Is Smoking Good for You?

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Although this is based on real events,i.e there was a shop called Madge Evans that burnt down,  the story is purely fictional. 

The street was deserted, not a soul in sight. A lone seagull swooped down to the tarmac and pecked at a discarded roll before flying off again. Funny how a thriving town centre could transform into a Wild West ghost town in a matter of hours, but that was early closing day for you. As soon as the town hall clock struck 12, the shopkeepers shooed shoppers away and locked their doors. It was a grumpy, grey day adding to the desolate nature of the street. Rain fell in a fine mist rolling in off the sea. The seagull swooped again, taking another stab at the bread but didn’t hang around long before flying off and looking for shelter.

I should have been in school but getting drenched in a deserted street was better than sitting in double Physics listening to Mr Evans drone on and on about… well I didn’t know what he droned on about, I zoned out, while he droned on. Today I hadn’t just zoned out, I’d opted out. It was the first time I had ever mitched off school but I hadn’t done the homework and Evans was on the warpath. He was a sadistic man, prone to taking a ruler to boys’ fingers if their homework wasn’t done; not the knuckles but the bits in between and not the flat side of the ruler but the edge. I guess he thought that pain was a deterrent. Well I could testify about how much it hurt, he’d thwacked me more times than I cared to remember, and I was living proof his deterrent didn’t work. I needed teaching not torture, he could hit more all he wanted to, but I still wouldn’t understand what the hell was going on in his lessons. Anyway I still had bruises from last week and I was not about to let him hit me again. So I’d done a bunk, gone AWOL, done a runner and I had a plan.

That morning on my paper round I’d found a packet of cigarettes, and I was determined to try my first smoke. I fished inside my snorkel coat pockets for the matches I’d bought at William’s Stores on the way down here, and tried to light a ciggie. But the wind and the wet meant the task would have been hard for a seasoned twenty a day man, let alone a 14 year old who was lighting up for the first time. I stepped into the doorwell of the Madge Evans department store, using the shelter to help me get my nicotine stick lit. Warm smoke hit the back of my throat, tickling it, causing me to cough and splutter straight away. It tasted rank, my eyes filled with tears, I couldn’t stop coughing. I dropped the cigarette and moved away, still coughing, still trying to clear my throat. My hands stunk, my throat stung, my chest hurt, there was no way I was ever going to smoke another cigarette in my life. 

I was nearly home. As soon as I got there, I would wash my hands and clean my teeth and try to forget I’d ever been so dumb. But I never got home, suddenly there were sirens and blue flashing lights everywhere. I turned on my heels and followed the fire engines. They were heading towards the deserted town centre. Loads of kids in school uniforms just coming out of school were being held back by two policemen. But I didn’t need to get any closer, I could tell Madge Evans was on fire and it didn’t take a genius to work out why?

I had the common sense to act normally, to watch with the excited gaggle of kids and not to guilty slink off home. But the next three weeks were a nightmare, I lived in fear of a knock on the door, all the police had to do was find out which kids weren’t in school that afternoon. But the police never came. In fact the only thing that came was the news that Mr Evans the physics teacher wouldn’t be back in school that year. Who knew he was Madge Evan's grandson and who knew he was due to inherit the Madge Evans fortune, but with no  shop and no insurance his inheritance had gone up in smoke and so had his nerves.