Danny Bent - Youve gone too far this time, Sir!

You've Gone Too Far

This Time, Sir!

by

Danny Bent

Published by Night Publishing, Smashwords edition

Copyright 2011, Danny Bent

ISBN 978-1-4581-5731-7

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Live your dream!

This book is dedicated to everyone

who's ever had a dream.

Chapter 1

The rhythmic hum of wings beating as birds fly overhead fillsmy ears. I can hear the sea breeze blowing up the valley, playingwith the leaves on the trees, and the pounding of the waves beneathme slowly eating away at the rock formations. I can hear theterrified screams of my friends echoing around the mountainside andI can see their tear-stained faces peering over the thirty footvertical cliff.

Im at the bottom of the cliff. I cant speak and I cant feelmy body.

Thirty seconds ago I had been cycling with friends on the Cted'Azur in France, climbing from turquoise blue sea to snow-cappedpeak repeatedly to train both legs and lungs to cope with the painduring the racing season. My cleanly shaven, white, freckled legswere becoming honed machines, pistons that fired without theslightest effort. My lungs were able to suck in and process litresof the thin mountain air with each gasp. I was feeling strong,pushing harder with thoughts of glory in the back of mymind.

Suddenly, my super light carbon wheel clipped a rider infront, my best friend and arch-enemy on the bike, Stephen Bell. Ifever there was a man built for cycling it was Steve. Arched back,narrow piercing eyes, thighs like tree trunks and a competitiveedge that could slice diamonds. We had been rivals since myintroduction to cycling with the advantage switching from one tothe other as the years passed by. We had crossed the finish linewith exactly the same time in our previous race and I was startingto feel the balance tipping in my favour again.

The contact flipped my bike, throwing it to the right, towardsthe cliff edge, catapulting me and the bike clear off the road,down the vertical face of the abyss.

I remember the fall in slow motion. The first moment as I leftthe road, the faintest smell of burning rubber, the floatingsensation, reaching to grab a lone, straggly weed growing betweenthe cracks in the limestone rocks, the sight of it coming free inmy hand with only the tiniest amount of force, the sensation offalling forever. And then nothing.

There are more eyes looking down on me now. Some I recognise,some I dont. The screams are still ringing in my ears. A singletear falls through the air. The sun reflects off the shimmeringsurface as it falls to earth like a tear from heaven. It lands onmy left shoe, triggering a tingling in my big toe. Initially thesensation just sits in my toe wondering what to do next,contemplating its options, then it spreads up my right leg and downthe left. I can move my legs again! It rushes up my spine, splits and zips down bothmy arms. My fingers are wiggling. With an almighty bang thissensation explodes in my brain and voice box. My mouth opens and Ishout back at the onlookers, I THINK IM ALIVE.

* * *

This is a story about love and adventure. It is also a truestory. Our main character is a boy born in the Peak Districtamongst the bubbling Buxton springs. Nestled in a green andthriving valley, he was born into a simple household where his cotlies. Two pairs of eyes look on him from above, one set blue, theother hazel brown.

The eyes belong to his parents, two people who formed a bondand gave their genetic structure to our boy and then their lives.They were struggling to afford to furnish their flat, yet theylavished him with undivided love, attention and care. Albino blond,spattered with freckles, ears that his head will eventually growinto, his mother's blue eyes and a strong jaw line adorned with acheeky grin, he lays quietly like a bomb waiting todetonate.

Placing him in a backpack, his Dad - an international athlete- would take him orienteering before he could walk. Running frompoint to point, through rivers, over fells, climbing rocks, howcould our boy not pick up a bit of this adventurous spirit alongthe way? An attitude was shaped that no experience was a badexperience. His mum found him drinking from the toilet bowl at theage of one. Rather than tell him off, she asked what it tastedlike, whilst reassuring him that the water from the taps wasnicer.

As soon as he could walk, he would climb tables, leap offsofas, clamber into streams, chase frogs. Hed run up and down thealmost vertical steps outside their house. When he was two yearsold his family finally had the money to see what was outside ofGreat Britain and they all went camping in France. On the ferrycrossing, a wise man in a dark overcoat with a fashionablemoustache watched him running around, overexcited and without acare in the world, and stated, Hes like an accident waiting tohappen.

At four years old he undertook his first adventure on hisbicycle. Having just removed the stabilisers he decided this wasit; no more help. He opened the front door, sat on the stairs thatled from the hallway, and mounted his bike. He wobbled at first butthen cheered wildly as he managed to stay on, gripping thehandlebars so that his knuckles were as white as his legs wereshaky. He passed the dressing table and the chest of drawerscontaining all the muddy shoes and maps. The coat stand whizzed byas he picked up speed, passing through the front door. He didntwant to stop and proceeded to cycle down the steep steps beforeflying over the handlebars.

The 'poorlies' on his knees and the lump on his head didnothing to deaden his adventurous spirit which was nurtured andallowed to grow with time. The scars that remained were treasured -he was the first boy in his class to ride a bike withoutstabilisers. He was back on in no time and he was fast, the fastestkid in the street. But he couldnt turn corners and wasnt muchgood at stopping.

When the family moved to a house just up the road from theirflat, a cycle workshop was created in the cellar. His dad would useparts of wrecked old bicycles to fix his wrecked newones.

At eleven, during a junior school leavers' assembly in frontof all the mums and dads, his headmistress asked his classmateswhat they wanted to do when they left school. Footballer, doctor,film star, politician they replied one by one. His answer was nosurprise to the audience who had grown used to his quirky optimismand spirit. "I want to cycle round the world and raise money forcharity". A big 'Ahhhhh' resounded around the school hall, sosweet.

However, before he could start realising dreams, he had a fewmore lessons to learn.

He graduated and left Southampton University with the highesthonours in tomfoolery, indulgent buffoonery and mathematics.Educational establishments had wrapped him in cotton wool for thepast fifteen years, protected him from growing up and armed himwith a solitary piece of paper rolled and tied with a ribbon - adegree certificate - and told him to get out there in the realworld, find a job, build a life, start a pension, acquire lifeinsurance, get married and start a family.

What? he remembers thinking, I didnt sign up forthis!

He was lost in the big grown-up world. Friends values andopinions changed overnight, about turns were made but he didnthear the sergeant give the order. No one wanted to be silly anymore. Trips to Toys R Us to check out the cool toys Geoffrey theGiraffe had released this month seemed to be over. Cycling to workin the same clothes you went out in the previous night was deemed ano-no. Protesting against the violation of human rights was out thewindow. Trying to outdo each other with bad taste outfits from thelocal Oxfam shop no longer added to your street credentials. It wasall designer frocks, Chelsea tractors, mobile phones, 2.4 childrenand that inevitable second house in the country. Under friends'arms he saw briefcases not surf boards. Suits were the new shorts,consumerism the new Marxism.