The Fool Heelys In Where Angels Fear to Tread

The middle of another long day of schlepping around London Town.

We’d begun by walking to the train station and travelling out to see S. off at the London City Airport, east of the city, Wry III “Heely-ing” all the way over any approximately smooth surface.

Heelys, unknown to Londoners, are shoes with wheels built into the heels. The wearer can then, with a quick jump-start, “skate” by lifting up their toes. It takes a certain amount of fearlessness to learn the trick; once learned, it’s like riding a bike.

Wry the 3rd is also wearing his ill-fitting plastic helmet-and-visor, and wielding a plastic sword, obtained (by me) for him at Hampton Court Palace, far to the west of town yesterday. He has wielded them happily ever since at any opportunity.

From the station, we train back into another station, Bank, thence to Temple, after a short walk overground, and from Temple, to the Temple Church, fine in it’s own right, but made famous (if you can believe it) by Dan Brown in The DaVinci Code. Knight’s effigies still lay in repose, trying to get a little shut-eye amidst the thronging tourists and a display of “Jewish Lawyers in Germany During WW2,” which – surrounding the knight effigies – seems to us incongruous.

Wry the 3rd Heelys, and the rest of us walk, off to Fleet Street.

We ride a bus down Fleet Street, from the great Halls of Justice to St. Martin-in-Ludgate’s, near St. Paul’s. After a look around, I decide we should go over to St. Paul’s; we’re this close anyways.

Now, all told, it is about 4 in the afternoon, St. Paul’s closing up to tours and getting ready for Evensong at 5 PM. Secretly, I hope to stick around long enough to attend services again, as we did last year, but our crowd has been hungry for a few hours, now and it doesn’t look like it is going to happen. One doesn't let our crowd go too hungry, for too long, or cannibalism sometimes breaks out.

Nevertheless, I encourage our brood to stick their heads in the door, at least  — I mean, it's St. Paul's and we're this close — and we go in for a few minutes.

Wry III, spent, slouches against a pillar near the West entrance.

After a quick peek up through the main line of the church, and across the width, and looking in on the rest of the family in the neighboring chapel wing (reserved from tourists for actual worshippers, some of our family lighting candles there), I remark to Wry 3 that he should at least get up and look “across” the width of the cathedral, to get a sense of the size of the place. It's awesomely big, even for a grown-up  – across the length, St. Paul’s is too long to get a grasp on its interior size, the dome at the center of the cross cannot be seen from the end of the West wing.

I check on the family again, turn after a moment. Wry the 3rd is gone. I wait a moment. He is still gone.

Wry Jr. has come over to the area between the chapel and the entrance where I am. I head-signal him to check the chapel area for the boy. He looks around, shakes his head, no. I tell him his little brother is missing and head out the front door to the main steps.

No.

Wry Jr. Joins me; we fan out.

No.

Evidently, Wry Jr. Has done his job, and informed Mrs. Wry (Dr. Bob) and Wrymette. They emerge from the interior, slightly wide-eyed. I tell them Wry III is likely inside; the docents are “flushing” the tourists out of the cathedral now; they should go back in and sweep the inside while I monitor people coming out the (only, I hope) entrance point.

Off goes the rest of the fam to look for our lost little lamb.

***
SOME MINUTES LATER
***

Wry III, had (so the histories will tell us) walked into the main portion of St. Paul’s on the heels of another family, fully armed with his helmet and sword. He had got at least as far as the central dome, HEELYING IN ST. PAUL’S CATHEDRAL ARMED WITH A PLASTIC SWORD AND ILL-FITTING HELMET, before he realised he had become separated from the family.

Had he been a non-believer, I would have been mortified. Yet Wry III is a believer, and one still possessed of innocence in some ways. So, perhaps wrongly, I felt – happy, for him and for St. Paul’s herself. To have this boy zipping around on two heels, brandishing his knightly sword and taking it in. And, if I were not already proud of him enough for pulling off a “Heely” through St. Paul’s, what he did next made us all proud.

When he realised he had lost us, he turned himself in to a docent, beginning with a very nice, "Pardon me; do you work here?"

She’d been headed his way anyways, to scold him for “sliding on his shoes” in the cathedral.

[Sidenote: I was tickled by her inability to process Heelys, recall from above, we don’t think Londoners have Heelys here. Wry III has gotten a fair amount of amused stares from passers-by, marvelling at the sight of a 7-yr-old boy gliding along on what (to them) look like regular black shoes.]

***

I saw them all emerge into the sunlight, relieved. No Evensong this year, but I have to admit another unique experience – perhaps even more unique – had taken place at St. Paul’s this year, due to the Wry Mouth clan showing up at her doors.

Huzzah, Wry the 3rd!