The Bad Scout - BBC Radio 2 and Stratford Upon Avon Literary Festival Entry

It started as a silly accident, he hadn’t meant to make the younger Beavers cry… telling a ghost story or two at winter camp was meant to be stupid fun, but the little Beavers didn’t get that.

This was how Benji started his bad behavior, a great way to rebel, at the age of 7; he was then dubbed a bad scout.

Benji is a boy, 14 years old, small but not too small, about ready for a growth spurt. He was the fifth generation Baden-Powell, Baden-Clay to be precise. He had descended from Lord Robert Baden-Powell, the founding father for the Scouts movement, started in 1907. As a descendant of BP the family still had much to do with the Scouts organisation since Benji could remember. He was to have the best knowledge and automatically know survival skills. He didn’t. To be fair he didn’t really care.

Benji had good times with the Scouts like jumping out from behind gravestones at church services. There was the First Aid Badge incident, ‘mummy wrapping’ young Beavers and chucking them into the stock cupboard, or eating the majority of cake ingredients, no one got their Chef badge that day. Then there was the time they went Geocaching with his false directions, only for him to ditch his troop for fish and chips. Not only were there badges, lessons, camps and activity days there was volunteering. Benji was not up for that and always seemed to mess around. He inevitably got into trouble or had a temper on the job. Without a doubt the Christmas Fayre at school was going to be labouring, and that was an understatement.

The sports hall is full of Christmas cheer, many generations in one room chatting loudly and singing gleefully. There is much merriment at this Christmas Charity Fayre. It’s making Benji worse, he must stick to his job as a Scout, even with all this wholesome, sickening display of happiness. He’d like a brownie (or six!), he can’t, he’s on duty.

It’s a wonder Benji hasn’t blown his top… he’s been there all day, his mum and dad are volunteering, he’s was ‘voluntold’. The day’s been building but Benji’s holding up. On duty Benji is lost in his thoughts of the good times with the Scouts.

Benji snaps back into the room, the noise is engulfing him and he becomes very envious of the family fun, the feeling is bubbling inside him like a witches’ cauldron. Could he join in? No. He has a reputation to protect; he’s a bad boy. Suddenly, emotions get the better of him and he feels glum. Then there’s a tug on his Necker (scarf). “EXCUSE MEEE! I’M WAAAIIITING TO SEE SANTA’S ‘GROTTY’!” demands a little girl; she’s practically strangling Benji. He snaps, he drops the Christmas bomb, “Newsflash, he’s not real! He’s utterly made up!” In disbelief she glares up at Benji, he shouts, this time REALLY loud “YOU HEARD ME, SANTA’S NOT REAL!!!”

The room is silenced, a baby cries in the background. All eyes on Benji as the girl looks up with hurt, puppy dog eyes, she scrunches them as they well up like two Olympic-sized swimming pools. The floodgates open, she begins sniffling short breaths and gasping for air like a person in the movies before they die. Snot builds up in her nostrils like a milk frothing machine. Benji’s parents saw his entire outburst, the upstanding chairperson of the PTA and the Scout Leader disgraced by their son. The room was thinking – how could this boy tell such a crude, untruthful lie about Santa? They shout, “He is real!”

The damage has been done and needs to be put right… Reverend Kate steps forward to the microphone and with an awkward grin announcing that “Benji is quite wrong, Santa is here today. I am very much looking forward to seeing him.” She cranks up the music and everyone gets back into the Fayre.

Benji is at his lowest point, still on duty with everyone glaring at him. Benji thinks on about what he has done and feels profoundly guilty. The idea keeps buzzing around in his head, he wants to change but doesn’t know how. Being bad might not be the route to go. Speaking of routes, it’s the Winter Hike tomorrow. Could he prove he can change?

After yesterdays events Benji was grounded, accept for the hike and had to write an apology letter the Scouts, PTA, Reverend Kate and the School’s Headmaster. Both his mum and dad hadn’t really talked to him. They hadn’t asked why Benji did and said what he did. He is feeing weird about the whole thing, he thinks he should confront his parents and talk about it, why did it happen? But he doesn’t know how. Also why should he? They are the parents, they should be parents. His parents don’t want to deal with this behavior it seems, Benji is waiting for them to make their move, it would also seem that his parents are waiting for him to come forward and apologise. So it’s a stalemate!

Benji didn’t sleep last night he has been thinking through and practicing how he can explain what he did at the Fayre. But it still doesn’t make complete sense to him either. He woke during the night and at one point started to write his apology letter, in the morning he re-reads what he wrote…

I feel bad for what I did. I know Santa is real and many people believe in him.

Maybe I need to be more kind, considerate and believe that I could be different.

I hope to change but I feel pressured into being a good Scout and son, I feel the need for me to conform and it can be too much and I, like yesterday, explode.

Yours apologetically

Benji

As day breaks father and son are silently getting the car filled for the hike. It takes a few hours to journey to Snowdonia, where they will hike. Benji has been silent in the car while the radio makes the atmosphere less uncomfortable. They arrive at the meeting point and his troop are divided, some take to Benji and others don’t. He tries to talk to some but they pretend they can’t hear him with quips like; “Can you hear something?” “ I don’t think so.” “Sounds annoying.” And so the hike begins, with Benji own his own at the back.

They were 15 miles into it and had been stopping for some rests whilst the ascent was tough going. It was unseasonably warm for this time of year. This was good as it wasn’t too cold for the hike. The sky was like a bright blue freshly laundered blanket, the air smelt good too. The mountain sides where very rocky although the trail had dried mud on the sides, but where so many feet had trudged it was wet and squelchy. The troop was going to press on until the next rest stop for a late lunch. Benji had been playing up a little and was to stay with one of the leaders, Tim, at the current rest stop until he had calmed down. The troop went on without them.

They had been at the stop for ten minutes and he was starting to get that eerie remorseful feeling that he should behave and not slip into old habits again when he noticed Tim, rub his arm lots. He rubbed hard with a pained expression; Benji watched this in curiosity and then Tim, slumped down on the side. Benji noticed that Tim’s face was extremely red, like it was burning up, although he had been like that for the last 6 miles. Then Benji moved closer. Tim was trying to shout in agony he moved to hold his chest. At this time Benji knew something was not right, he shouted up to the trail where the troop had walked. On second thoughts he knew the others wouldn’t get there in time. He moved even closer towards Tim, and without thinking moved him onto his back and tried to keep them both calm. Even though he had been messing around in First Aid class he remembered this. At this point Benji realised that Tim was having a heart attack!

Tim was short of breath and lightheaded, all leaders had a very small first aid kit in their rucksacks, Benji riffled around to find the little red packet. His fingers scrambled around inside and he managed to pull it out, along with Tim’s mobile phone. Benji had a little signal and was able to make a 999 call to alert them of the situation and request help. He grabbed the aspirin from inside and encouraged Tim, as best he could, to chew on it. Benji remembered he had a whistle on him for emergencies and began to blow it to notify the troop help was need and urgently. Tim isn’t trying to get breath or make much noise he is still having a heart attack, Benji talks to Tim the whole time and stays close, occasionally blowing on the whistle so that someone can hear. He hopes that the troop doesn’t think it’s a false alarm and that he is playing another trick on them. He is very relieved to see the troop rushing down the trail towards them, his dad is at the front and the fastest, he realises what is happening and runs even faster. Within minutes there is an Air Ambulance on the scene and Tim is seen to by the paramedics and winched up into the helicopter and to the nearest hospital.

Immediately after the ordeal Benji’s dad gives him the biggest hug ever and they are both happy yet tearful to with each other. Benji’s dad says “Son I’m so very proud of you and what you did!” This is all he needs to hear and feels a sense of comfort and acceptance from his dad; it’s a good feeling. On the way journey back down the trail Benji gets numerous back slaps and high fives from his fellow Scouts. They ask him about what happened, there are lots of questions and Benji is happy to share his story with the others. Even his dad is hanging on his every single word.

It was just after New Year and Tim was doing well, thanks to Benji’s quick thinking, he was well on the road to recovery now. Benji’s New Years resolution was to become a good scout. The first scouts meeting of the year was happening tonight and they were to give out the hike badges. Tim came by to let everyone see how he was doing and to say a special word of thanks to Benji, he came with two unexpected letters.  As leader Benji’s dad opened and read the letter on his behalf. The letter read;

Dear Benjamin Baden-Clay,

I was enthralled to hear from your leaders also within the local press that you were instrumental in saving the life of your leader, Tim. Everyone in your troop shared their stories about you and what happened on the hike that day. I was interested in your story of survival as I too am a person who loves Scouts and survival challenges.

I would love to meet you; I invite you to the World Conference along with your troop.

Please know that what you did was a courageous act and I would like to share this with other members of the Scouting oragnisation, I feel it is a story worth sharing.

I’ll keep in touch, yours sincerely,

Bear Grylls

In anticipation, Benji ripped open the second letter. A gold shape fell on the floor, Benji read on, saying that Blue Peter had heard stories of his heroic efforts from the troop and had awarded him the Gold Badge for saving a life.

So, here he was, Benjamin Baden-Clay was after all a good scout with a great story to share.

I came up with the story because... I love Scouts, I am a Scout, W1st Troop. 

We have a poster of Bear Gyrlls outside my school and I walk past it every day. 

AND one of the Scout leaders and my friends were on a hike and something like this happened to them. 

Putting these things together with a character based on a boy, instead of a girl like I normally write, I wanted to try and do a story with a boy as the main character. 

I did lots and lots and lots of planning and redrafting, I traced the Baden-Powell family tree and worked on my story flow too. 

Benji's character was tough one but I wanted him to be understood but also be frustrating but believable. I hope you could see that in my story and that you liked it. If you did like please let me know with a little comment, I like that and reading them. :-)