Mr. Fernando has been William's neighbour for over half a century. The last decade had definitely been the baddest. Things had been good for Mr. Fernando till the point William as born. In today's story, William and the Blood Brothers have invented a new game. There is a problem created by Mr. Fernando and they have to stop playing the game. Find out what happens.

1. One of the neighbors in Williams’s lane happened to be an old man in his early sixties. He lived with his aged
wife. All their children had migrated to Australia, leaving the old couple behind. They were known as the
Fernandos.
Old Mr. Fernando had been given a lot of trouble by William. He was actually leading a pretty miserable life
because fate had unfortunately decided to make him William’s neighbor. Fate had been pretty cruel to both him
and his wife.
There would be plenty of days when he would pray to Jesus to send William to a boarding school somewhere
far away.
There would also be plenty of days when he would have pleasant dreams of boxing William good and proper. In
comparison, the nightmares that William had given him were much bigger.
The Fernandos had been living next to William’s for more than half a century. It was the same house that old
Mr. Fernando had been brought up. The house definitely had a lot of fond memories for old Mr. Fernando; his
childhood had been spent here; he had met his beautiful wife here, and his kids had gone to school from this
house.
Then there were the unpleasant memories. Up to the point where William was born, the neighborhood had been
quite serene and quiet.
The decade after William was born had been the exact opposite. The last decade probably may have been more
eventful than all the past decades put together, since old Mr. Fernando was born. Every once in a while Mr.
Fernando would scream for William’s father over the wall.
Every once in a while old Mrs. Fernando would ring up William’s mother to tell her about what William had
been up to.
If William was playing in his garden, Mr. Fernando would also be in his garden watching every step of William.
It was almost like a scene out of the movies when the detective would keep the suspect within his reach without
being spotted, the only difference here was William knew every step that Mr. Fernando was taking. He knew
Mr. Fernando was watching him.
In case William’s friends turned up, then the old couple would be in their garden watching and listening to what
William and his friends were up to. Mysterious things seemed to happen when William and his friends were
about.
William’s father would consistently worry that one of these days Mr. Fernando would have a heart attack
because of the things that his son would do.
William had definitely been a nightmare to old Mr. Fernando. Even as a little baby, when William had barely
been four years old, he had ruined the entire Wedding album of Mr. Fernando. Nobody knew how it had
happened but little baby William had found the wedding album and washed all the photos one by one. This had
been the beginning of Mr. Fernando’s nightmare. The photos, of course, had been restored on William’s fathers
account.
Up to today, how baby William had found those photos at Mr. Fernando’s party was a puzzle to everyone. Why
he had washed the photos was an even bigger puzzle both William’s or Mr. Fernando’s household had not been
able to solve up to today.
One of William’s favorite pastimes, when William was a little older was to throw stones at imaginary dinosaurs
in old Mr. Fernando’s garden.

2. The six-year-old William would imagine that he was the only human left on planet Earth and that the dinosaurs
were trying to eat him, the only way he would survive was by killing them.
Unluckily for Old Mr. Fernando, the dinosaurs that were trying to eat little William were in Mr. Fernando’s
garden.
According to six-year-old William he had enchanted bullets that would kill the dinosaurs.
To a normal human being, a six-year-old boy was throwing stones at his neighbor’s garden.
William had killed a lot of dinosaurs until a stone had missed a dinosaur and hit a water pipe instead.
Mr. Fernando’s garden had been filled with water. It had not taken too long for Mr. Fernando to realize what had
happened. Again the pipe had been repaired on the account of William’s father.
A few weeks later, Mr. Fernando had been up a tree, when the tree that he was on had started to receive a
shower of stones.
Little William had been sent to school. He had found friends at school, he had brought them home and taught
them the game of hunting dinosaurs. Poor Mr. Fernando had been stuck up a tree dodging the stones that were
coming one after the other.
These were experiences that old Mr. Fernando would never forget.
There would be instances when William would throw his mother’s cat over the wall into Mr. Fernando’s garden.
He would usually do this on Sundays when Mr. Fernando would retire to sleep after coming back from church.
Mr. Fernando had a couple of dogs, who would start barking trying to bring the roof down the moment they saw
the cat.
Poor Mr. Fernando would never go to sleep again.
Things had been good for both William and Mr. Fernando until a couple of weeks ago.
William had found himself busy with other things and because William had found other things of interest, Mr.
Fernando was having a good time.
Things had been good till the point when William and his friends, the Blood Brothers had invented a game
called “Pads”.
The game would be played when William’s friends visited his home and when William’s father was not at
home.
They would usually play this game after Cricket practices. The Blood Brothers would break themselves into two
teams.
William and Trevin would be one group. Angelo, Oscar and Raj would be in the other group.
They would wear their Cricket pads and pass the ball to members in their team. The objective of the game was
to hit a member of the opposing team on the pads. This was definitely fun until they had broken a couple of
windows in old Mr. Fernando’s garden.
It was something they enjoyed immensely but from the last couple of weeks they had started to have a little

3. problem.
Whenever the ball would go to Mr. Fernando’s house, he would take the ball and retreat into the house. There
was no way that the Blood Brothers would jump over the wall because of the couple of dogs that Mr. Fernando
owned.
The Blood Brothers had tolerated this to a point where Mr. Fernando had taken six of their precious leather
balls.
“And leather balls are quite expensive,”
William was trying to convince his father to beat Mr. Fernando and make him return the balls.
“It’s stealing,” William continued
Williams’s leadership would be tested. He had to find a way to get those leather balls back. He had tried to
convince his father to talk Mr. Fernando into returning those leather balls back but that had failed and then he
had tried his mother and again the results had not varied. The only hope left for William was his Grandmother
and to William’s astonishment, she refused to help William as well. The only option left for William was to talk
to Mr. Fernando himself.
William thought that the best day for him to talk to Mr. Fernando was Sunday. The best time would be the time
that Mr. Fernando would return from Church.
And that’s what William tried next. He tried to talk Mr. Fernando into returning those balls back. He begged, he
pleaded but to William’s horror Mr. Fernando had pretended like he couldn’t hear what William was saying.
William had tried every method possible. Well every method except one. Mr. Fernando had left William with a
mission.
They had to plan. The Blood Brothers had talked over this issue many a time during the interval. So far they had
not been able to come up with an answer to this particular problem.
William had suggested jumping over the wall to take the ball if it went to Mr. Fernando’s house next time.
“Well, that would be next time,” cut in Raj
“And that would be accepting defeat,” added Oscar
It was the first time that William failed to have an answer to something. This had taken a long time. The Blood
Brothers had nearly given up on the idea of the leather balls.
They had found other alternatives.
They had stopped playing in William’s garden. They had to be patient until the right time came and they had
been patient for a couple of weeks now.
Everyone had given up the idea of getting those leather balls back. Everyone except William.
William was a boy that would never give up. If something started working on his mind he would not settle until
he was satisfied.
William however, was not a foolish boy either. He knew the only thing for them to do at the moment was to be
patient. There would be no point in playing in his garden as well.
Mr. Fernando had spent a couple of weeks in peace after a long time.

4. The past couple of weeks had almost been like a holiday for old Mr. Fernando.
To be continued next Friday.