‘Give me ball back!’ the voice growled. ‘I want me ball back. It’s not your ball it’s my ball. Give it back.’
The ball in question had been kicked into what had once been Daisy’s immaculate garden. Daisy had worked for hours in her garden. There was once a neat little rockery, a tidy vegetable patch, a well pruned apple tree and a neat and tidy little lawn. Since she left her garden has been overrun with vicious brambles and rampant ivy. The rockery and vegetable patch are lost beneath briars that could hide castles and sleeping princesses. It is here that lost footballs land with a soft rattling thud after shaking the brambles and then fall into a soft decaying sleep of their own..
‘Giz me ball back,’ the voice growled again.
There’s a high wooden fence that prevents the hapless footballer from understanding where his ball has landed.
‘I want me ball back,’ he snarls.
He’s probably about seven years old but he’s deliberately lowering his voice down to deeper scarier registers.
‘I want me ball back. It’s blue with stars on.’
I peer through the briars. There are about seven balls you can glimpse through the gaps between the vicious thorns. A machete would be needed to get anywhere close to them but the chances of getting out alive are slim.
‘It’s not your ball it’s my ball,’ he grumbles ominously again.
I can’t see his ball.
‘I want me ball back,’ he growls louder with an intimidating voice.
There is one ball I think I can reach and I grab a broom handle to coax it closer to my wall.
It’s a dark red and golden ball, I strain a muscle as I reach for it but finally it’s in my hands. I lop it gently over the fence.
I hear it bounce.
There is momentary silence.
The scary troll seems stupefied.
Eventually I hear him kick the ball.
‘You can keep the blue ball,’ the low snarling voice comments darkly. ‘This is a better ball.’
I hear the sound of the ball being kicked in the garden for a while then there is a soft thud and the living creeping undergrowth in next door’s garden shivers again.
Then is a second’s silence and then…
‘I want me ball back.’
I’m trying hard not to laugh at the deep snarling threatening tones I’m hearing all over again.
‘I want me ball back,’ the evil low voice says again. ‘Give me me ball back!’
Much later, I do manage to rescue the ball, but he’s gone by the time I’ve lopped it over the fence once again. There are ugly deep scratch marks on my hands but the ball has been returned and probably this fearsome creature that never once said ‘please’ or ‘thank you’ will growl gruffly tomorrow.
‘I want me ball back.’
And he’ll never understand the merriment he caused me.
