Billy Potts's Donkey and other stories

By Barry Soden

Seven short stories about a small boy called Billy Potts. He's six years old and lives with his family in a small village somewhere in south-east England just after World War Two. He's very bright and normally very good, but he takes thing too literally sometimes and goes off at an unexpected tangent, with unpredictable results. Wiil amuse adults, and is suitable for reading to their children.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Barry Soden
• Release date: May 23, 2013
• ISBN: 9780957677500

Barry Soden

I'm a retired engineer and scientist. I live in Eastbourne, UK, with my wife of eighteen months, the wonderful Jean. I have two beautiful and loving daughters, Rachel and Philippa. Their mother died from Multiple Sclerosis ten years ago. I was born in Birmingham, UK, 77 years ago, and I survived my childhood by the skin of my teeth, being pulled from the wreckage of our home after a German bomb hit, during the Blitz on Birmingham. I am a Chartered Engineer, though I don't practice any more, and I worked for a time as a support scientist assisting in the design of instruments to be flown on NASA earth satellites. I am now retired, of course, but very active with my hobbies of astronomy, music, art of all kinds, and of course, writing! I am a member of Victoria Baptist Church in Eastbourne.

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Billy Potts’s Donkey

and other stories

By Barry Soden

Published by Barry Soden at Smashwords

Copyright 2013 Barry Soden

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy.

Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

ISBN 978-0-9576775-0-0

Contents

Introduction

Billy Potts’s Donkey

Billy Potts and the Nature Table

Billy Potts and the Bundle of Joy

Billy Potts and the School Visit

Billy Potts and the Country Bus

Billy Potts and the Golden Sands

Billy Potts and the Travelling Man

About the Author

Introduction

Billy Potts first came into my life when I was asked to write a short story for a parish magazine’s Christmas issue. The story became Billy Potts’s Donkey, and although it was not in the end used, I decided to write down some more of Billy’s adventures and see where he took me. Billy and his family became very real. They live in post-war Britain, around 1947, somewhere in the south-east. Billy is quite bright, and usually very good, but he has a way of taking things literally and going off in ways no-one could have expected. He even surprises me!

The stories seemed to write themselves. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I did writing them!

Barry Soden

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Billy Potts’s Donkey

Six-year-old Billy Potts was upset. When Miss Aldsworthy had said they were going to do a class Nativity play, he had got very excited, and was sure he was going to play Joseph.

Me, Miss, me! I want to play Joseph!

Just be patient, Billy Potts. I haven’t decided who will play what yet. There are lots of nice parts to be filled, and I’m sure you can be someone very important.

But Miss, I want to be Joseph!

Just wait and see, Billy!

And he had waited, and waited - it seemed like months, although it had only been a day or two. Then the bombshell had fallen - Joseph was to be played by Jimmy Wilson, just because he was the tallest boy in the class. Up till then Jimmy had been his best friend, but now he didn’t like him at all. As all the parts were handed out, Billy had got more and more worried. First the Wise Men - he wasn’t to be one of them. Then the Shepherds - not one of them either. Then the Innkeeper - not him. Wasn’t he going to get a part at all?

And Billy Potts - you can play the donkey!

Oh Miss, I wanted to play Joseph!

The donkey is a very important part. And you get to wear the donkey's head!

The head had been made from a grey plush curtain of uncertain age. It had seen better days - the eyes didn’t match, and the ears flopped down on both sides of the head. It had a gaping mouth through which Billy was supposed to be able to see, but it didn't quite fit and he could only see if he held his head at an angle. It gave the donkey a quizzical look which somehow didn't look right for the patient animal it was supposed to be.

Now take the head home and practise wearing it so you can get it right for rehearsal, Billy. And don't forget to bring it back tomorrow!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

But Mum, I don’t want to play the donkey. All you do is just stand there. You don’t even have anything to say! And the head smells funny!

Now Billy, the donkey is an important part of the play. Just you be the best donkey there ever was - and I’ll try to make the head look a bit better for you!

She smelt the head, and indeed it had a musty odour. She couldn’t really wash it, so she brushed it over with a toothbrush dipped in disinfectant. This had the effect of giving the head a stripy, brindled look, and did nothing much for the smell. The worst thing about the head was that the eyes weren’t the same. They were of different sizes, and while one was a decent dark brown glass eye, the other had been lost at some stage and had been replaced with a patch of felt of a peculiar shade of ochre yellow which glared belligerently outwards. She rushed down to the village shop before it closed to get two toy eyes which matched. All the lady had were two glass eyes of a startling bright blue, smaller than she really wanted. When she had stitched them on the effect was unnerving. Dad decided that something should be done about the ears, and made some wire stiffeners which held them vertical, and he painted the teeth a dazzling white.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

When Miss Aldsworthy saw Billy in the head next day she went pale. It looked more like the Hound of the Baskervilles than a patient donkey, but it was too late to do anything about it now. Rehearsals went better than she had hoped, and Billy had managed to get the head on straight and could see reasonably well through the mouth. She was glad he had no lines - his voice was so muffled she couldn’t understand a word he spoke anyway. All the village came to the performance. Proud Mums and protesting Dads, the Vicar and even Lady Mary from the Manor House brought her sister-in-law, all prepared to be charmed by the dear little children in their traditional Nativity play. Billy had remembered what his Mum had said - Be the best donkey there ever was. He had been practising, all by himself, and he was going to do the best he could!

The curtains parted, to show Mary and Joseph, with a china doll in the crib, surrounded by little girl angels in white muslin robes and tinsel wings. One of the angels stood on a chair behind Mary, holding a