I remember when I first stepped on them! My foot–faulted. I had aimed for a long step, achieving just three quarters. Reckless behaviour. Mum, and my older sister Alice, had warned me against such loose stepping. My hand went to the bottom of my right pocket, squeezing the bejesus out of my rabbit’s foot. Careful, think, there was no time to get in a funk!
I had wondered if a backwards step would suffice. Nah, that was just kid’s stuff. I had heard Clarke Kent say that if you raced around the world really, really, really quickly, six times, you could turn back time. Mmm, that might work. But my cape was in the wash – Mum pinched it after I spilt the chocolate milk. I needed to think.
I could see old people coming towards us –one with a long beard was going to … . I clutched Mum’s hand, ever so tightly. Phew, we got passed, unharmed.
Ahead I saw they were painting the Palace Hotel – green! The guys had ladders right out on the footpath. Hey, excuse me, surely we’re not going to – were we? At the last moment, Mum, with a perfunctory spring in her step, took us out and around the ladders. I had looked up at Alice and noticed a sort of triumphal look on her face, she mouthed “You silly!” as we made the move.
We approached Donaldson’s dairy, with that old lemon tree to the side. No Hairy about, but I could see hundreds of squished lemons, windfalls, smelly, slippery and … OMG there was a milk can, lying on its side, milk puddling with the lemons, and were those chillies? This couldn’t be happening to us? Mar-um!
Luckily the Masked Warrior was always prepared. I carried a bag of salt in my pocket. I grabbed a bit and quickly threw it over my left shoulder. There was a moment’s hesitation: was it the left shoulder? I was careful not to spill any. Looking across at Alice, I again saw that sort of smug look cross her face. She had seen me throw the salt. It wasn’t disgust or odium, rather, just a superior, older sister sort of look.
She could act like that sometimes, but I knew that without my extra-sensory alerts, we would always be at risk. I was ready to save Mum, maybe even Alice: well, at a pinch.
We approached the Milk Bar on the corner. There would be three pence worth of mixed on offer. Memories drifted – one gobstopper or two humbugs? Humbugs would leave enough for six honey bears, four clinkers and, ah, those flavours sloshing around my gob! The ecstasy, those delicious decisions.
In anticipation, I skipped a few steps. Ooh, no, dead-meat! I had landed on a crack, again! Lightning flashed, the pavement opened wide – a deep, dark chasm, tortured cries, wafting smells of rotting flesh, peril, punishment, possibly permanent perdition!
Seventy years on. My grandchildren and I still take care to avoid the cracks!