Free Friends Like These: My Worldwide Quest to Find My Best Childhood Friends, Knock on Their Doors, and Ask Them to Come Out and Play by Danny Wallace

School, Loughborough, between finalists Timothy
     Sismey and Daniel Wallace was declared a draw when, after thirty “strikes” each, both boys had registered the same number
     of hits.
    Impressive enough. But even
more
impressive… one witness described the event as “eye-popping.” Oh yeah. And I’ll tell you what: it
had
been eye-popping. An eye-popping finale to a
legendary
competition. But the truth was—and this breaks my heart—Timothy Sismey had
won
that year, not drawn. My prize conker, Brutus—discovered under a bush, as if a gift from God—had been splintered and scattered
     across the school hall, in full view of more than two hundred excited children, their tiny fists punching the air, as the
     classic face-off they’d been waiting weeks to witness had finally ended. The annual conker competition was the highlight of
     our year—trained for in every playtime and on the slow walk home after school. Dozens had entered, but only the brave and
     talented few had made it through to the finals. This year had not been without controversy. Luke Trehearne had been banned
     after rumors had surfaced that his dad had been secretly varnishing his conkers. Which is a rumor that twenty years later
     could land you jail time. But now, here we were—me versus Sismey. My con ker nemesis. The battle of the 1980s. And Sismey…
     had
triumphed.
    I had accepted my defeat with grace. We had both been given a box of Toffifee bought from a garage as prizes. Tim, as the
     winner, received a 24-pack. Mine contained a mere eight. But I never really got over it. His victory over me was made all
     the worse by the
Echo
’s inaccurate coverage of the event. “Congratulations!” family friends would say when they saw me. “I read about the conker
     championship.” I would then have to tell them that they were mistaken, that Timothy Sismey was the real victor, that I had
     come in a mere second. And in that moment I would see their respect and admiration for me dwindle, so I’d tell them about
     the swimming gala, but I just knew as they walked away that they were thinking, “I’m
sure
P. Walls won that…” Since then, I’d kept largely quiet about the whole thing.
    Incidentally, you might be surprised that the
Loughborough Echo
decided to report on what now, more than twenty years later, seems a little less important than it did then. But this is
     the
Loughborough Echo,
where no story is too small. These are four completely genuine headlines from the
Loughborough Echo,
which all ran in the
same edition,
this year:
STRANGER STARED AT BY LOCALS
    This was the news that a stranger had been spotted in town, and that some locals had stared at him.
TOWN NEARLY HAD TRAMS
    This was the news that someone had just found out that Loughborough had once nearly had trams, but then in the end hadn’t.
MOTH CAPTURED ON FILM
    This was the news that someone had taken a picture of a moth in their back garden. It was accompanied by a picture of a moth.
     It remains unclear whether this was the same moth that had been seen in the garden, but the eyewitness does go to some lengths
     to explain that he had seen a moth the
previous
year, although that was in the
front
garden.
    And finally, my favorite:
NO ONE INJURED IN ACCIDENT
    No one injured in an accident! Alert Larry King! And all of these incredible events occurring in just one week in the Bronx
     of the East Midlands—Loughborough! Suddenly, I am surprised that news of a conker match between two children was not at the
     time deemed worthy of a souvenir pull-out section.
    I folded the article back up, put it in my pocket and wandered out of the station. And there, standing by the entrance, under
     the big sign saying LOUGHBOROUGH, was the man I’d come to see.
    Anil Tailor.
    We jumped into a sparkling, mint-green Mini and Anil revved it up. “It’s my sister-in-law’s. You know Sunil got married? I’m
     an uncle now!”
    Jesus. An uncle. Anil didn’t look old enough to be an