Guest, thank you for your lovely review. You might be interested to know there is a Follyfoot fan tribute site. If you Google those words, you'll find it quite easily – which is fortunate, as I don't know how to do hyperlinks! ;)

***Chapter Three***

***A Mad Fool***

"Deuce take it! Why must Ron Stryker torment me so?"

Geoffrey Maddocks muttered the rhetorical question wearily as he rose reluctantly from his bed, hand pressed to his tender brow. He had foolishly eaten cheese this morning. Of course, he knew he would suffer for it. Cheese always gave him migraine, but, dammit, he loved the stuff and, Yorkshire's fresh dairy produce being second to none, sometimes it was just too hard for a body to resist. But it had triggered a thumping headache, hence his short fuse with Ron. After tearing a strip off the latecomer, when he finally deigned to appear, and having left particular instructions with his more willing workforce, Geoffrey withdrew to the peace and quiet of his bedroom in the manor house, where he closed the velvet puddle curtains to plunge the room into darkness and sink thankfully into the motherly arms of slumber.

The headache and nausea receded as sleep and strong painkillers kicked in and he'd begun to feel guilty for yelling at young Stryker. It wasn't Ron's fault, after all, that his head had been pounding and, despite all his wheeling, dealing and work dodging, the boy's heart was in the right place. He might like to pretend he wasn't, but he was genuinely fond of the "clapped out old nags" (as Ron preferred to call the horses simply because he knew Dora hated the expression). There was the time, for instance, when everyone had been furious because Stryker abandoned the mucking out to apparently enjoy a champagne day at the races. The real reason he'd gone, to successfully persuade a cantankerous business associate of his father's to allow an elderly racehorse he owned to retire to Follyfoot, was only revealed when, dressed surreally in top hat and tails, and his hair tied back in a pony tail for the first-ever and only-ever time, he led Vanity Fair out of a horsebox.

Dora had laughed, cried and, aware Ron made the ultimate sacrifice in dressing like a straight-laced toff, which would have destroyed his street cred image forever if any of his biker mates had seen him, told her friend, to his great embarrassment (although she made amends with a hug and kiss on the cheek that had Steve burning with jealousy) his rough, tough, occasionally gruff, exterior hid a marshmallow centre. Nobody could claim Ron Stryker didn't have an agreeably easygoing nature either, although that particular trait had more to do with the fact he was too lazy to bother being angry rather than altruism towards his fellow man.

The announcement that he could take on everybody else's chores for the rest of the day had had no more effect on the long-haired beatnik (Colonel Maddocks deluded himself with the belief he was quite up to date with the fashion and culture of young people, but, in truth, had yet to catch up with even Beatlemania, let alone the music and styles of the early 1970s) than for him to shrug his shoulders and admit, "Ah, well, fair play, I s'pose, me old mateys". Which, this being Ron, made them all immediately suspicious and slightly alarmed. And quite why, as he left the farmhouse, smoothing back his flowing locks with the injured air of a martyr and, when he thought no one was looking, a grin as big as a Cheshire cat's, he stashed a folded newspaper inside the infernal denim jacket he always wore, even on the hottest of days, Geoffrey well might well have queried, if his head hadn't felt like a sledgehammer beat against it.

But as his migraine and mood lifted, the colonel couldn't help feeling perhaps he'd been a little too harsh. An hour must have passed by now, the period they'd agreed they would leave Ron to his own devices. No more and no less, Geoffrey warned Steve, Dora and Slugger, shortly before the tardy one arrived, and boding no argument from his niece, who, not wanting to be away from her beloved horses for even five minutes, was already pacing the farmhouse, fretting about her charges. An hour, Colonel Maddocks thought, and not the whole day as Stryker was led to believe, would be enough time to shock him into doing some work yet not enough time for him to cause any damage. But he would make it up to Ron now. He would send him to the village for fish, chips and mushy peas (a treat to them all instead of enduring Slugger's somewhat dubious cooking, but particularly Ron, who's favourite it was). Pleased with his plan, Geoffrey decided to lie for just a few seconds more, being blissfully soothed by nature. It was wonderfully relaxing. Birds whistled and flapped wings in flight, horses whinnied and neighed, the brook that bordered Robinson's Farm lapped rhythmically while a tractor ploughed somewhere in the distance…a gentle breeze sailed blithely indoors, bringing with it the smell of new-mown hay, the heady perfume of summer flowers, the familiar horsey scent that he had loved ever since boyhood…sunlight somehow climbed inside through the tiniest chink and his gaze contentedly followed its dancing, uncertain patterns, an all-is-well-with-the-world calm sweeping over him…

…Then the roar of a motorbike thundered aggressively into the solitude, the smell of petrol and smoke drowned out all sweeter aromas, and he remembered exactly why Ron Stryker always pushed him too far.

Almost wishing he didn't have to look, the venerable old soldier pulled back the drapes and, still somewhat drowsy from the effects of the tablets, was convinced he was be dreaming. Either the mad fool really had lost his mind this time, or he planned a new career as a stuntman or circus clown, for Stryker leapt off the moving bike, grabbed a bucket of water (one always stood in readiness by the Lightning Tree) and threw it over someone standing near the barn. But if he had lost his mind, then it would appear Dora, Steve and Slugger had suddenly been stricken down with the same malady. Colonel Maddocks knew all three, especially Dora, would be keen to get back to the horses at the end of the hour, but he hadn't expected to see the girl running at breakneck speed towards the stables, with Steve and Slugger hot on her heels. But, bafflingly, they too picked up buckets of water, stolen from under the startled horses' noses, and flung yet more over the already soaked gentleman.

And then he noticed the thick, black smoke curling into the sky…