Stranded in mall,
on much abused bench seat,
better suited to a skate park
so scarred with impatience
and irritation,
it is.

Backward hat-wearing boy - Yo!
hoves into sight,
tries luck at Maxi Claw - one of those
con-trap-tions designed
to fill-in time and take coin.
All blue-light-strobing, cheap toys
and rare reward.
Training the tots to gamble.
No!
Uuuh huuuh.

In go two cold coins as BHB
and newly arrived dank-haired side-kick
jostle and glaze-eyed quarrel
over trash of choice.
Meanwhile, robotic claws
rickety-ratchet across
to where purple Cyclops,
all tusk-toothed-grimacing resides
with bespectacled yellow egg -
go figure.

BHB has won excavation rights,
so wields joystick wild-eyed desperate
as one might grapple tractor gearshift
in rattly old grey Fergie*.
Alas, no joy this time,
claws grip dissipating grape mist,
jerking-ratchet-back,
stall,
open, drop air over chute,
withdraw.

The boys are utterly destroyed,
they gape in disbelief,
ensue clawing of own
in small wallet dropped to floor,
squatted ogrish-over.
Now on all fours,
sorting spilled out change,
oblivious to Mum's appearance.

Brisk,
fists on hips argument:
No effing way - a freaking waste!
We're leaving.
Now!
BHB hauled away,
reluctant heels drag
making wet hands on balloon sounds.
Side-kick kicks his feet
disconsolate, after.
Oh dear!

I subside into speculation,
check phone.
All of a - BHB bursts 
back into line of vision -
a second quest for grail.
Three notes pegged in hand:
Two tens, one five,
about to lovingly feed in when Mum
arrives skidding - Nooooooo!

Too late.

*Fergie - Ferguson 35 (tractor)