Thunder and Lightnings by Jan Mark

Author:Jan Mark
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780141361864
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2016-05-19T04:00:00+00:00

‘Is that you?’ asked Victor, pointing to the name. Andrew realized that he had been reading it, not staring.

‘That’s right,’ said the man. ‘John Coates.’

‘Are you an artist?’ said Victor.

The man looked out from under his umbrella.

‘Not what you’d call an artist,’ he said. ‘I draw pictures for books.’

Seeing that Mr Coates didn’t seem to mind being disturbed, Andrew went back and had a look at the drawing. All he could see was a cloud of thumb smudges with a white space in the middle that was about the same shape as the church.

Mr Coates looked at him.

‘I suppose you think I can’t draw,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ said Victor.

‘I can, actually,’ said Mr Coates. ‘It’s meant to look like that. And now I suppose you think I’m boasting and making excuses.’

‘Oh, no,’ said Andrew.

‘Well, I’m not,’ said Mr Coates. ‘Anybody can learn to draw. There’s nothing very clever about that.’ Victor looked at Mr Coates, then at his drawing, and then ran back down the path.

‘Has he gone off in disgust?’ asked Mr Coates.

‘I don’t think so. He can’t draw at all,’ said Andrew. Victor fetched the folder from the saddle bag and returned with it. He took out his drawing of a Lightning and held it out under the umbrella.

‘What do you think of that?’

Mr Coates was an honest man. ‘I think it’s terrible,’ he said.

‘It’s easy to see you’re not a teacher,’ said Victor. ‘If you were a teacher you’d say, “That’s awfully good, what is it?”’

‘I know what it is,’ said Mr Coates. ‘It’s an aeroplane, or rather, it has been at some time in its career.’

‘A Lightning,’ said Victor.

‘I was beginning to guess as much,’ said Mr Coates. ‘It looks as though you tried to draw it from both sides at once. It isn’t made of Perspex, you know.’

‘Aluminium,’ said Victor. ‘I should think aluminium. My dad said, in the war they used to collect aluminium saucepans and melt them down to make aeroplanes.’

‘They collected them, all right,’ said Mr Coates. ‘But as far as I remember they didn’t make them into aircraft. It was the wrong kind of metal.’

‘What did they do with them, then?’ asked Andrew.

‘Probably melted them down and made more saucepans,’ said Mr Coates. ‘Look here, this beast wouldn’t fly. It might float, it wouldn’t fly.’ He turned the picture on its side and drew three little drogues on the end of it. ‘What does that remind you of?’

‘A space capsule,’ said Victor. ‘Re-entry. Splashdown.’

‘Different requirements entirely,’ said Mr Coates, drawing a row of spiky waves underneath. ‘If a cone was the best shape for an aircraft, aircraft would be conical.’

While he was speaking he made a little picture in the corner of the paper. It was tiny, an inch long, but when he lifted his hand they could see that it was a Lightning.

‘You’ve drawn Lightnings before,’ said Victor.

‘I have,’ said Mr Coates, ‘so I know what ought to be there. You draw what you think should be there. I would suggest that, in future, before you draw a line you decide where it’s going to end.

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