Courage

When I was about 14, I had my best friend Marshall down from Brighton to come and stay round mine for a few days. This event happened on the first day when we were coming back from the park and we had to wait ages for a bus. We were waiting at the bus stop and I saw this thing in the bushes, bright and primary coloured. My first reaction, of course, was to have a closer look at it and it turned out to be some kind of kid's toy clock that would help you tell the time. My 14 year old instinct told me to smash it on the ground cause it would be cool... so I did... and it was kinda cool. I didn't bother picking it up from the side of the road cause I thought "oh it'll be fine, no one will hit it." I was wrong. Still waiting for the bus Marshall and I decided to play the 'invisible rope prank on some people driving by. Two people stand either side of the road and pretend to hold a rope but when they stop we just 'drop it'. Soon a huge Range Rover started driving, it didn't stop for the 'rope' and kept driving but he happened to drive right over the smashed children's toy that was perfectly in line with where our 'rope' was and it looked like it might have caused some damage to his tyre but we're not sure. Me and Marshall just shrugged it off and laughed until I saw his brakes light come immediately and the door open. Now I'm not a very fast runner but my god I must have run about 100 meters in about 10 seconds, luckily I'm faster than Marshall so I got cover behind a car before the Range Rover pulled round the corner and this huge, beastly, six foot five guy gets out the car and towers over Marshall, who was only 5'8 at the time. As Marshall tried to explain what had really happened I was 2 feet away half under a car thinking, if this guy takes Marshall then he has no way to get to my house because he's never been there, he doesn't have my home phone number and my mobile was broken at the time. This guy kept insisting that Marshall "get in the fucking car" so that he could take him to the police station. 

Courage is a funny thing because it doesn't have a definition until you experience it. Neither Marshall or I experienced courage that day as I hid until Marshall talked his way out of it. We missed our bus as well. 

P.S. Sorry Marsh, but you can take care of yourself.