Mathew King was the first casualty of war. He got shot in the back of the head.
It was Uncle Robert’s fault. He was a favourite uncle, mainly because of his totally inappropriate presents. Somehow he never seemed to remember his nephew’s ages. For their second birthday he gave them each a full size drum kit. For their sixth birthday he gave them motorised go-karts and when they turned eight he paid for driving lessons at a local race track, where to the relief of their parents the twins were sent away and told to return four years later. His latest inappropriate gifts were guns.
The guns arrived at just the right moment. It was last week of the school holidays and the twins were bored. Even board games had become boring. All the trees had been climbed, the stream had been damned too many times, clay from the river had been smeared on every available surface and even football was too much effort.
There were no mobile phones, no play-stations or social media. This all happened in the days when children made their own entertainment and mostly that was good for them, with only the occasional broken bone and very infrequent trips to A & E, maybe only once a month or even less.
Most of the Park Avenue gang were lying in the tall grass watching aeroplanes pass overhead. It was easy for the Walker twins to get close without being spotted.
The mistake Robin Walker made was shooting at the first head he saw. You see Mathew King, was the oldest, the biggest and the strongest boy in the gang. He was also their leader. The bullet slammed into Mathew King’s head just behind his right ear.
The guns were not real guns. Even Uncle Robert wasn’t that stupid. You couldn’t do any lasting damage with these guns; unless you really tried. But the potato bullets hurt – a lot, and left a nasty bruise. Mathew King assumed he’d been stung.
That’s when the Walker twins made their second mistake. They ran.
Mathew jumped up, pointed at the running boys, shouted to gather his troops and led the chase. The rest of the gang had no idea why they were chasing the Walkers, but this was much more fun than lying around doing nothing.
The Walkers safely reached their home but that only made things escalate. Mathew commandeered the Hunt’s garage and set up his HQ. Colin Hunt supplied pens and paper and soon the declaration of war was written.
The second casualty of the Park Avenue War was Steven Lewis. He’d been sent to deliver the declaration. He took his responsibility seriously and marched to the Walker’s front door, posted the declaration through the letter box and stood to attention awaiting a reply. The reply came out of the letterbox and hit him in a most painful place. His retreat was more of a hobble than a march.
The third and forth casualties were both Clarks. The gang were preparing to invade the Walker’s house by training on an impromptu assault course, which involved crawling commando style under a swing being propelled by the youngest Clark. Unfortunately the oldest Clark didn’t keep his head down. The collision sent him home with blood on his shirt and his brother home with scrapes on both hands following his high speed ejection from the swing.
Sarah Lewis was also sent home to join her previously injured brother. Her blood covered shirt was the result of some over-enthusiastic jousting with a stiff garden brush.
Mathew realised that his training routine was doing more damage than good. He called a halt and began his briefing for the invasion.
Paul was given the scariest assignment. As the best climber he would get on to the garage roof and attempt to gain access to the Whelan house through the open bathroom window. The scariest part wasn’t the climb, or having to squeeze through a narrow window while potentially being shot at. The scariest part was getting to the garage through the Wood’s garden.
Mr Wood was scary. He had tattoos, and this was in the days when many people saw tattoos as aggressive statements rather than fashion statements. He also had two scary dogs. They were tiny dogs. Tiny dogs with loud yappy voices and small sharp ankle high teeth.
Matthew divided the gang into three teams – one for front door, one for the kitchen door and one for the side door. If Paul got through the window he would attempt to open one of the doors. There were only two Walkers so that should leave one door unguarded.
The Walkers were watching out of the bedroom windows. Robin was covering the front garden while David covered the back. Suddenly they heard the Wood’s dogs yapping and realised the attack was coming from the side. They rushed out onto the landing and collided with Paul.
He was the first to regain his balance and quickly ran down the stairs into the kitchen. The back door wouldn’t open.
Paul heard laughing and turned to see two identical grins, two identical guns and one door key dangling from David Walker’s hand.
The potato guns were top of the range. Uncle Robert wasn’t good at expressing his emotions so over-compensated with extravagant gifts. Most potato guns could only fire a single shot and then needed to be reloaded. These guns each held six bullets.
Paul avoided the first volley by diving behind the kitchen cabinet. The twins separated and came from both directions.
Paul pulled open a kitchen drawer looking for anything that would save him. All he found was a lemon.
Weirdly he remembered something his teacher had said on the last day of school, ‘If life gives you lemons, make lemonade.’ He couldn’t see how that would make his life better.
Instead he jumped up, raised the lemon above his head and shouted, ‘I invoked the power of the lemon.’
This was enough to confuse the Walker twins and Paul was able to scramble passed to reach the front door. A quick turn of the Yale latch and one-third of the Park Avenue gang swarmed in.
The first gang-members through the door were later awarded milk-bottle top medals and spent the rest of the week showing off the changing colours of their potato induced bruises.
The gang soon overwhelm the Walkers. Court was held, guilty verdicts passed and David and Robin were sentenced to receive three bullets to each buttock. Unfortunately no one had a potato.
The Walkers’ relief was short-lived. Paul presented the lemon. Mathew King smiled. The Walkers groaned and a key sounded in the front door.
Mrs Walker was home.
By the time she had hung up her coat the front room had been transformed. When she poked her head around the door she saw a quiet, happy group of children sitting on the floor intent on playing a board game.
‘What game is that your playing?’
Mathew King held up the box for her to see.
‘Deception.’
‘Any good?’
‘Oh yes. We’re very good at it,’ said Mathew.
‘And why do you need a lemon?’ asked Mrs Walker.
Paul was the first to recover.
‘To make lemonade,’ he said.
‘Of course,’ said Mrs Walker. ‘Well enjoy yourselves.’
‘Would it be ok if we came and played the same game tomorrow?’
‘Of course you can. It’s lovely to see children who know how to entertain themselves.’
The whole gang, including the Walkers grinned. They couldn’t wait till tomorrow. It was going to be the best day of the holidays.
And it would have been – if Mrs Walker hadn’t planned to make jacket potatoes for tea.