Searching For Superman

DOWN-SIZING. That’s what they call it nowadays. What it really means is sorting through the accumulation of almost 50 years of life, 30 of marriage, two children, grandchildren and all the bits and pieces in between.

We’re standing here surrounded by stuff, me and my friend Teri, wondering where to start. The boys, as she calls them, meaning our husbands, have done two trips to the tip already, along with a number of charity shop drops.

Soon they will be back for more, but I’m beginning to feel a little overwhelmed.

“A TARDIS, that’s what you need,” Teri comments. “Like Doctor Who. He has all manner of things in that little blue police box of his.”

I try to laugh, but it doesn’t come out quite right, as I survey the treasured memories I want to keep but simply won’t have room for.

Teri picks up yet another cardboard box. I take one look at it, and snatch it from her.

“I bet I know what’s in there . . .” I say.

I pull back the flaps to find exactly what I was hoping I would. A pair of platform sandals; blue tops with wooden soles.

As I pick them up I’m taken straight back to my teenage years, the Seventies, and my quest for a boyfriend.

Superman was all the rage at the time and as my name was Lois, I sort of felt I was entitled to find my own superhero. Then, after some time of waiting fruitlessly for him to appear, I decided that positive action was required.

By pure coincidence, I found an article in a magazine telling me exactly what I needed to do: Ten Top Tips To Bag A Boy.

And I knew as soon as I read it which one I’d be using.

“What’s that you’re posting?” my mum asked me as I left the house wearing my new cheesecloth top and carrying a large parcel addressed to myself.

“Nothing,” I replied, trying to hide it behind my back.

“It can’t be nothing,” she began. “There has to be something in it. Anyway, be careful if you’re going through the park. They say someone’s been snatching shopping bags and suchlike.

“I’m a bit worried about Mrs Higgins down the road, but she insists on going out alone.”

She glanced down at my platform sandals.

“And mind how you go. You’ll break your neck in those things if you aren’t careful.”

But by then I’d disappeared down the front path as fast as my platforms would carry me.

It was true they were a bit awkward to walk in. And heavy. But you just had to put up with these things in the interests of fashion. And finding a boyfriend.

Address a large parcel to yourself and carry it everywhere with you. Ask him to hold it for you so he can see from the address where you live, or leave it near him as if you’ve forgotten it. Hopefully he’ll bring it round.

I’d written my name and address on the parcel in large letters, deciding to leave it on a park bench near where Frank, the coolest boy in my year, often played football with his mate.

Fab Frank, I called him privately.

After delivering said parcel to a bench near where they usually played – though I couldn’t actually see him anywhere nearby – I hung around the house for the rest of the day, waiting for him to appear and wondering why he hadn’t noticed me before.

While I looked for the love of my life, I found a new friend instead . . .

But no luck. Eventually, Nerdy Nick, the new boy in our year, all specs, chemistry labs and far too short even to be considered as a boyfriend, appeared with it.

“Oh, it’s you,” I said as I opened the door.

“I found this in the park,” he declared, apparently oblivious of the way my smile must have slipped as soon as I saw who it was at the door.

“Someone really should have put some stamps on it,” he admonished as he handed it over. “You’d have been charged the postage and extra if I hadn’t found it.”

“What do you want? A medal?” I snapped as I snatched it from him, knowing I was being rude but overwhelmed with disappointment that it wasn’t Fab Frank who had brought it back.

“Suit yourself. I was only trying to help,” Nerdy Nick replied with a shrug. He glanced down. “And be careful in those platforms. They aren’t good for your posture, and you might break your ankle, too,” was his parting shot as he sloped off down the front path.

“Who was that at the door?” Mum asked. “Is that your parcel? Who’s it for and what’s in it? And why aren’t there any stamps on it?”

“Nobody and nothing,” I replied, part of that at least being true.

Apart from not having a boyfriend, the only other real problem in my life was a new girl at school called Teresa. All long legs and good at sport, she’d been made captain of the netball team.

Although I hated sport of any kind, I was forced to play it at school and often fell foul of Teresa.

“Anyone could have caught that,” she shouted as I fumbled the ball yet again.

“Shoot, shoot,” she would yell if I was anywhere near the goal. I could feel her scorn as my feeble attempt swerved away from the net.

“I’ve never known anyone so useless,” she often muttered as she walked past me.

I scowled because I didn’t want to play stupid netball in the first place, but it wasn’t pleasant being treated like that and I kept away from her as much as possible.

It was the following week that I found a parcel on the park bench. It had a local address but no stamp.

It occurred to me that maybe it was someone playing the same parcel ploy as me, but on the other hand it might be genuine, so I decided to drop it in on my way home just in case. Felicity Willis, it was

addressed to.

I was sure she could always leave it somewhere else if she’d done it on purpose and maybe we’d have a bit of a giggle over Nerdy Nick turning up with mine. I might even find myself a new friend.

“Oh, it’s you.” I frowned as the door opened at the address and I discovered Nerdy Nick standing there.

He adjusted his glasses, looking slightly startled. “Yes?” he queried. “Does someone called Felicity live here?”

“Yes and no,” he replied unhelpfully.

“Well, can you give her this?” I pushed the parcel towards him. “And tell her that someone really should have put stamps on it. She would have been charged the postage and extra if I hadn’t found it,” I finished, unable to resist having a dig by quoting his words back at him.

As I left I wondered who Felicity Willis was. His sister? His mum? Funny, I didn’t know Nerdy’s second name. I’d never paid much attention to him.

What a shame she wasn’t in. I’d have liked to have had a nose around Nerdy Nick’s house.

Despite my plans being spoiled the first time, I decided to give my ploy another go, so I took my parcel and headed back to the park.

Fab Frank would definitely be there playing football on a Saturday afternoon, and surely this time he’d find the parcel and all would go according to plan.

I was right. He was kicking his football around with a mate. This time I was wearing my hot pants – and the platform sandals.

I wandered, or rather tottered, through the park, with the parcel under my arm, and that was when I saw him. Not Frank, but the Shopping Snatcher!

I knew it was him because he was lurking behind Mrs Higgins from down the road who was plodding slowly along, carrying her bag of shopping.

The Shopping Snatcher was sort of stopping and starting, as if he was hiding and didn’t want to be seen. I gasped. Surely if anything happened Fab Frank and his mate would do something?

I ducked in behind a bush and followed at a safe distance, just in case.

Should I make myself seen? Should I run up to Mrs Higgins and scare him off? Would he turn on me?

As I hesitated, the Shopping Snatcher suddenly increased his speed, caught up with Mrs Higgins and grabbed her shopping bag. In broad daylight. Just like that!

“Oi!” All ladylike thoughts flew from my mind as I remembered how Mrs Higgins used to give me the odd sweet when I was little, and even if she was a bit grumpy nowadays, that was no excuse to steal her shopping.

I glanced towards Fab Frank and his mate but they were oblivious, engrossed in their football.

“Oi, you!” I shouted louder.

The Shopping Snatcher glanced in my direction but didn’t make any attempt to drop the shopping or run off.

I began to run towards him, then in desperation I raised my parcel in two hands and lobbed it in his direction, hoping that, light as it was, it might still catch him on the head, giving me a moment to grab the shopping myself and get Mrs Higgins to a place of safety.

But just as I raised it above my head, I slipped on the mud and the parcel fell to the ground nowhere near its target, and I skidded to a halt in front of them both, one of my sandals coming off in the process.

A figure loomed over me. “Help!” I shrieked, thinking the Shopping Snatcher was going to kill me and hoping Fab Frank and his mate would come to the rescue.

“Are you OK?” the figure asked. “What on earth do you think you’re doing?”

I looked up to find Nerdy Nick standing over me, a bemused look on his face.

“Oh, it’s you. What are you doing, more like?” I retorted, struggling to stand up and regain some composure. “Grabbing shopping from little old ladies in broad daylight.”

“She’s my nan,” Nerdy Nick hissed. “Mrs Higgins is my nan and I was trying to help carry her shopping.”

“Oh.” I suddenly felt like the biggest idiot in the world. “Well, why were you looking so suspicious, lurking around like that?” He looked embarrassed. “Well, I didn’t want Frankie and his mate to see me out with my nan, did I? They might be a couple of losers, but I’m enough of a laughing stock as it is.”

I opened my mouth to think of a suitable retort, then closed it again. He was right – he was a bit of a laughing stock

That was when I saw him. The Shopping Snatcher!

at school, and I was as big a culprit as anyone. Then, while we were staring at each other, a hooded figure flashed past us and grabbed Mrs Higgins’s shopping from under our noses. The real Shopping Snatcher!

I gasped, picked up my platform sandal and hurled it at the Shopping Snatcher’s head, scoring a direct hit which resulted in the Shopping Snatcher stumbling to the ground, dropping the bag and letting the groceries spill everywhere.

He scrambled to his feet and attempted to make a run for it, but Nerdy Nick was too fast for him. He tussled him to the ground and pulled back the hood to reveal – Terrible Teresa!

I tottered over unevenly, wearing just the one sandal, just as Frank and his mate appeared, far too late to be of any use, and Teresa struggled to her feet, red and shame-faced.

“Please don’t tell anyone,” she begged. “My dad will kill me. I was only wanting to help Mum out till my dad gets a job.”

“I know you,” Mrs Higgins put in, pointing a bony finger at her. “You live in the next street. Silly girl. If your mum needs help why don’t you just ask? We’re a friendly lot round here, really.”

Teresa looked as if she was going to cry. Then she looked at me.

“Good shot,” she mumbled, rubbing her head. “You wouldn’t fancy joining the netball team, would you?”

Nerdy Nick steadied me as I slipped out of my other sandal, and I looked into his eyes.

He’d lost his glasses in the scuffle, his hair was slightly tousled and, because I wasn’t wearing my platform sandals, he was exactly the right height.

“Oh, it’s you,” I said, because suddenly I was viewing the world from a completely different angle and realised that in the kerfuffle I’d found my very own Superman.

Well, you can’t spend all that time in the chemistry lab without some rubbing off, can you?

“Is this yours?” Mrs Higgins asked, handing me the parcel, completely oblivious of how my world had just changed. “You really should have put some stamps on it, you know, else you might be charged extra postage.

“And you’ll break your neck in those platform sandals if you’re not careful,” she finished as she hunted around in the spilled shopping. “Biscuit, anyone?”

“So who’s Felicity?” I asked Nick a few days later.

He wasn’t Nerdy Nick any more. Just Nick. My Nick.

We’d actually become a bit of a couple, and as Terrible Teresa was now very wary of me and my platform sandals, life seemed to have taken a turn for the better. “Who?”

“Your sister, Felicity,” I prompted. “Or is she your mum? The one who left the parcel in the park that I brought back.”

“Oh.” He looked slightly self-conscious. “To tell you the truth, there isn’t any Felicity. I addressed the parcel myself. I knew you’d bring it round if you found it, because you’re quite nosy – and I did want to see you again,” he finished hastily.

“I couldn’t believe it when you turned up and I didn’t know what to say. It’s just as difficult for boys as it is for girls, you know.”

The following week there was a knock at the door and there stood not-so-fab Frank, a smarmy smile on his face.

“Yours, I believe?” he asked, handing me the parcel I’d left in the park following all the kerfuffle the week before. “I was thinking, do you fancy the flicks tonight?”

I smiled sweetly at him, wondering what I’d ever seen in him.

“No, thanks,” I replied, snatching the parcel back. “Sorry, but you’ve missed the last post.”

“Lois,” Teri says, bringing me back to the present. “Are you OK? You’re away with the fairies.”

I return from my memories and show her the contents of the box.

“Oh, I see what you mean,” she replies, giving her head a little rub. “That box and those sandals.”

The door bangs open and I turn round to give my lovely husband a kiss on the cheek as he dumps some bags of shopping on to the table.

“I’m impressed,” he says, surveying a couple of neatly packed boxes to keep and a large pile to be disposed of. “Hey, I recognise that box.”

“This is my memory box now,” I explain. “I’ve realised you don’t need to keep everything, just a little something to remind you, because real memories are stored in the heart. And this box, even when it’s empty, is filled with memories of its own.”

“A bit like the TARDIS,” Nick comments as he arrives and overhears. He gives Teri a kiss. “I suppose if it wasn’t for that box we wouldn’t have got together, either. So it’s got double memories.”

Well, once Terrible Teresa had made a friend she was OK. And as for Fab Frank, all superheroes are heavily disguised at the beginning.

After a bit of persistence on his part I realised he was just as fab as I’d thought after all.

I smile at Frank. Never mind Doctor Who or Superman, I have a superhero of my own. And our memories will never be forgotten, because as I look through the shopping bag I realise they’re all around us.

“Biscuit, anyone?” I say. n

He attempted to make a run for it but Nerdy Nick was too fast There stood not-so-fab Frank, a smarmy smile on his face