Words for Wednesday is a weekly meme in which words are used as a prompt – bloggers are encouraged to make what they can of them.

River has been providing the words this month and this is what I made of them this week 😊

Tom and Tim 3 – Trouble follows the twin named Tim (or was it Tom)

Tom had always been a complaisant child, appearing willing to help, doing as others wanted him to do. Never grumbling, just getting on with it – sometimes just to keep the peace, like when Tim objected to doing what their parents deemed to be shared jobs on the farm. It was this trait that got him into hot water or maybe it was this trait that helped Tim get him into trouble.

Many years beforehand the nuns at school welcomed Tom and his willing nature but had always had reservations about Tim and his bouts of bedevilment.  The subversive teasing and tormenting of younger ones in the playground or on the school bus was becoming a problem which didn’t seem to slow down no matter how many times his parents met with the parish priest and the bus driver.

‘That child will be the death of me’ his mother was often heard to exclaim. ‘He’ll change’ said his father ‘It’s just high jinks, I was the same at his age’. The parish priest silently thought the father was clutching at straws if he thought that was going to happen.

Now even though the boys accepted the companionship of being twins (a ready playmate when they were younger, someone to talk to about a new horse their father may have purchased) views and attitudes changed as time went by; that closeness disappearing to be replaced by a feeling of being in competition with each other.

Not long after the B&S Ball the local council decided the hall – which had previously been the Mechanics Institute – needed a new roof.  It was the same month the rates had been struck and many of the locals were not too happy with the new costs and constantly put forward hardship requests, being unable to pay due to (real or imagined) extenuating circumstances.

‘Tell you what’ Councillor Tim said, I’ll consult with Tom and see if he’s got a mate who can fix it.  He’ll be able to get someone to give us a quote by using his computer.’  Unfortunately Tom’s mates didn’t extend to roofing contractors but that didn’t deter his brother’s need to get the roof fixed – on the cheap.  ‘You can do it Tom, didn’t you learn all that stuff at Uni about houses and roofs’  ‘Architecture is not the same thing’ replied Tom knowing in his bones he would agree to do something he didn’t really want to do.

They laughed about it later.  A little familiarity had returned to their relationship.

Tim had come up with a weird scaffolding concoction instead of a ladder to give them a sideways view of the roof.  Mr and Mrs T lived next door to the hall and unfortunately Tim hadn’t noticed Mrs Ts car was parked nearby, so when his foot slipped the plastic bag containing the meat pies and takeaway coffee which he’d picked up earlier with the intention of killing two birds with one stone (lunch and getting Tom to look at the roof) landed with a big splat right there on the roof.

Mrs Ts husband Trevor was not happy – he was cleaning out their gutters in preparation for painting the eaves below and only saw Tom looking down from the hall’s rooftop.  Tom was the one who ended up paying for the cleaning and polishing of the car – Tim had said he’d go halves but there was always some reason why the money never eventuated.  A bit like the local rate payers and their pleas of extenuating circumstances.