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 scene when it came to village matters. Young Will Tucker was there, of course, as were various other local inhabitants, including Reginald Pratt from number twelve, who was awake anyway tending to his collection of cacti and succulents before he ate his breakfast.

Initially nobody knew what to say, and the assembled party stood for a few moments a safe distance away from the object, observing without comment. What was clear to everyone was that this was a rock, dark, almost black in colour with a metallic sheen from its' smoother surfaces, but with a generally pitted and rough appearance. It lay within a hole, the outer extremities of which reached to both edges of the carefully mown batting crease. Captain Caruthers was the first to break the contemplative silence.

'Must be a meteorite; see that?', he said, pointing in the general direction of the hole in which the rock was situated, 'impact crater, saw a similar thing once in India, bally thing landed on a few natives, took one chaps' head clean off.'

There was some nodding of heads at this, and the words 'impact' and 'crater' were generally passed around the group, as if by uttering the words it would all suddenly make sense.

'But where did it come from?' said Daphne Pouffe.

'Off the back of a lorry I would imagine' said Ron, raising his eyes to the heavens.

This raised a laugh amongst the assembly, partly out of appreciation of the humour but also partly out of relief that they had not made such a silly comment, although they had all been thinking it. They had by now edged closer to the rock, and a few were within touching distance.

'I advise everyone to be cautious' said Mr Snipe, 'it may be hot, or it could be radioactive.'

The word 'radioactive' did the rounds of the congregation.

'Don't be bloody silly', said Ron, 'if it was radioactive we'd all be dead by now. Ooh, look, I've gone all radioactive' he said, in a rather mocking voice. More nervous laughter followed, but the seeds of unease had been sown.

'I think we should first touch the rock indirectly' said Reginald Pratt 'by means of a wooden stake or similar. If the stake feels hot to the touch afterwards, then we will know that the rock itself is still hot.'

'I sat on it for a bit, and I'm okay', said young Will Tucker

There followed a brief hush and a generally held sense of surprise that young Will Tucker had uttered so many words in one go, but also some envy that he had been the first to touch and indeed go so far as to sit on the rock. Captain Caruthers also felt that his thunder had been stolen somewhat, since he was about to be the first to test the temperature of the object.

'Well then', said Ron, 'all we have to do is feel Tucker's backside, and if it feels hot to the touch ...' upon which he sat down on the turf to await further developments.

Although others there present did not unanimously appreciate the humour, the mood of caution had been broken, and to a man and woman each in turn laid their hands upon the rock, feeling its' smoothness and various textures, after which, since there seemed to be nothing more to be done for the moment, the assembly broke up and went their various ways, talking amongst themselves and each secretly checking for any longer-term effects of radioactivity, although in truth nobody knew quite what these might be.

'Put the word out', said Captain Caruthers, 'meeting in the village hall, 6pm, decide what to do about the bally thing.'

And so it was that the good folk of Middlewapping had their first encounter with a rock from outer-space, which had in all probability been moving through the void for millions of years at unimaginable speed, before finally slowing down as it burned through the earths' atmosphere to find its' resting place upon their village Green, on this very important day in the life of a small village.

* * *

Reactions to the new and uninvited addition to the village on that first day were predictably mixed. Although perceptions differed, it was generally agreed that the rock was somewhere between two and three feet 'long', although which dimension was 'long' was hard to say, since the rock was somewhat random in shape and multi-faceted. Reginald Pratt announced importantly that he would take it upon himself to survey the meteorite, and to this end he emerged from his front door during the course of the morning, armed with tape and clipboard and wearing a working-mans' jacket with day-glow trim, the better to be observed from a distance. He was also sporting a hard-hat, which he had purchased some months previously for the purpose of clearing out his gutters, to protect against the possibility of loose tiles or other objects falling from the roof, and for protection in the event that he should lose his footing and fall head-first from the ladder onto an unyielding surface below.

By now it was in fact approaching lunchtime, and the spectacle of Reginald Pratt striding purposefully across the village green was observed by Percival, who happened at the time to be sitting in the beer garden of the Dog and Bottle which was the village public house overlooking the Green. He was enjoying a swift half before lunch, his perceptions of the world already becoming comfortably dulled, and his inhibitions diminishing.

'Look at that,' he observed to nobody in particular. 'Pratt by name, prat by nature; what the hell's he got a hard hat on for? What does he think is going to happen; another bloody meteorite is going to land in exactly the same place? May it serve him well if it does, anyway ...'

Nigel, the landlord of the Dog and Bottle, appeared at the door and offered a cautionary word to Percival to mind his language, although he was loath to speak too harshly to the person who was in general his best customer. Percival returned to muttering into his sixth half or to more precisely his third pint, of the pre-lunch session.

Unaware of and in any event quite immune from any such derisory remarks, Reginald Pratt continued on his way to the centre of the cricket field, making notes on his clipboard as he went. He made further notes whilst standing some few paces from the rock, before finally proceeding to the main business of surveying. Quite what was contained within these notes nobody ever discovered, for, having spent a little over an hour taking measurements, he announced importantly to the small crowd which had by now gathered about the rock that along its' longest edge the meteorite measured precisely sixty seven centimeters. That seemed to be the extent to which Reginald Pratt was prepared at that time to share his observations, so the small crowd once again dispersed, feeling rather that the whole surveying business was something of a disappointment, and had added little to their understanding of this most extraordinary occurrence.

The nearest that the village ever came to putting a precise time to the arrival of the meteorite was provided by Peter Shortbody, a retired accountant, who lived at number eight, The Green, and who considered himself something of an amateur naturalist. It seemed to those who knew Peter Shortbody that he was more concerned with that which was absent, rather than what was present, what was missing as opposed to what was there. On walks in the country he would comment that he had 'Not seen any Magpies so far', or in the town perhaps 'Not many nuns around today.' He had in any event been up for most of the previous night attempting to record the barn owl which had taken to roosting in the eaves of number nine next door, and had used his time whilst waiting, recording equipment at the ready, cataloging and organizing his collection of pine cones. He woke late the next morning, and having been enlightened as to the events of the day, recalled that he may have heard a dull thud at sometime between two and three am, but had assumed that it had been Tizer, his cat, jumping onto the flat roof. Unfortunately his recording equipment had not been running at the time, so this could not be analyzed or verified further, but thereafter it was generally assumed that this was indeed the time that the meteorite had landed on terra firma, or as near as anyone would ever know.

At number nine, The Green, where the barn owl currently resided, also lived Pearl and Constance Smyth (which was pronounced as in 'Smith' because there was no 'e' at the end). These now quite elderly ladies were confirmed spinsters, who filled their long days and evenings creating beautiful tapestries which they would often display in the village hall before selling them to an Italian gentleman who would visit Middlewapping twice every year to buy whatever they had made, or those completed works that had been commissioned by specific clients in continental Europe. Pearl, despite being of gentle and kindly disposition, had never to the best of anyone's knowledge had a romantic attachment to any man. Constance had had three great loves in her life, all of them fishmongers, and all variously and as we will learn, ending in disaster in one way or another. No prodigy ever emerged as a result of these liaisons, however, and so the two ladies settled down in the family home to live out their twilight years in mutual and comfortable companionship. Upon hearing of the events of the day, they immediately began to put the first etchings to a new work, which was to be called 'The Meteorite', and which they agreed that they would donate to the village, to hang forever in the village hall above the lectern.

It was of some interest to the villagers as to how the Reverent Godfrey Parchment, (or 'The God', as he was known to the local youths) the vicar of Middlewapping, would react to the days' proceedings. He had not long been ensconced, and saw himself as a 'modern' vicar, quite open to new ideas on matters theological. Daphne Pouffe, who, since her husbands' departure to a better place had taken rather a shine to the much younger vicar, asked whether he thought that this was a sign from God, particularly since June the 10th happened to be the good vicars' birthday. A sign of what she could or would not elaborate, but in any event he would hear none of it, stating that he saw no contradiction between meteorites whizzing about and landing in odd places, and the teachings of Jesus. Any more indeed than he saw a problem arising as regards the reconciliation of the laws of physics, evolution and so on, with the immaculate conception or, for example, the parting of the Red Sea. Nobody quite understood what on earth he was talking about, but then nobody ever quite did.