Adrian walked along, head down, moodily kicking at the odd stone as he went along.
“Bloody Matthews,” he muttered to himself. He was doing his best. So what if he forgot the odd comma or full stop. You got the gist of it. Thank goodness it was Friday. No school for the weekend and Monday was a public holiday. Yay! He had plenty of homework If he got that done early, he’d have three days free. He looked up as he passed a weathered old house. It belonged to old Mr Hastings. He would sit on the front porch on a battered old chair, watching the world go by. Adrian waved at him from time to time, but the old man generally ignored him, just staring into space. His mother had gently pointed out that he may not even have seen him, lost in thought, or just had bad eyesight.
He wasn’t there. Which was unusual. He hadn’t been there yesterday either. He wondered idly if the old man was alright. He knew he lived alone. He had home help and meals on wheels several days a week. He stopped and stood uncertainly at the rickety timber gate. Should he go in and check? They had never actually exchanged any words. Still. It wouldn’t do any harm, he decided.
He pushed open the gate, walked up the path, mounted the well-worn steps and slowly approached the front door. He stood for a moment, then knocked on the door. There was no answer. He stood uncertainly, then knocked again. There was no one home yet on either side. The neighbours were couples all of whom worked during the day. He walked to a window and tried to peer through, but the curtains were drawn. He went back to the door and tried the handle, but it was locked.
He stood there indecisively, then shrugged his bag off his shoulders, dropped it on the floor, and descended the steps. He walked around the side of the house, along the fence, to the backyard. It was mainly weed-infested grass, with a border of shrubs, and the odd tree. The grass badly needed a mow.
Fleetingly, he thought, ‘I could offer to come and mow over the weekend,’ then mounted the back steps of a back patio with a few odd bits of furniture on it. He walked to a back door and tried the handle. The door was unlocked. He pushed it open and ventured inside.
“Mr Hastings?” he called.
No answer. He was in a small room, and to his right, through an open door, he saw a laundry. Ahead was a kitchen. There were some dishes in the sink, but it was what was on the table that disturbed him. There was a plate of congealed food, a knife and fork lying on it, a chair pushed back. Alarmed, he called out again, “Mr Hastings?”
No answer. He walked past the table and into a hallway. He gasped. Mr Hastings was lying unmoving on the floor. He was on his side, a mat tangled in his feet. Without hesitation, heart thumping in his chest, Adrian ran to his side. To his relief, the old man was breathing audibly. but his eyes were closed. He seemed to be unconscious.
‘How long had he been lying there?’ he wondered.
He pulled his phone out of his pocket and punched in 000, the first time he ever had to do that.
‘They’re on their way,’ he was assured after explaining what he had found.
He ended the call, put away the phone and looked down at the old man. He must have tripped on the mat and knocked himself out. What should he do? He went off, looked into a bedroom, pulled a pillow and blanket off a neatly made bed, then returned. He gently inserted the pillow under his head and draped the blanket over him. Then he walked to the front door and opened it. He stood outside, pulled his phone out again, and called his mother. It went to her message bank. He left her a brief message explaining what had happened. She was a nurse at a nearby hospital. She would have it turned off while she was on duty. As he ended the call, an ambulance pulled into the driveway.
Some minutes later, he watched as they wheeled Mr Hastings out to the ambulance.
“He seems ok, but he may have a fractured hip,” a female paramedic told him.
“Good thing you found him. He probably wouldn’t have been able to move.”
She patted him on the shoulder. Soon the ambulance pulled out of the driveway and set off. It had aroused very little interest in the few people passing by. They just looked and kept going.
Adrian went back inside. He picked the plate up from the table, emptied it into the rubbish bin, then washed it and other dishes and cutlery he found in the sink. He dried everything with a dish towel and stacked it neatly on the draining board. He looked around. Everything was neat and tidy. He locked the back door, then pulled the plastic bag half-filled with garbage out of the bin. He would drop it in the big bin outside next to the house. He saw a set of keys hanging up on a key rack.
‘Should he take it?’ he wondered. How would Hastings get back again? He took it just in case and walked out of the front door. He would call the hospital later to check on the old man, He picked up his backpack, dropped the garbage bag in the bin, and set off for home.
Ten minutes later, he was drinking deeply from a carton of vegetable juice. His mother would not be impressed, but she wasn’t there to see him. He put it back in the fridge then went into his bedroom, dropping his bag on the floor. He lay back on his bed, pulled his phone from his pocket and pushed a button.
“Hi Aidie,” a voice trilled.
He felt warm inside. His favourite person in the whole world, well, apart from his mother.
“Hi Simone,” he answered.
They’d only been seeing each other for two months. It was exciting. She was the first person he’d ever dated.
“You’ll never guess what happened to me today.”
“What?”
So Adrian proceeded to tell her all about his good deed.
©️Cesmo