At the end of a school day we congregated at the bus station, a hideous concrete monstrosity in the centre of Aylesbury. Our pockets filled with Coca Cola cubes and strawberry laces, we waited for the number 64 to arrive. As we knocked a slowly deflating football between us an ominous shadow materialised. The shadow belonged to one of the Sir Henry Floyd Grammar School's resident nutters, John Dent (not his real name).
Ordinarily when a nutter approached us, we would cower in fear and trepidation but this nutter was different - he was our nutter. Despite being three years our senior John had befriended us for no apparent reason one day and we saw no reason to convince him otherwise. As we saw it, the relationship was balanced quite well - he didn't kick the crap out of us and in return, we listened to his inane drivel. He was not an eloquent individual and frequently erred on the side of bigotry, misogyny and racism, which often made us visibly wince - a reaction that had to be quickly disguised for fear of violent reprisals. He was also an habitual smoker, more for image than relief I am sure.
So there we stood, wincing and coughing as a bus approached. Glancing up, John took a long drag on his cigarette and proclaimed "This is me boys, I'm off".
He then did something that will stick in my mind as long as I live. He flicked the cigarette with all the cool he could muster. A benign act in other circumstances but in this instance he hadn't accounted for a rogue cross wind that caught the fag end and blew it up and arching back over his head. We watched in awe as it sailed through the air and plopped casually into the centre of a blue fluffy hat that perched cosily on the head of an elderly lady.
We all froze.
Oblivious to the situation that had just occurred, the lady boarded the bus and waited patiently for her turn to have her ticket stamped.
We turned to John who by now had turned a sickly shade of white. He gulped visibly and tears welled in the corners of his eyes. "What should I do boys?" he asked.
"Well you should probably put her out John." came the reply.
John whipped round and ran to the bus, he pushed his way to the front of the queue just as the pensioner was walking down the aisle to take a back seat. The other passengers had not yet noticed the plumes of smoke that were drifting up from the folds of the fluffy hat, but we had. We watched as small flames began to lick the faux fur as the smouldering cigarette began to ignite.
Having pushed past the other passengers John reached the lady as the bus pulled away. The last sight we saw was John launching himself at the old dear, his arms flailing.
