Off To See The Wild West Show Part 1, Chapter 10 (1/4) By Frank Beill 1886: Hull, Yorkshire

(1/4), (2/4), (3/4), (4/4). Part 1 Chapter 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20. Part 2 Prologue, Chapter 1, 2, 3.

'So how are we gonna get in?' George kicked a loose stone across the street. 'We've got to circle the camp and look for a weakness in their defences. That's what Buffalo Bill would do.' I was not certain what my hero would do, but I thought my scheme had the right sound to it. 'Aye, but it's Buffalo Bill we're wanting to attack. Won't he have thought of that?' I shrugged my shoulders. How I wished Sal were with us, if only to give her brother some encouragement.

'Come on! Let's find a way in.' I tried to sound authoritative. We walked into the street running alongside the football ground. Perhaps Buckingham Street was where we could find a 'weakness.' The street looked new. The bricks were still red and clean. Mind the houses were still packed tightly together like those in the town's older areas. The street was built in the same terrace style as most of Hull: narrow courtyards running off at right angles from the street with parallel rows of houses face to face with each other. This way landlords could cram more houses onto a piece of land and more houses meant more rent money.

Flapping white sheets were hanging like flags of surrender from washing lines strung across between the house fronts. Happy barefoot children played chasing games beneath the fluttering linen. It was a reminder of how I used to be. 'There's a school over there.' George pointed to our right. 'Maybe we can get in through the yard.' The Board school dwarfed all the surrounding houses with its gothic style and thin perpendicular windows stretching almost up to the roof. It looked more like a church: a temple of learning? Well, maybe.

The words gothic and perpendicular came from the Master. One day he was conducting some benefactors around the orphanage and I heard him using those words. To me this school looked just like the home. 'I don't fancy trying to get over them railings.' Now I was the one sounding defeatist. The tall vertical spikes fixed on top of the schoolyard walls were not an inviting proposition. Ordinary brick walls posed a big enough problem. 'Bet there's a big wall at the back an' all.'

We continued walking down the street, trying to find a weakness but mainly seeing only ordinary Hull people living their lives; the lives denied to us by fate. Children ran around us screaming and playing a game of tag, spilling in and out of the courts like waves on a beach. Little girls skipped along the flagstone pavement, being careful to avoid tripping themselves with hairy skipping ropes. A ragged trousered boy ran past, using a stick to bowl a bent wooden hoop along the bumpy road surface.

Mothers shrieked louder than their children. 'Wait 'til your father gets home!' was heard more than once. Men were absent from the scene, apart from a second-hand clothes' hawker pushing a handcart. He rang a hand bell and bawled out unintelligible words to announce he was in the street and ready to trade.

Continued... Next Page

Fiction - Welcome To Hellville - Part 9 By Rich Mills
	The analysis of the VHS tapes have come back. Keith reports back that indeed one of the tapes did contain episodes of He-Man, along with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Inspector Gadget and Battle of the Planets. Be worth something to an animaphile out there. I will stick it on eBuy-GUM, the online Global Underground Marketplace. Read more...

Fiction - Scissors, Paper, Stone! By Bob Spence
	The Lord Nelson was your typical run-down seventies pub. The decor was in disarray, with half a mind to venerate the Royal Navy's biggest hero or to catch the eye of the potential clientele with the latest fashion. In this manner it achieved neither. Mickey was the prototype glass collector for every Read more...

Fiction - Off To See The Wild West Show Part 9 (1886: Hull, Yorkshire) By Frank Beill
	'Not seen nowt like it!' George was sitting on his favourite seat - the kitchen doorstep. 'Them horses was wonderful.' Dinner was over and most of my stew was inside him as well as his own double portion. 'But it was me father.' I was not listening and stamped my foot. Read more...

Fiction - Drowning, Swimming By Joe Hakim
	Keith sat and stared at his wife, who was holding his daughter and staring at the 28" Philips Widescreen TV situated in the corner of his house, on his laminate floor, flanked at either side by his Sony sound system and his X-Box. He was sweating and his head was throbbing - the general effects of the weekend Read more...

Fiction - Any Instructions? By Denis Price
	It wasn't the first time he'd missed the bus. From the Mess to the monitoring hangar was only a quarter of a mile walk, something he relished during the central European summer as the airbase had been carved out of heavily wooded countryside teeming with wildlife. Read more...

Fiction - Kat Out of the Bag Chapter Ten By Steve Rudd
	As the sun rose, so did my spirits. The men before me were all aged and seemingly wise. You could just tell that all three of them had been born in this valley, and had all lived and worked there ever since. If any, or all, of them genuinely believed in a heaven, then it wouldn't be an, other-worldly place delighted by harp-twanging angels. Read more...

Fiction - Second Chances by Nick Quantrill
	Available now, Second Chances is a crime fiction novella set in Hull that is already attracting praise from readers. Influenced by crime fiction heavyweights Ian Rankin and Hull's Robert Edric, Second Chances is set to be a great success. For a taster, see the extract reproduced below, only available Read more...

Fiction - Invasion By Bob Spence
	Moody just couldn't stop scratching. His shirt was far too stiff at the edge of the collar and the coarse material was driving him to distraction. You could also say that Moody was distracted anyway. He was waiting for a letter from his fiancee and there was none. Read more...

Fiction - The Death and Birth and Death of a Legend By Bob Spence
	Goober liked to be busy. Some people could handle doing nothing, not Goober Walton. Running the tidy but ancient gasoline concession suited. Suited well. It was orderly and everything clearly had its place. Some would say it looked almost military in its order and for that it Read more...

Fiction - Feller's in Cut By Maurice Fairfield
	Well that's her gone. You don't remember me do you? I'll have a pint while you're thinking about it. It's me Jack, Harry Fergus's son. Here for the funeral. Thought I'd see her get put under. Not sure why. It's always a laugh though, watching a parson doing a Read more...

Fiction - Firm but Fair By Mark Pollard
	Cry-Baby Jim Breaks. He pioneered it, they say. And the hushed, almost ecclesiastical tones of Ken Walton had heralded it's entry into Saturday afternoon folklore: the bright lights of Blackpool and Great Yarmouth, down to the lesser reputes of Ilfracombe and Skegness had all borne witness Read more...

Fiction - Puzzles By Denis Price
	I've got a really nice room, when the door's closed I feel ever so safe and warm. It's quiet as well, just the swish of the wind in the trees outside. I like the trees; they hide the big tall fence. My watchers say the fence is there to keep me safe, and that's their job too, they're always there Read more...

Articles - Quitting My Job - A Prologue By Joe Hakim

The idea comes to me in a dream. I know listening to other people's dreams is more boring than listening to their problems, but bear with me. I grab an hour's kip before work, and I enter that half-asleep/half-awake state where dreams are vivid and loaded with symbols. I'm in my flat and I have a pet lion. I'm watching it run around, and I'm upset because I know that I have to get rid of it Read more...

Articles - Ladies and Gentlemen, the Freakshow is Over...For Now By Jane Foster

So, we finally have the official verdict on Michael Jackson - ill, but innocent; nuts, but not guilty; freaky, but to him and his equally barmy fans, free. Frankly I could never see what all the fuss was about. Surely anyone who has had to endure his tedious dance routine (consisting of squeals of Ow! Ee-hee! whilst grabbing his genitals) should be glad that at last he's moved on to fondling someone else's? Read more...

Articles - Gary Bushel - My Hero by Andrea Longstaff

	Why is it that the practical workman or Sun reader is as thick as pig shit? Is it a pre- requisite for tradesmen's school? One workman asked my boss What's your favourite colour? Dunno, red he says. I'm only the cleaner but I couldn't believe it. What an enthralling conversation, I had to say, Read more...