Gordon and The Bish Go On Holiday: Part Three

by Shoe

Continued…

“Seems an important scientific fact, Bish. The longer a toad like Toad settles in one district, the less likely are its chances in its lifetime of pulling in big crowds, I reckon. See, toads travel and further and faster than a toad’s predecessors.”

“Gord, Toad was doomed on his own whatever way I look at it!”

“Bish, Toad likely had a bad back too. Toad was in no shape to be on racing. Toads get spinal arthritis. Because they walk further faster. Not a word of not trew truth.”

Gordon and the Bish are both sobered.

“A population dwindles and individuals like Toad head out in a random pattern called toad dispersal. They mate with other dispersing toads. They breed more offspring than their predecessors and even faster toads that can travel even further again.”

‘Awesome,” the Bish says. “How do you know all that, Gord?”

“Shoe told me, Bish. She read it on Ogle.”

“Shoe’s awesome. Gord, we’re going in the wrong direction. I’m staying at Sandy’s. Remember? He’s in the manse across from the car park? Behind the Pig’s Arms?”

“Bit of a walk. What were we thinking. I had better go back with you to the good Father O’Ways, Bish. We can have a night cap. Better not tell him in the confessional. About Space World. The toad never happened either.”

The Bish muses as he and Gordon struggle to keep the pavement steady to turn around.

“Int’resting though, Gord. I like a toad story with an int’resting ending. Shoe is so awesome. Shoe wrote the frog joke, eh.”

“Yes, she did.” Gord lets out a tiny sigh. “You know when she says she did to people who like it and on tell it, she would like to make new friends or she wouldn’t say. You know it’s been in other people’s books and voted best joke

and on television and someone clever made a funny film about how much they don’t want to hear it again. The people don’t talk to her when she tells them. Shoe’s lonely.”

“Shoe? Lonely? IS she?”

“Of course she is. People running in the opposite direction.”

“We’re friends. We’re all friends. Shoe’s a friend. Wonder if she’ll write another frog joke.”

“Nah. Unlikely, Bish. She misses the frog too much. Ought to ask her if she’ll write a toad joke and cheer us up.”

“Great idea, Gord. How about we ask her will she make it a good long story with some joking around in it about a toad. The frog joke isn’t really a read, is it.”

“Here we are at the manse already, Bish.”

Gordon and the Bish walk in the dark with care past the mail box swinging on its hinges from the old gate post. They can just make out the familiar brass lettering of the name ‘FATHER O’WAY’ and the front path littered with debris. The garden is a mess.

When his mates clatter and clang the brass knocker on his front door to get him up off the sofa where he sits in the late evenings reading Pigs Arms porkies and laughing, Sandy O’Way is slow to stir. He gets up on thinking on it. He remembers the Bish is in town.

It’ll be a night.

The End

Written by Christina Binning Wilson 2017