The walk wasn't long but we would ramble on about anything and everything along the way. Probably about boys we liked, girls we didn't and whatever else happened to come up in between.
One day we were walking to her house, meandering along the footpath and a blue panel van drove past. I can remember this as clear as if it was yesterday. It was rolling along rather slowly and the driver was just staring at us. Katy waved and we laughed and continued walking and didn't think anything more of it...until it turned down her street, did a u-turn and then coasted past us again. We thought it was a bit odd but continued walking and talking and then lo and behold it did another u-turn and parked a little up the road from where we were. We knew something wasn't right.
Katy's house was just down the next street from where we were but we decided that we didn't want to walk down her street otherwise the guy would know where she lived. So we continued walking to the next street. The car took off from the curb and started following us again. Slowly it rolled by. We tried not to look scared and kept walking.
We were relieved when it drove past us and didn't continue following down the side street we turned into. We stood at the top of the hill for a little while and thought about what we would do. And then, it was as if we were in the scene of a movie - at the bottom of the street that we walked down there was an intersection and while we were laughing (we still thought it as kind of funny at this point) and discussing what we should do next, the blue car edged out into the intersection and stopped. We looked at other with sheer terror on our faces. It wasn't funny any more. The car was definitely following us and we started to get scared.
So we ran! Back towards Katy's street. We ran as fast as we could and as we turned back to look, the car was driving up the hill in pursuit. There was a big electrical box at the top of Katy's street. Knowing that we couldn't run all the way to her house we decided to hide behind it. We hid and tried to keep quiet and we heard the motor of the car driving along slowly looking for us (I may or may not have actually peed my pants a little bit at this point from sheer terror). There was no doubt that the driver had bad intentions and I remembered all those times that our parents had warned us about what to do if a stranger approached you to get in their car, and about kidnappings and we always laughed it off and rolled our eyes as if to say that things like that would never happen to us.
But it was happening to us. The car was driving slowly and went down Katy's street which was a dead end. We moved around the electrical box as he drove past so that he wouldn't see us cowering in terror. He turned around the bottom of her street and we could hear the engine slowly approaching again and we hid again behind the big green electrical box. The car stopped and sat there, the engine idling for what seemed like an eternity then eventually we heard it pull out again and drive off down the road.
When we were sure we couldn't hear the car any more and we peeked out from our hiding spot and couldn't see anything, we ran home to Katy's house. We never said a word to her parents who were wondering why it had taken us so long to get home. We didn't want to say anything for fear of them not allowing us to walk home together any more and hang out in the afternoons.
We sat on her bed drinking hot chocolate and talked about how lucky we were that nothing bad had happened... before moving back to the very important topics of boys we liked, girls we didn't and whatever else.
I had to walk back home that afternoon on my own and I was terrified. Terrified that I would hear the dull roar of the panel van inching behind me and I had visions of somebody grabbing me and stuffing me in the boot. I didn't actually walk home, I ran! I didn't stop once and although it wasn't that far, it felt like I was running a marathon.
We made a pact that I would ring as soon as I got home so that she knew I got home safely. I remember racing through the back door puffing like mad and I casually tried to get to my bedroom without my mum asking me any questions as to why I was puffing. And this was back in the day when mobile phones weren't even thought of (yes, I'm that old!) so once I caught my breath I had to ring Katy to tell her that I was home safe and sound. Again mum scoffed at me, "Why do you need to ring her when you just saw her five minutes ago?!". "Oh, I just forgot to tell her something..." I stammered. I was not good at lying.
My mum would have never let me leave the house again on my own if she had known what had happened. She's a worry wart at the best of times. Just the other day when I was backing out of their driveway after a visit with Ella she yelled at me, "Make sure you put Ella's window up when you're driving, you don't want a bee to fly in and sting her!" "Yep" I replied, but really I was thinking "What the?" She loves having the wind in her face when we drive and honestly, what are the chances that a bee will fly in the window and sting her? I love my mum to death but she worries about the most silly things and always thinks the worst. But that's another story.
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Last week Katy and I caught up for lunch. We were having awful weather. It was raining like we were in the tropics. We went to a little cafe just down the road from her new apartment but the rain had cleared so we decided to pull out the pram and walk there.
It was lovely having some one on one time together. We don't do it often any more because of other commitments but we really should make the time. It may be years later and we might be a little older with different responsibilities but we are still the same best friends talking about the same silly things we did as kids, with a little bit of serious talk on the side.
We went to a little toy store next door after we ate and she bought some little wooden toys for her God son who was visiting later in the week and I bought a gorgeous little music box for Ella. It plays a beautiful tune and a little wooden bee sits on top and twirls as the music plays.
As we walked out of the toy shop it had started to rain. We decided we'd walk quickly back to her apartment before the rain got too heavy. But all of a sudden it started pouring. I pulled the hood over Ella's pram so she wouldn't get wet and we sped off for home.
We had just crossed a driveway when we heard an aggressive car horn honking and we looked around and saw a black car drive slowly past us, the driver staring and motioning something to us. It was as if we were Vietnam vets hearing a chopper and having flash backs, we both instantly thought of that afternoon with the blue panel van (but thankfully I didn't pee my pants this time). We looked at each other and knew what the other was thinking. Why was this guy honking us? Why was he making gestures to us? We pushed the pram faster. The driver turned his blinker on to take the next street, Katy's street, but there was a steady stream of cars coming the opposite direction so he kept driving straight and then turned into a driveway and promptly put the car in reverse. He was turning around. Why was he turning around? We looked at each other again and walked even faster. The rain was getting heavier too. We could see the car turning and coming back towards us and we made a bee line for her street and decided to run. What had we done wrong? Why was this guy coming back?
We were only about 20 meters from her driveway and out of the corner of our eyes we could see the big black car edging up behind us. It pulled over and the driver was looking at us, we looked at each other. He wound his window down and yelled out.... "You dropped your baby's doll back there!".
We thanked him profusely and then laughed our heads off at how stupid we were and that we had thought it was going to be another terrifying panel van moment. Katy ran back through the rain to get poor dolly and I stood there laughing on my own like an idiot, Ella didn't know what to make of me.
You hear so many negative things happening on the news these days, shootings, kidnappings, murder, so sometimes it's hard to see the good in certain situations at the time and not automatically think the worst. I couldn't believe how nice it was of this guy to go out of his way, turn around and deviate from his trip to wherever he was going, just to let us know that we had dropped Ella's baby doll.
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| Ella's Baby Doll. This photo is a little old...Ella would have only been about 4 months old. |
It also made me think how similar I am to my mum after all...But I don't think I would go so far as to say "I really think you should move that can of petrol that Tim was using the other day off the front porch. Anybody could walk up your driveway and set fire to the house." But again, that's another story.
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