"But!" exclaimed Amerwort as his mother slid his plate of crumpets away from him, "I haven't finished!"
"Now, Amerwort," she said kindly, but with a ferocious jab of the plate into the bin so all the crumpets fell off, "Go and play outside."
So he grabbed his skipping rope, angrily and sort of in shame as it was a girl's skipping rope, and he lurched outside into the sunshine.
He started to skip.
Up and down his belly went, round and round the rope went, slapping the path each time, and it wasn't Amerwort's fault that he couldn't keep time. He wasn't a professional.
"You're down there again!" shouted Topiary from atop his ladder. The ladder was propped up against the back of Amerwort's house and glinted in a sparkly fashion down at the sweaty boy.
Amerwort grunted.
Topiary called, "The boy who skips!"
Amerwort told him where to go and Topiary chuckled into his plaid handkerchief before coughing once.
"I believe the devil himself wouldn't want me," Topiary said. He laid the handkerchief flat on a roof tile and positioned a nail at the middle. Then whacked it with a hammer.
Amerwort's sweat was now gliding freely down his face and throat and legs, and he felt he had skipped enough, but didn't stop. He should bottle this sweat, he thought proactively. Maybe he could even sell it.
"Would you buy sweat, Topiary?" he asked between jumps and slaps.
Topiary sort of paused mid-whack, but his arm kept going, and Amerwort saw the hammer miss, hit the neighboring tile, causing it to rise up and agitate the nail. The handkerchief suddenly flew off and the nail fell and Topiary looked up at the sky.
Amerwort missed a jump but kept skipping. His feet tangled in the rope and he fell with a soft woooosh and splaf onto the concrete.
"Ow!" yelled Amerwort, unused to this painful action.
"Yeah!" called Topiary, still staring off into the clouds, "I reckon I might!"
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