© 2025 Thefireflies, for Literotica
~0~
A door opened at Sandalwood Crescent, releasing a great hound into the new day. Arthur's long legs seemingly spun in the air as his paws failed to gain traction on the smooth tiles, claws scraping until they finally found purchase, and the blur of red fur bounded into the yard, possessed with a serious case of the zoomies.
Dylan sat on the front step lacing his running shoes and watching his blurry maniac run around. Arthur sensed Dylan's gaze and stopped, his mouth forming a crazy grin with tongue barely poking past his canines. Dylan cocked his head and Arthur mimicked him. He snapped a photo on his phone and the big pup closed his mouth. Dylan smiled at how Arthur's narrow face looked comical and serious at the same time. His hazel eyes were large and thoughtful and ears ridiculously long and silky.
"Come on, ya big fancy bastard, go take a piss before we get this show on the road."
The saluki reached the front gate in two leaping bounds. Dylan tethered his running partner, who promptly cocked his leg and let out a long steaming stream onto the leaves of the Hibiscus bush. Moments later Dylan pushed the gate open and out they went. Few words were spoken, both man and dog on a mission.
Rays of sunlight peeked above rooftops of iron and tile, filtering through leaves of trees. A magpie chortled a lovely morning chorus, while somewhere in the distance a cockatoo screeched a more chaotic welcome to the day. A fat tortoiseshell cat flushed from a bush, and Dylan pulled Arthur back on the path with a strong growl of "
leave
," testing Dylan's grip and biceps and Arthur's training.
This was their habit most mornings, an hour's run at sun up, taking a different route each time. They traversed concrete paths cracked and stained with time, past houses familiar to Dylan, some he'd known quite well both inside and out as a kid because they were the former homes of childhood friends. Some houses looked worn and tired, others proudly displayed new roofs or fresh coats of paint or a complete renovation to their exterior.
Some houses present in his memory were missing in real life, replaced with duplexes, town houses and blocks of units. Corflute
For Sale
signs were out in force all over the city, but Dylan no longer bothered to look up the price unless he saw something extra special or practical. Over a million dollars for a three bedroom town house with little-to-no yard was absurd, especially in this suburb, where he wondered how anyone beyond the mega rich could afford even a simple house with the current state of the real estate market.
The day was well and truly starting when they jogged back to Sandalwood Crescent. A couple of tradies in filthy orange hi vis shirts were chatting outside their lifted dual cab utes, presumably doing weekend work on the construction site at number ten, where four town houses were going up. This property used to belong to Mr and Mrs Peters, who'd moved into an aged care home about a year ago after almost fifty years at the same address. Dylan recalled how their daughter, Kerry, sometimes baby sat he and his sister when they were young, remembering how the house was identical to his parent's in design. It was only recently demolished.
Across the road Mrs Bošković was watering her flowers. Dylan returned her wave, thinking how ancient and kind Mrs Bošković looked, recalling how when growing up in the street, Mr and Mrs Bošković used to yell at and threaten kids riding bikes on their section of footpath, or if kids were retrieving a ball from the front yard. Her husband passed away several years back, the grumpy old bastard, but Dylan and his father occasionally helped the old woman out and she was very fond of his children.
Times certainly change
, he thought, not for the first or even hundredth time.
There was no time for small talk with neighbours this morning, however, and he and Arthur were through the gate quick smart. The gate slammed shut and Dylan began his stretching routine, bracing against the fence with right leg out behind him. He felt the wet tickle of Arthur licking behind his sweaty knee.
"Enough of that, mate," Dylan said, "I've gotta stretch me calves." Arthur stopped and cocked his head and gave a whine like cry.
"I know, mate, it's a tough life. Look, I know, you'd love for me to spend the day with you, which I would, but I've promised to help out at today's sausage sizzle. Hey, don't look at me like that, you know I'd take you with me if I could. But they won't let dogs in the school yard, and anyway, you'd steal all the sausages from the barbecue. You know you would."
Arthur listened to every word and wore an expression suggesting, yes, he would absolutely love to spend the day with Dylan at the school's fundraiser, where he would not cause any trouble whatsoever, nor would he eat many sausages. After all, he is the goodest boy. He was told this as a fact by the entire family all the time.
"Unfortunately, my friend, you will have to stay here."
Dylan planted a firm pat on Arthur's side, the hound's face breaking into a broad grin as if he understood and agreed with everything. Moments later Dylan sat on the path to stretch his hamstring, where he copped a full post run slobbery tongue to the face.
~0~
The carpark was desolate except for two other vehicles. Dylan parked his Subaru, climbed out and walked through the gate to the quadrangle. He marvelled how the school appeared significantly smaller than his memory suggested. Maybe it was because he was no longer seeing the school through child's eyes, and perhaps it was the addition of new paths and covered walkways connecting most buildings, making the yard look smaller.
However, the quadrangle in the centre of the school's main buildings looked almost exactly like Dylan recalled. Except today at this early hour because there were no kids shooting hoops into basketball rings at each end, nor were there games of handball on the square concrete pavers. And no one was playing chasing games of tiggy, and therefore no one running and inevitably tripping on the inhospitable surface, leading to tears and a trip to the sick bay.
You just scraped a little bark off
, the old ladies in the office used to say,
we'll patch you up, good as new
.
It all happened right here
, Dylan thought, his mind's eye picturing it like yesterday.
Almost forty fucking years ago...
Sue Mathers approached from across the quadrangle, a clip board in one hand and her phone in the other. "Dylan, thank goodness you're here. I'm so glad you could help out."
"Hey, no worries. What do you need me to do?"
Removing a lanyard with a key from around her neck, she said, "You can start setting up the barbeque stall. The barbeques are in the main storage room."
"Under the back of the main hall?" Dylan asked, taking the offered key.
"That's right. You were a student here, weren't you?"
"Yep," he said with a short intake of breath. "A lifetime ago."
"Nothing's changed, the store room hasn't moved," Sue replied, getting straight to the point. "Once you get the barbecues out, you can get the marquees. You'll need to ensure their legs are weighted down in case the wind blows through. The BOM said there won't be much wind but it might rain later in the day, but I don't trust these forecasts, so we need to be prepared for anything. Oh, and also, the tables should be behind the door. Don't go lifting heavy things on your own, though. I'll send Chris to help you once he's finished faffing about. I just saw Kai arrive. He'll help you on barbeque duties. Other volunteers should be here soon, too."
"No worries, I'm onto it."
A tight smile from Sue before she walked away in the direction of the gate to greet the man, presumably Kai, who was walking in from the carpark.
Dylan didn't wait, walking towards the main hall. The school was built on a low hill, where one side of the long hall was at the natural ground level, and the other side was down slope, the veranda circling the building approximately two-and-a-half metres above the ground here. The hall could be accessed on both sides through French doors, which opened to give the hall's inner room the appearance of a much larger space and to allow airflow in the humid subtropical summers. The end of the building faced the quadrangle, where a single flight of timber stairs connected the ground to the veranda for further access.
Dylan skirted these stairs, walking under the veranda on a concrete path, past rows of bubblers over their stainless steel trough. Foursquare handball courts were painted on the concrete path here, which Dylan thought were much too small for a proper game. This was one of the few covered areas back when he'd attended school, a place to shelter on rainy days.
The paint looked much fresher than Dylan's recollection, but still typical school beige. At some point in the last thirty plus years many of the school's buildings were renovated. By all accounts, the authorities found extensive termite damage at the school, which led to discoveries of significant amounts of asbestos, and someone in the education department decided the school would get a massive overhaul. Apparently the renovations took over a decade to complete, at least according to his father.
The key Sue provided fit the lock, and he pushed the door open and went in. The musty atmosphere was heavy in Dylan's nose and lungs, and he concluded the renovations and humans in general missed the storage room altogether. The door began to close on its own, so he pushed it open again, propping a dusty plastic chair against it.
Light barely revealed two barbeques parked a few metres in from the door, exposing red-brown rust on once black lids and pipe steel stands. Dylan wondered if these museum pieces would make the journey from the store to the quad without rattling apart. He looked into the gloom, making out long folded marquees propped against a storage shelf and sports crashmats further back. The trestle tables were exactly where Sue said he could find them, stacked in the space behind the open door. He ran his finger over the dust on the topmost table, noting they would need a considerable wipe down.
