Jennings Again! by Anthony Buckeridge

Author:Anthony Buckeridge [Buckeridge, Anthony]
Language: fra
Format: epub
Tags: Children's books, Humour
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

7

The Niggling Doubt

Venables’ opinion that Jennings and Darbishire would make a hotch-potch of their fish-feeding duties was not, at first, justified, for it was only when they had returned from Oaktree Cottage that the trouble started.

It was now November and daylight was fading early, so the two boys set out for the village soon after lunch as they would have to be back at school before dark.

The old railway track was now looking much tidier than it had on their previous visit. During the past fortnight Mr Pemberton-Oakes had sent out working parties from the senior forms to carry on the work started by the juniors.

And Miss Thorpe had not been idle. Not only had she enlisted the support of several local residents to help in the project, but she had also bullied the Dunhambury District Council into providing lorries to collect the rubbish—biodegradable and otherwise—from her barn and to remove the bulkier objects from the railway line.

Thus it was that Jennings and Darbishire found very little rubbish to put in their sacks as they wandered along the track. The mildewed mattress had gone, along with the punctured car tyres and rusting washing-machines.

With time on their hands the boys organised boat races with twigs in the overflowing drainage ditch until Darbishire said, “Hadn’t we better go and do the fish?”

Jennings looked at his watch. Ten minutes to get to the cottage; say, quarter of an hour for the feeding and clearing up; and ten minutes to get back to school at four thirty.

“OK,” he agreed. “We’ll have bags of time if we go now.”

Back at Oaktree Cottage, they retrieved the key from under the loose brick and let themselves into the barn. The light-tube was glowing over the aquarium, but the daylight was dim around the walls of the outbuilding with its one small window.

Jennings flicked on the main light. “That’s better. Now we can see what we’re doing.”

Everything was in order in the aquarium. Guppy, angel-fish and clown loach swam in the clear water where the pond-weed swayed gently as they glided past. Bubbles rose to the surface as the aerator pumped out its gentle stream of air. The thermometer stood at precisely seventy-five degrees Fahrenheit.

Jennings sprinkled a generous measure of dried fish food on to the water and the boys watched as the fish swam up and snatched at the floating grains. After about ten minutes, the fish lost interest in the food, so Darbishire dredged the surface with the net and they both stood admiring the graceful swirlings of the fish darting in and out amongst the pond-weed.

The boys were so fascinated that, for a while, they lost count of time and stood watching for longer than they had intended.

Suddenly, Jennings looked at his watch and cried, “Wow! Fossilised fish-hooks! It’s nearly twenty to five! Quick, Darbi, quick!”

The prospect of arriving back at school twenty minutes late threw them into a flurry of wasteful activity. In his haste, Jennings spilt the carton offish food while replacing the lid and had to go down on hands and knees to scoop up the grains.

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