Chapter 8: The Gentle Wrestler

Saturday morning Danny was working at Johns as usual. He was in the back garden on his hands and knees weeding, when he heard a scratching sound against the fence. He looked up to see two faces smiling down at him.

It was David from next door and his brother Angus. Angus had been adopted by Davids parents after Danny had rescued him from abuse by his uncle.

They chatted for a while, then David asked, ‘Can we ask you to help a friend of ours?’ ‘Of course, you can,’ Danny said. ‘Johns away for the day, do you want to pop round and tell me about it. I’ll go and put the kettle on.’ he told them when they said, ‘Yes please.’

He left his tools as they were and went in. He washed his hands in the kitchen and had put the kettle on just as the front doorbell rang. He opened it to find David and Angus standing there. But not the two boys he remembered. They had both grown a lot taller since he had seen them last. They had also filled out too. They both looked fit, well and happy.

As soon as he closed the door, they both threw themselves on him and hugged him. ‘We’ve had a wonderful year,’ they told him, ‘All thanks to you. I know dad told you Angus’s adoption went through ok, so we’re now officially brothers.’

Danny had made three coffees, so they sat at the kitchen table. The boys told him all about their year and places they had visited on holiday. ‘Anyway,’ David said, ‘We have lots of friends at school, most of them in our year, but some in the year above and some in the year below.’

‘Our friend Burt is in the year below us. He just turned fourteen a week ago. He’s always such a happy person who never seems put out by anything. But we noticed at his party he didn’t seem his usual self. There was too much noise and too many people around to say anything at the time.’

‘Anyway, during last week we’ve been giving him special attention.’ Angus chipped in saying, ‘We’ve spent more time with him than usual. He’s definitely not his usual self.’

‘On Monday, we asked him what was wrong,’ David said, ‘But he denied that anything was up. So, during the week we’ve tried to spend as much time with him as possible. By Wednesday we still hadn’t got anything out of him.’ ‘Although we were careful not to push him too much.’ Angus added.

‘Anyway,’ David said, ‘On Thursday I could see we weren’t going to get anywhere. I just chatted to him about problems in general and not going away. I told him we had a friend not much older than us who was an expert at sorting other people’s problems out.’

‘What’s more,’ I said, ‘He never tells anyone that you’ve been to see him or anything that you tell him. I could see he was interested so I left it at that for the time being.’

‘So yesterday I told him that you would probably be next door to us today. I said if he wanted me to, I’d see if you were able to see him. If you at least come and meet him, I told him, you can just walk out if you don’t want to stay, Danny won’t mind.’

Angus took over then. ‘I told him that a year ago I had come to you with a problem. I was so desperate I told him. The problem was so bad I knew I couldn’t tell a soul about it. But Danny put me at ease and coaxed the problem out of me. I felt so safe with him. Once he knew all about it, he sorted it all out for me. It’s because of him that I’m now David’s brother.’

‘My life went from pain and despair to complete happiness,’ I told him. ‘I’ve been happy ever since, as you know.’ Angus said, ‘I told him I’m sure that you can be too, but you have to do the hardest thing first.’ ‘What’s that?’ he asked.’

I told him, ‘You have to admit you have a problem and decide to do something about it.’ Angus said. ‘And he really keeps it to himself?’ Burt asked us. ‘Apart from the fact you’ve been to see him because we would introduce you, we will never know anything else.’ we told him.’

‘Mind you, we will know when he’s sorted it for you. Then as he looked concerned, I grinned at him. Because you’ll be your old happy self again.’ I said.’

‘We all sat in silence for a while then he said, ‘Ok, yes, there is a bit of a problem and if you can arrange it, I’ll at least go and meet him.’ We both gave him a hug and said, ‘You’ll be so glad you did.’

‘I told him if I saw you this morning you might already be booked up, but to keep himself free today just in case.’ ‘Ok,’ Danny said, ‘Tell him to come round.’

David opened his phone and did a rapid text. A few moments later his phone pinged. ‘On my way, be there in half an hour.’ Burt said. ‘As we’re taking you away from your gardening,’ David offered, ‘We’ll stop and help you until he comes. Then we can introduce you and leave you to it.’ ‘Ok, thanks,’ Danny said, ‘I’m just weeding today. I presume you can tell plants from weeds?’

‘Yes, we’re both keen gardeners,’ Angus said. ‘We do it all at home.’ The three of them set to. David opened the side gate and texted Burt to come round the back in case they didn’t hear the doorbell.

Between the three of them they had got a lot done by the time a voice called, ‘Hi.’ from the gate. Danny looked up to see a young lad coming across the lawn. He was shorter than the other two and quite chubby.

By the time he reached them, David and Angus had moved over by Danny. As Burt came close, David told him, ‘This is our friend Danny that we told you about.’ Danny and Burt shook hands. ‘Thank you for seeing me.’ Burt said.

Everyone helped Danny put his tools away in the shed. Then they all moved over to the side gate. David gave Burt a hug and told him, ‘Remember you can trust Danny completely, so let him help you.’ Angus hugged him too. ‘Next time we see you,’ he said, ‘And every time afterwards, we’ll never ask you anything about it.’ Then they both gave Danny individual hugs and left.

Danny locked the side gate after them and took Burt into the kitchen. ‘Take a seat,’ he said indicting the table. ‘I’ll just wash my hands, then I’ll make us a coffee.’

As he washed his hands, he told him, ‘Over coffee I’ll tell you all about how I work. Then you can decide if you want to stay. But if at any time you want to, you only have to get up and walk out through the front door. You don’t have to tell me why you’re going.’

He made the coffees and put them on the table. Sitting opposite him he told Burt that he had already done the hardest part of solving any problem. ‘You have admitted to yourself that you have a problem and you’ve done something about it by coming here today. It gets easier now, although you might not think that yet.’

As they drank their coffees, Danny explained about no one disturbing them or overhearing anything that was said. ‘I will never tell anyone anything you tell me, no matter what it is.’ he told him.

‘Sometimes I need help to solve the problem. If I do, I will tell you what I want to do, and who I want to ask for help. But that won’t happen unless you say it’s ok.’

Burt was still thinking that he wouldn’t be able to tell anyone what had happened. However, Danny seemed nice, and after seeing David and Angus with him, he decided he should at least give it a try.

‘I’d like to try please,’ he said before Danny had chance to ask him. ‘Well done,’ Danny said, ‘Follow me into the lounge. Go over to the settee,’ Danny instructed, take your shoes off and lie down. Then once you’re comfortable, I’ll tell you what we do next.’

Sitting on the side of the settee, Danny told him, ‘I won’t be asking you about your problem for a while yet.’ That surprised him, but it made Burt relax a bit more. ‘I want to do two things. First of all, to get to know all about you and your life. Second to get you feeling so relaxed with me that you can tell me all about your problem.’

‘To do that, I’m going to ask you lots of questions. At the same time, I will ask you to turn over onto your front. Then I will massage your back from your head to your feet and back again to relax you.’

That sounded nice and wasn’t a bit like Burt had expected. ‘One important thing you should remember,’ Danny told him. ‘Nothing in here will hurt you or take you by surprise. Before we do anything, I’ll tell you what it is, why we’re doing it and what I hope to achieve. Even then, nothing happens until you agree.’