Overheard Conversations #9

Location: Outside a hut set in waste ground . Exterior. Evening.

Characters: Mum, Teenage Daughter (Banshee), Small(ish) Boy.

Mum & Banshee are standing outside the hut. It is dark and cold.

Banshee: I can't believe you've let him come here.

Mum: It's good for him to join things.

Banshee: Look at the place!

Mum: What about it?

Banshee: It's in the middle of nowhere.

Mum: We're in Garston.

Banshee: They could be teaching him anything!

Mum (CONFUSED): What?

Banshee: It's a paramilitary organisation.

Mum: It's the Scouts.

Banshee: I wouldn't let my child come here.

THE SCOUT HUT DOOR BURSTS OPEN. SMALL BOY COMES RUNNING OUT WAVING A PIECE OF PAPER.

Small Boy: You have to sign this for next week!

Mum (SQUINTING AT THE PAPER): What is it?

Small Boy: My shooting permission slip.

Banshee: Ha! What are you going to be shooting, Rory? Jewish people?

Small Boy: I'm going to camp next weekend -

Banshee: To learn how to make bombs?

Small Boy: I need to take a cake -

Mum: I'll make you one -

Small Boy: And a sleeping bag -

Banshee: A detonator, plastic explosives, a hunting knife -

Small Boy: And wellies. Have I got wellies?

Mum: Yes, they're under the stairs -

Banshee: Not forgetting the black balaclava, latex gloves -

Mum (FIRMLY): How was Scouts?

Small Boy: Great! We chopped up a piano with massive axes and burned it!

Mum: What?

Banshee: Next week: book burning.

Small Boy: Ken, he's the leader, he's got no feeling in his left hand -

Banshee: Has he got a hook?

Small Boy: When he was a welder a piece of white hot metal jumped inside his glove and destroyed his nerves -

Mum (BRIGHTLY): Let's go for the bus -

Small Boy: And the first he knew about it was when he smelled the burning flesh.

Banshee: Lovely!

Small Boy: Ken says I can train my grip by squeezing a tennis ball. Have we got any tennis balls, Mum?

Banshee: Perhaps you could practise on small animals?

Mum (THROUGH GRITTED TEETH): Yes, we've got a tennis ball.

Banshee: When he grows a small, black moustache don't say I didn't warn you.

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