Free NO ORDINARY ROOM by Bill Williams Page B

around to putting them in an album.’
    ‘Are you planning to send your mug shot to a young lady?’ teased Kevin and asked him if he’d met her on one of those ‘chat line thingies’.
    ‘Do me a favour, Dad.  Chat lines are for lonely people or old timers, like you.’
    ‘Cheeky,’ Kevin jokingly admonishing Jamie, ‘Mind you, your mum used to have a pen pal.  What was his name, Debs?’
    Debbie pulled tongues at her husband and answered that his name was Gordon.
    ‘Ah, yes, Gordon from Sheffield.  I bet he’s still playing with his train set.’
    ‘Was he your boyfriend, Mum?’ asked Leanne with a rare question.
    ‘Not really, but he was a nice lad.  Your dad didn’t like him just because he didn’t play football.’
    ‘He didn’t play anything,’ Kevin said and started laughing.
    ‘Ask your mum where Gordon took her on their first date?’            
    ‘I don’t remember,’ Debbie said.
    ‘Your mum’s a big fibber.  He took her train spotting and if I hadn’t teased your mum so much she would probably be living near Crewe station in a railway house now.’
    ‘Did you have a girlfriend at school, Daddy?’ Leanne asked with her second question of the day.
    ‘I was too busy enjoying myself playing football, Princess.’
    ‘Now who’s fibbing,’ Debbie challenged him. ‘What about Megan Davies?’
    Kevin was wishing that he hadn’t started this bit of fun.  He still recalled the day that Gareth and Dai Davies had held him over the railway bridge, threatening to drop him if he didn’t promise to take their sister to the school dance.
    ‘You know why I took Megan out,’ he reminded Debbie.
    ‘Of course I do.  I’m hardly likely to forget the hunky Davies brothers.’
    Kevin decided that it was time to change the subject. 
    ‘So, Jamie, when are we going to see your computer in action?  I was telling your mum that I’m thinking of enrolling on one of those government computer courses.  I’ll soon be coming out with all those buzz words like megapits and geigerhurters.’
    ‘Dad!’ Jamie groaned and then corrected him, ‘Its megabytes and gigahertz and you are best to finish your course before I show you my computer, because it’s a bit more complicated than a shop bought computer.’
    ‘Giga Hertz,’ Kevin mused over the name and then told Jamie that he used to play for Bayern Munich.
     
     

CHAPTER TWELVE
    Jamie was still troubled about having to keep the power of Uncle Stanley’s computer a secret, but was given some light relief when the family were having dinner and his dad told them that his search for a job was over.  Debbie was surprised because it was the first that she had heard of it and she had been with Kevin all afternoon.
    ‘You kept that quiet,’ Debbie said, trying to hide her annoyance that he had waited until now to deliver the important news.
    ‘Come on, Dad; don’t keep us in suspense, ‘Jamie said.  ‘I bet it’s something to do with cars.’
    Kevin reached for the salt as he replied, ‘No, it’s nothing to do with cars.’
    ‘Is it something to do with flowers and things, or vegetables?’ Leanne asked. 
    Jamie laughed. ‘You’re going to become a fruit and veg man on the market, Dad.  I can just hear you doing your sales pitch and calling out, ‘ripe bananas’.
    ‘No, but our Leanne is getting warmer because it’s connected with farming.  Well sort of.  You haven’t had a guess yet, Debs, so what do you think it is?’ Kevin asked.
    ‘Spud picking would be my guess if it’s part time.’
    ‘It’s full time and more to do with animals than crops.’
    ‘I hope it is horses, Daddy, because I want to go horse riding,’ Leanne said, clearly excited by the prospect.
    ‘Sorry, Princess, but it’s nothing to do with horses.’
    ‘Then it must be cows because we haven’t seen any sheep around here,’ Debbie suggested.
    Kevin shook his head, but before he could bring the guessing game to an end Jamie beat him to