15. The Rock

Today, I had intended to recount a tale involving the beauty, wonder and delight that is the Fibonacci number sequence and the impact that it had recently on 6H, the class that I help, and on Rozzard in particular.   

However, I’ve changed my mind and I don’t want to hear any groans of disappointment, as a delight delayed is a delight enhanced.   

“A delight delayed is a delight enhanced” 

Did I just make up that phrase?  Do you know, I rather think I did.   It’s got to be up there with, “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush” and “a change is as good as a rest”.

It might read and sound better as, ”A delight suspended is always splendid,” but possibly not.

The delay is due to recent developments in my ongoing battle of wits and finances with the three little boys who are our neighbours.

I told you last week about Huck, Jesmond and Israel.   I’ve described their attempts to use their youth and presumed innocence to fleece me, a grumpy old man who is married to a woman who falls for any old sob story and who has a heart as soft as butter that has been left out in direct sunlight at midday on the hottest day of the hottest month of the year for a very, very long time.   Usually, they succeed.  

Caroline and I have the two cleanest cars on the island as they are both washed weekly, whether they are dirty or not.   

Last week, however, I got one over on them.  It is my only victory in a sequence of financially disastrous dealings with them.

On Sunday afternoon, Huck and the other two had set up a stall outside his house and I could see from my porch thirty feet away, that the table bore only a few lumps of rock.  

I lay on my recliner, watching them through half closed eyes as they stared at me.  After an hour or more, nobody had passed their stall to stop and peruse their offerings.  They sat it out, still staring at me.   I lay there, drifting in and out of sleep but smiling inside.

At four o’clock, Caroline returned from her diving expedition, just offshore.

“What are they selling?” she asked.

“Oh, I don’t know,” I said.  “Looks like bits of rock.”

“Haven’t you been over to see them?” she asked, sounding a little displeased.   “Go now.  Come on, we’ll both go.”

I always do as I’m told.  We walked over and I saw immediately that the wares were exactly as I had thought them to be – lumps of rock.

“Where did these come from?” I asked.

“From the caves.”

I’ve never visited them but there are caves in the limestone rock to the east of the island.   Huck had been taken there that morning by Josie, his mother.

The lumps were of different sizes and shapes; they were all encrusted with laterite, a red tropical soil that sets like cement when dry.   

“They’ll look good when you wash them,” said Huck.

“You think so?” I said doubtfully.   “They’re just dirty lumps of rock.”

Caroline coughed and prodded me in the back.

“How much are they?”

“Varies,” said Israel.

“Yes, well I realise that,” I said.   “Some of them are even more dull and boring than the others.”

Caroline didn’t bother to cough this time.  She just punched me, surreptitiously.

“How much do you want for this one?” I asked, picking up a lump that was dirt encrusted all round except for a small section where it appeared to have been broken off from the bedrock.

“Twenty one dollars,” said Huck.

Josie had arrived and she gave me a look that conveyed both apology and understanding.

“Thanks Huck,” I said, “but I can’t afford that.”

“Make an offer,” Caroline said to me, giving Huck a friendly, encouraging smile.

“All right then,” I said,  “a dollar.”

“OK.” he said.

“NO!” Caroline interrupted hastily.  “That’s not how you do it Huck.  You laugh as though you think Terry is joking and say a lower number than twenty one, like twelve.” 

“But I’m not joking,” I said.

“Terry says ‘three’,” Caroline continued, “and you say, ‘five and that’s the lowest I’ll go’ and then Terry says, ‘Deal’.” 

“Isn’t that right, Terry?” she said, giving me another prod.

“Yes, absolutely.  That’s how it could have gone but it didn’t.  He’s accepted a dollar.”

“And that’s more than enough,” said his mum.

Caroline and Josie then entered into a discussion, with Caroline sounding like Keir Hardie in a Glasgow shipyard, advocating that Huck, who had done the work and produced the commodity, should be rewarded appropriately for the fruits of his labour, while his mother was arguing that five dollars was much too much for a bit of rock that, looked at dispassionately and disinterestedly, was worthless. 

I saw a solution to the impasse.   It’s an old trick and it always works with young children.

“OK Huck, how about this?  I’ll either give you five bucks or all the money I’ve got in my pockets.”

“All the money in your pockets,” he said immediately.   

What is it with kids?  Either they believe that all adults always walk around with loads of cash on them, or they find it hard to believe that any adult would be devious, behave like me and trick them.

“No Terry, no,” said Caroline, crossly, who’d seen me do this before but rather than warn Huck, it seemed to convince him that a huge payout was coming very soon.

I decided to be fair (as I always am).   “You can change your mind if you like,” I said.  “I may have less than five dollars.”   

This had the opposite effect on Huck than the one Caroline wanted, and she’d seen me do this before too.

“Take the five dollars Huck,” she said, giving me a really dirty look.

“No!” said Huck boldly, “Turn out your pockets.”

I pulled out the lining of the pockets in my shorts.   Of course, as Caroline knew, I had no money at all. 

I picked up the lump of rock, sniggered and went back home.   Caroline was horrified but Josie was laughing.  Huck looked crestfallen but I had a clear conscience.   He had insisted on it and such is the cut and thrust of business.  I thought that he had learnt a valuable lesson.

I set to work on the rock but even with a wire brush and chemical abrasives, I was getting nowhere.  I noticed that the broken surface gave off occasional sparkles of light and this encouraged me to keep going.

Next day, after several enquiries, I found a Guatemalan who makes a living from polishing objects carved from Caymanite, which is a semi-precious stone that is only found in the Cayman Islands.  

After an hour on his grinding wheel, what appeared was beyond my wildest imagination.  The dull, dreary, dirty bit of rock is shiny, smooth and made up of a blend of colours from yellow, through red and orange to a dark brown.

I think that it is really nice.  There is a picture of it below.  The shape is a little unfortunate but I call it “Mother and Child”.  Caroline calls it “Batteries Not Included”.   I don’t know why.

Raul, the rock polisher who knows about these things, has told me that the local Arts shop here would give me around $600 for it and offer it to American cruise ship tourists for about $1500.   I’ll never know because I’m not selling it. 

I really like it and it’s always going to be good fun in the future to wave it at Huck, giggle and gloat.