thoughts of a student in hiding

I had to get away. I was over whelmed with desperation to escape doing any more gardening. I stood pretending to work but in my head I was planning the mother plan of all escape plans. My plan was simple, on my left at about 10 o’clock there was the boat, turned over but kept off the ground by two barrels at each end. The gap between the boat and the ground was perfect for sliding under and from here the space underneath looked just right to fit two skiving students. This boat, even though she didn’t know it yet, was to be our hide out for the afternoon. I knew that I could not wait, I seized both the moment and Hannah and ran for the cover of the boat. We gracefully slid under the gap and into the small, dim, dusty, dreary cover of the boat. As we settled ourselves under the boat and our eyes had adjusted to the musky green light I was slightly amused at the kick I got out of this childish hiding to get out of work. I guess some things take longer to grow out of than others. As we hide we contemplated the meaning of life, where we go when we dream? And At what point does ‘ding-ness’ occur? Other such pressing matters that teenagers run into constantly were also discussed during the time we were in hiding. Hannah did not last in hiding as long I would have hoped. Quite soon after we had arrived she departed.

In her absence I noticed the cobwebs in the corners, they did not seem to be inhabited anymore. These cobwebs got me thinking, what if they could tell a story? What if the wood of the boat could tell its tale? The queen lyric also sprang to mind “if every leaf on every tree could tell a story that would be a miracle”. What could this boat tell me? Where did this tree grow up? I imagined the many number of things that this tree could have witnessed. This tree could have been a lover’s tree where the young hearts would meet and spend long happy hours under its protective branches and carve their names into its bark as a mark of their devotion. This tree could have witnessed some crime that to this day has never been solved and no one but this tree knows what really happed. This tree could also just have spent his life in a forest and witnessed no such event, but I got a certain pleasure out of inventing these stories.

Then my mind left the stories of the boat for the oldest trees in Ireland, like the Brian Boru oak. This tree has been around for so long that all his stories you could not tell in a life time. He could have seen the O’Neil’s and the O’Connor’s before they left this green isle, he saw the English arrive and cut down all his fellow trees, he must have seen the people of his country suffer under the rule of foreign king, then he may have served as a meeting place for the brave souls of the rebellion that freed the country of the foreign claw and then in my life time, maybe he remembers my class when we were young and had not yet lost all our teeth climbing in his ancient arms on our class adventure.

Then the sound of foot steps awoke me from my imagination. I took my phone out to check the time. I saw from the shoes that were walking by that it was my teacher Seamus. I thought he hadn’t noticed me and I’d got away with out being caught, but no sooner had the thought crossed my mind than his feet stopped and his face appeared under the edge of the boat. I could tell by his laugh that he was equally as amused by my hide out as I was myself not too long before.