Should Have Worn Wellies
“Should have worn wellies.”
“Pardon me?”
“Wellington boots.”
Derek swung round but the only other person in the allotments was an elderly man. He was seated three across, one down, under an apple tree with his hat down over his face, dozing. It was that kind of day–humid after thunderstorms.
“Bill always wore wellies.”
“Who’s there?”
Derek was getting really annoyed. He looked through the perimeter hedge but there was no one. A sudden breeze chilled him.
“Oi, mister!” A boy screeched his bike to a halt by the picket.
“Oh, so you think I should be wearing wellies, do you?”
“I never said aught about wellies… Are you taking over from Bill?”
“That’s right.”
“It’s just he asked me to look after the key to the shed ’til someone took over. It’s been two year.”
“What shed? Why didn’t he come himself?”
“Dead.”
“Ah.”
“Bill Wellies.”
“What’s all this about wellies?”
“It was the old man’s nickname, that’s all. Never knew his real one. Best allotment around, though.”
“The moment I set foot here, someone said I should be wearing wellies. Was it you?”
“No. Beats me. Any road–here’s the key, there’s the shed,” and he whisked off on his bone shaker between the lots.
There was indeed a shed. Strange he hadn’t noticed it. It looked pretty rickety and Derek thought, as he tramped over the tussocks of grass and weeds, that it wouldn’t take a key to get in. He’d put up a new shed, a spacious shed. One where he could have a quiet pipe. He peered in at the window. It was too dirty to see. He inserted the key in the rusty padlock. It opened easily and the door creaked outwards.
“Unbelievable!”
The shed was stuffed with wellies: green ones, blue ones, black rubbery-looking farmyard ones, a pair with daisies on, red shiny wellies with elasticised tie tops, bright fireman-yellow wellies, wellies with a picture of Bill and Ben the flowerpot men on the sides–wellies! They were stacked in pairs on shelves all around the walls and on the floor. Spider-Man wellies hung on string from the apex of the roof.
Curiously, there were no tools–hoe, spade, fork–zilch. Derek looked at the size of the first pair to hand; tried one on. It fitted. Sporting the shiny red wellies, he stepped back out onto the shambles that was the lot.
Now it wasn’t overgrown at all. It was full of runner beans in bright red flower, tomatoes ripening; there was a strawberry patch all strawed up and with fruit ready for picking. He stooped and picked one. It was deliciously sweet.
“See–told you you needed wellies.” The old gentleman had joined him on the lot.
“How’d you get here so quick?”
“See you plumped for the red ones.”
“You’re…”
“Bill’s the name. Bill Wellies.”
“But you’re…”
“Dead. I know. No excuse for slacking, though. Now don’t you worry about a thing. We’ll help with everything. Soon make a gardener out of you.”
“We? Who’s we?”
“SOGGY–Society of Gardening Ghosts. It’s okay, lads–he’s not scared, you can show yourselves.”
A team of spirits appeared, wielding spades, hoes, rakes, chicken wire.
“We’re all specialists in one type of fruit, veg or flower so you can’t go wrong. Roy here likes roots, Bernard’s brassicas and Doc does dahlias, don’t you, Doc?”
Seventeenth-century dahlias, Derek thought, by the look of his garb.
“You likes dahlias, Derek, doesn’t you?” said Doc, grinning toothlessly.
They swished past him and some of them through him and came back, each wearing wellies from the shed and arguing the finer points of manure.
“I’ll just let you get on then, shall I?” said Derek. All he’d really wanted was peace and quiet and a place to smoke his pipe.
“Can’t do that,” they said. “You’ve gone and chosen your wellies now!”
And that’s when he noticed, too late, that Sydney had a scythe.