Page 42 of The Village Shop for Lonely Hearts

Trouble was, it was probably too late to point that out now to Josh who was busy hanging on to the steering wheel for dear life as it began to make its juddering roaring journey into the shop.

If the noise and shaking were bad enough, the smell was horrendous. The whole air was filled with a smoky, oily fug. She wasn’t even sure a good airing would sort the shop out when the tractor was outside.

If the place didn’t fall apart first, she thought, hanging on to the fireplace for dear life as the tractor slowly made its way through the shop.

This was a terrible idea, she told herself. She just hoped it didn’t end in disaster.

Josh was using all of his strength to keep the steering wheel straight. The whole tractor was fighting him every inch of the way as if it had never wanted to leave the back room. He was now thinking that it had been better off in there too.

The noise was horrendous, as was the smell of burning rust, which could be coming from either the exhaust, the engine or possibly both at the same time. He was in serious trouble here.

He glanced at Amber, whose own horrified face mirrored his own worries as she clung on to the fireplace. But he couldn’t look at her for very long as his whole view kept juddering as the floor beneath him was shaking.

He glanced down at the wheels. Should he have checked the floorboards were strong enough to hold it? Well, it was too late now, he thought, hanging on with grim determination to get this over with.

On top of the worry and stress, he felt emotionally drained. The tractor belonged inside. He didn’t want to move it, but he knew that life had to move on. He had to move on with it, but it brought him no joy that he had finally got the thing going, albeit in juddering, huge jolts.

Somewhere, his father was watching him either laughing hysterically or with his head in his hands in despair.

He had just drawn level with Amber at the fireplace when the tractor gave a massive bang somewhere in front of him and wheezed to a halt, the engine cutting out.

In the silence, his ears continued to ring as the smoke poured out from the engine in front of him.

Amber straightened herself up. ‘What happened?’ she said, waving her hand in front of her face as a combination of steam and smoke streamed out from under the front bonnet.

‘I don’t know,’ said Josh, turning the key once more.

But the engine made a loud clanging noise and refused to switch on. He tried the key over and over again, desperately hoping to get it going, but to no avail. In fact, each time he tried, the engine sounded worse and worse. Metal was crunching together, clangs and rattles rang out.

He climbed out of the seat and went around to open the bonnet. But even that wouldn’t open so that he could try and see what had gone wrong.

It was an utter disaster. Instead of being stuck in the storeroom, the tractor was now stuck in the middle of the shop!

Josh felt a white-hot fury of frustration. ‘I don’t believe this!’ he shouted, kicking the fender in his anger. To add insult to injury, it fell off onto the floor with a clang. He stared at it in shock. How had his life gone so badly, terribly, wrong?

He looked at Amber, who had come to stand next to him. Hoping he hadn’t frightened her with his anger, he turned to placate her. But, to his amazement, she looked like she was trying not to smile.

‘It’s not funny!’ he said, his voice louder than normal with his despair.

‘I know it’s not,’ she said, before pressing her lips together to stop the smile from spreading across her face.

‘This is terrible!’ he carried on, the anger suddenly fading as quickly as it arrived.

‘Yes, it is,’ she nodded, smothering a giggle.

‘We’ve got a bloody tractor stuck in the middle of the shop!’ he said, pointing out the obvious.

And then they both burst out laughing at the same time. On and on they laughed until Amber clutched her stomach.

‘This is crazy,’ she said, still laughing.

‘Oh God! What have I done?’ he said, still feeling the absolute horror of the situation.

They both kept laughing at the ridiculousness of it all.

Finally, Amber managed to get a hold of herself. ‘What are we going to do?’ she asked, wide-eyed as she stared at the tractor.

Josh looked at her for a long moment, but he was out of ideas.