A Sticky Wicket

The 10th of June was a significant day in the long and rather well documented history of the small but ancient English village of Middlewapping. Indeed of such significance was this day that many in the village agreed that never in their lifetimes had they, or would they again, witness such an important event. Old Roger, one of the farmers who tilled the soil and raised livestock on the Estate lands ('Old Codger', or worse, to the children from the housing estate) announced with some enthusiasm that he had 'navar seed the loik'. Mind you he was wont to say this, even when quite clearly he had seen the like on many previous occasions, whereas on this occasion he was in fact stating the obvious, since nobody in this quiet and tranquil backwater of England would have seen the like, or anything like the like, before.

For at some time during the early hours of the morning of the 10th of June, a meteorite landed on the village Green. If this were not in itself an altogether spectacular enough occurrence, the meteorite landed in precisely the middle of the batting wicket. It dissected almost perfectly the distance between the stumps at the pub end and the church end. Furthermore if one eyed along the line between the wickets, (as most residents of the village did at some time or another), the apex of the rock lined up almost exactly between the middle stumps.

The precise timing of this extra terrestrial visitation is to this day unclear, despite considerable discussion upon the subject. What is not in dispute is that the first person to see the rock in situ, so to speak, was young Will Tucker the paperboy. Young Will Tucker was in fact 16 years old, and had kept up the paper-round beyond the age that one would normally expect, delivering papers seven days a week to the houses surrounding and within the environs of the village Green, as well as to the housing estate. He did this not so much out of financial necessity, for he in fact earned considerably less than his contemporaries who had Saturday or evening jobs, but because he had always rather enjoyed his early-morning spin around the village on his bicycle, and was reluctant to give it up. He could claim fairly that he knew every letter box in the village. Those on the estate were of the homogenous, aluminum type typical of modern metal and glass doorways. Those of the much older houses which bordered the village green on two sides and included the pub and the village shop were a different matter. The oldest of these houses dated back to the late 1500s and the youngest only a few decades later, and their letter boxes reflected the character of the houses themselves; without exception they were not designed to accommodate the newspapers of the day, and Sundays presented him with particular problems.

Will Tucker saw his early mornings as a time for quiet reflection, and latterly his thoughts had been preoccupied with the fact that he had recently fallen in love with Emily, the butchers' daughter, who was about his age, and these new and confusing feelings had left the poor youth in such a state of bewilderment that he had barely uttered a word since. He was in any case by nature a quiet, thoughtful, and rather withdrawn individual, but nobody had the least idea what had caused him to clam-up so completely in such a sudden and inexplicable way, his condition generally being attributed to his being at that difficult age, and that he would soon snap out of it once his hormones had sorted themselves out.

In any event it was he, who, whilst going about his daily rounds, noticed in the half-light of dawn that a dark object had been placed or was present upon the cricket pitch and which he was quite sure had not been there last evening. Thinking that it was perhaps Percy, or Percival as he preferred (he would get quite heated on the subject after a few ales at the Dog and Bottle), who had a quite well deserved reputation as the village drunk, and who had perhaps gone off in the wrong direction and not quite made it home from the pub on this occasion. He decided, given the hour of the day and thus the small chance of being observed, to break with village rules and ride his bicycle onto the cricket field to further investigate the mysterious object, and upon doing so was surprised (he was learning on growing up that life could hold many surprises) to see not a person or indeed any living entity, but a rather large rock-like object. He alighted from his bicycle, covered the last few feet cautiously on foot, and stood, bending over with his face a few inches from the object for some minutes whilst attempting to get his young mind in order and deciding what might best be done next. In the event there seemed only one thing for it; he must touch the object in order to further ascertain its' nature. He pressed his finger carefully against the shiny surface and withdrew it quickly. It was hard to the touch. Next he tapped it gently with his knuckles; it was definitely hard. Finally he sat down on it the better to ponder this strange turn of events, and concluded that he must get a second opinion on the matter, just to be sure that imagining oneself sitting down on a large, hitherto absent rock in the middle of the village Green was not just another part of growing up which must be endured and, perhaps finally, understood.

He delivered his last few papers, returned to the village shop and drew the object to the attention of Mr Snipe, the shopkeeper, for the object was now clearly visible from a distance in the growing light. Mr Snipe, a cautious man by nature, made a couple of 'phone calls to those in the village who he thought would already be awake at such an hour, and an impromptu meeting was arranged on the Green between the chosen few, since, as Mr Snipe was wont to comment, there was safety in numbers, especially it seemed to him when it came to such matters as strange objects appearing suddenly overnight on village Greens. Before long, as is the way with these things, especially in a small and tight-knit community such as Middlewapping, a fairly sizable gathering had taken place around the object. There present was Captain Caruthers, a retired commercial sea-captain who had also seen national service in the navy and had spent almost his entire life sailing the worlds' oceans. He seldom slept for more than four or five hours a night and he would regale anyone prepared to listen with his tales of adventure upon the high seas. Also present was Ron, who ran the local garage and considered himself something of a wag, who happened to be driving to work early when he noticed the untimely congregation. Daphne Pouffe from number six, The Green, was there also. She came from a moneyed background, her husband being recently deceased, and she was never far from the...