice do and I like mice after all. I was unsuccessful in my efforts and the mouse would only move around when the lights were off. I tried to go back to sleep again, but the chewing continued to bother me. This happened several times. I heard the mouse chewing on my bread and tried to catch it. The mouse ran for it and disappeared under the driver's seat. Obviously, this called for a plan.

I placed the bag so that if it were going to eat the bread, it would have to climb into the bag. I would then grab the bag and `bag' the mouse. After a few minutes, the mouse climbed into the bag and was finally caught. I put him outside of my car and tried to get to sleep. It was 1: 46 a. m.

It was so nice to have silence and not worry about my stuff. This lasted twenty minutes until I heard something crawling around my car again. I had no idea how the mouse was getting in and I've never had problems with mice. This had to be the same mouse since it was able to get into my car. I saw the mouse on the passenger floor. I jumped at it, trying to catch it under a piece of plastic. It ran into the heating vents and disappeared. I could then hear the mouse crawling around the ventilation system for a while. This was really annoying, as it just seemed to mock me.

Eventually the mouse crawled out of the vents. I saw it at various places in the car. I made a diving leap for it over the seats and tried to trap it under a jacket or corner it under the dashboard, but to no avail. It always evaded me and seemed to do so without any difficulty. I continued to stalk him and tried a number of different tactics, but nothing seemed to work. The mouse was always one step (scamper?) ahead of me.

My furry nemesis finally decided that it wanted more food and started to poke around the bread. I set the trap again and finally caught it after a ten-minute wait. This time I wouldn't make the same mistake. I got into the driver's seat and drove a short way down the road, and let him go. It really was a cute little guy. Whiskers, light brown fur, and neat-looking black eyes. So a slightly disoriented mouse and a mountain biker with a smile (from both amusement and the thrill of victory) on his face parted ways. It was 3: 36 a. m.

While the world goes on with its business, nations rise and fall, and stars explode, I find myself in the desert, engaged in a three-hour and three-minute pitched battle… with a mouse.

by Angelica Gibbs

Before you read:

1) Have you passed a driving test? Did you pass it first time? If not, what was the problem?

2) Have you ever had any funny/unpleasant experiences in cars?

On the afternoon Marian took her second driving test, Mrs. Ericson went with her. 'It's probably better to have someone a little older with you,' Mrs. Ericson said as Marian slipped into the driver's seat beside her. 'Perhaps last time your Cousin Bill made you nervous, talking too much on the way. '

'Yes, Ma'am,' Marian said in her soft unaccented voice. 'They probably do like it better if a white person shows up with you. '

'Oh, I don't think it's that,' Mrs. Ericson began, and subsided after a glance at the girl's set profile. Marian drove the car slowly through the shady suburban streets. It was one of the first hot days of June, and when they reached the boulevard they found it crowded with cars headed for the beaches.

'Do you want me to drive? ' Mrs. Ericson asked. 'I'll be glad to if you're feeling jumpy. ' Marian shook her head. Mrs. Ericson watched her dark, competent hands and wondered for the thousandth time how the house had ever managed to get along without her, or how she had lived through those earlier years when her household had been presided over by a series of slatternly white girls who had considered housework demeaning and the care of children an added insult. 'You drive beautifully, Marian,' she said. 'Now, don't think of the last time. Anybody would slide on a steep hill on a wet day like that. '

'It takes four mistakes to flunk you,' Marian said. 'I don't remember doing all the things the inspector marked down on my blank. '

'People say that they only want you to slip them a little something,' Mrs. Ericson said doubtfully.

'No,' Marian said. 'That would only make it worse, Mrs. Ericson. I know. '

The car turned right, at a traffic signal, into a side road and slid up to the curb at the rear of a short line of parked cars. The inspectors had not arrived yet.

'You have the papers? ' Mrs. Ericson asked. Marian took them out of her bag: her learner's permit, the car registration, and her birth certificate. They settled down to the dreary business of waiting.

'It will be marvellous to have someone dependable to drive the children to school every day,' Mrs. Ericson said.

Marian looked up from the list of driving requirements she had been studying. 'It'll make things simpler at the house, won't it? ' she said.

'Oh, Marian,' Mrs. Ericson exclaimed, 'if I could only pay you half of what you're worth! '

'Now, Mrs. Ericson,' Marian said firmly. They looked at each other and smiled with affection.

Two cars with official insignia on their doors stopped across the street. The inspectors leaped out, very brisk and military in their neat uniforms. Marian's hands tightened on the wheel. 'There's the one who flunked me last time,' she whispered, pointing to a stocky, self-important man who had begun to shout directions at the driver at the head of the line. 'Oh, Mrs. Ericson. '